On expressive voting: Evidence from the 1988 US presidential election

People turn out to cast their votes simply because they want to ``cheer'' o r ``boo'' their favored or unfavored candidates. This expressive voting beh avior is in marked contrast to the instrumental voting behavior, i.e., peop le vote because they perceive voting as a means of achieving a particular e lection outcome. In this paper we report an econometric study on voting beh avior that uses data from the 1988 American National Election Study. The re sults reveal that the ``cheering'' and ``booing'' effects are statistically significant, and that they exert substantial influence on both turnout and voter choice. We also obtain evidence against the proposition that people turn out to vote because they consider themselves to be potentially decisiv e with regard to the election outcome.