What's Hot at APSA.

• Author: KRAUSER, ABIGAIL

The latest research on voting, popular opinion, and welfare reform

THIS AUGUST, TOP POLITICAL SCIENTISTS from around the country will converge on Atlanta for the annual American Political Science Association (APSA) conference. They will present papers that run the gamut of political science--from political theory to public policy. But this year, many of the academics are focused on a more mundane subject: the Average American. What is he thinking?

The Monthly talked to a few of the professors about their papers for this year's conference. Here's what they had to say.

Vote Early, Vote Often

In America, cynicism about politics is more than a popular trend--it's a national trademark. "I think there's a real concern in the country about the decay of political engagement," said Harvard Government professor Sidney Verba. For many Americans, this year's marathon Clinton-Lewinsky scandal did more than encourage the belief that all politicians are corrupt--it confirmed it. So it should not have been much of a surprise that so few Americans bothered to vote in the 1998 mid-term elections. Still, it came as a shock; pundits and political laymen alike began to worry about America's political future in light of this display of political apathy.

What is perhaps most troubling about the political malaise was the ferocity with which it has stricken our young. Of those between the ages of 18 and 24, fewer intend to go into politics than in any previous generation. In the last presidential election, seven out of 10 did not even vote.

Why are the nation's young people neglecting their most basic civic duty? A team of researchers--Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, Henry Brady, and Jennifer Erkulwater--tried to answer this question. In previous generations, war or depression might have provided the answer. But according to the researchers, the experience of Generation X is marked not by political disaster but political discontent. "[Young] citizens today entered the electorate at a time of widespread distrust of government and disillusionment with public life," they write. That environment discouraged civic participation.

Historically, young people consistently vote in smaller numbers than older members of the populace; electoral participation increases when they graduate to the next "phase" of their lives. And because so many young people today put off that next phase--waiting longer to marry, buy homes, and finish school--fewer of them vote.

When fewer...