caa a22 4500 47584114X CHVBK 20180406123901.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170329e20000601xx s 000 0 eng 10.1023/A:1005073328944 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1023/A:1005073328944 Legislator Turnout and the Calculus of Voting: The Determinants of Abstention in the U.S. Congress [Elektronische Daten] [Lawrence Rothenberg, Mitchell Sanders] The belief that turnout and abstention depend on theinteraction of the benefits and costs of voting is oneof the longest held in public choice. The interplaybetween benefits and costs has typically been studiedwithin the context of voter turnout in elections, butthese results are confounded by the fact thatparticipation in such elections is a low-cost, low-benefit activity. Analysis of voting in legislatures,where the potential returns and costs to participantsare greater, is more promising. This paper examines participation on roll calls in theU.S. House of Representatives during the recent 104thCongress (1995-1996). We analyze all contested rollcalls during this two-year period, using a negativebinomial count model that accounts for legislatorheterogeneity, to determine what factors associatedwith such votes induce turnout. Our results suggestthat, while turnout is predictable, its primaryexplanation does not lie with our standard calculationof expected benefits. We find that the ideologicalpolarization of the roll call alternatives is not avery important factor for turnout and, even morestrikingly and contrary to what past analysis hasimplied, the likelihood of any given legislator beingpivotal is completely irrelevant. Rather, what is mostimportant is that a non-trivial number of members ofCongress decide not to vote when contextual factorsforce them to choose between electioneering andlegislating. Consequently, while our results are notsufficient to induce a full-fledged 's'sparadox ofcongressional voting'' analogous to that of massvoting, they do indicate that participation inCongress depends most heavily on factors beyond adesire to affect the outcome. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000 Rothenberg Lawrence Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, 14627-0146, Rochester, NY, U.S.A. aut Sanders Mitchell Department of Political Science, Florida State University, 32306-2230, Tallahassee, FL, U.S.A. aut Public Choice Kluwer Academic Publishers 103/3-4(2000-06-01), 259-270 0048-5829 103:3-4<259 2000 103 11127 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005073328944 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005073328944 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Rothenberg Lawrence Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, 14627-0146, Rochester, NY, U.S.A aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Sanders Mitchell Department of Political Science, Florida State University, 32306-2230, Tallahassee, FL, U.S.A aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Public Choice Kluwer Academic Publishers 103/3-4(2000-06-01), 259-270 0048-5829 103:3-4<259 2000 103 11127 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer