Stacking the Deck

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the proposition that patterns of citizen engagement with politics in dominant-party enclaves will reflect the incentives and punishments meted out by the machine itself. The authors present an analysis of three forms of political participation—voting, protest, and local civic activism. This analysis reveals that across each of these forms of participation, the profile of individuals living in dominant-party systems who are most likely to engage in such activities is distinct from the profile of likely participants living in multiparty systems. Most important, participation in dominant-party systems appears to be, in part, a function of one’s support for the machine, while in multiparty systems, the profile of participants more closely approximates that of the active participant in established democracies. Further, the chapter finds distinct patterns of political efficacy among dominant-party and multiparty citizens.