Chapter 9. Field Experiments on Voter Mobilization : An Overview of a Burgeoning Literature

This essay reviews the ways in which field experiments have been used to study political participation. We begin by charting the intellectual history of field experimentation in political science. We explain why the advent of field experimentation in recent years represents an important advance over previous work, which relied principally on nonexperimental survey research. Our review of the experimental literature on political participation focuses on two broad research domains related to voter mobilization: the effects of different modes of communication (e.g., face-to-face conversations, phone calls, and mail) and the effects of different messages (e.g., those that stress social norms, express gratitude, or urge the expression of implementation intentions). In the final section, we discuss some open questions and new ways that field experiments may illuminate the study of voter turnout and political behavior more generally.