Are Rural Massachusetts Communities “Bowling Alone?” An Investigation of Civic Engagement, Political Participation, and Partisanship in the Massachusetts Hilltowns
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2023
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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eng
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Tri-College users only
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Abstract
As of 2016, states containing only 17% of the United States population had the power to elect a U.S. Senate majority, meaning the most rural states have the power to decide who controls the Senate and the Presidency (Badger 2016). Given rural voters’ outsized power, it is critical to note their majority support for the Republican Party, as 54% of rural voters surveyed by Pew Research Center in 2018 leaned Republican (Parker et al. 2018). In contrast, young rural people are relatively liberal, as 47% of rural youth supported Biden in 2020, though only 38% of the rural population at-large supported him (“How Rural Youth Voted in the 2020 Presidential Election”). However, 60% of rural youth also live in “civic deserts,” where lack of access to civic education, civic affairs, and digital resources makes participation in civic and political life more challenging (“Civic Deserts: 60% of Rural Millennials Lack Access to a Political Life;” Kay and Kalkar 2020). If increasing civic engagement in rural communities to bring people out of “civic deserts” leads to increased political participation and Democratic partisanship, left-leaning policymakers have a vested interest in understanding how civic engagement could be utilized as a political and electoral tool. It is, therefore, of interest to scholars and policymakers, alike, to better understand the role rural youth play in American politics, leading me to ask: what are the factors influencing the political participation of young rural voters, and, specifically, how do these factors account for partisan shifts of the group? The existing literature on rural youth political participation and partisanship is largely bifurcated into research on rural political participation and partisanship and youth political participation and partisanship. Potential explanations for rural political participation and partisanship include socioeconomic status (Verba and Nie 1972; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995), rural consciousness (Cramer 2016), civic engagement (Putnam 2000; Kahn 2023), and proximity to urban centers (Gimpel et al. 2020). Efforts to explain youth political participation and partisanship posit socioeconomic status (Rouse and Ross 2018), recruitment by political elites (Rosenstone and Hansen 1996), current events and generational attitudes (Lowrey 2022), new technology and social media (Smith 2013), and civic engagement (or lack thereof) (CIRCLE; Zukin et al. 2006) as potential players in youth political and partisan habits. Robert Putnam’s research in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000) ultimately inspired me to consider how civic engagement may be causally related to both political participation and partisanship for rural youth, a potential relationship that has seldom been studied in political science. So, to evaluate a potential causal relationship among these variables, I hypothesized, H-1: if rural towns have higher levels of civic engagement, they will have higher rates of political participation, which will then lead to higher levels of Democratic partisanship. Furthermore, to examine a potential causal relationship among these variables for rural youth, I posited a second hypothesis, H-2: in rural towns that are predominantly Democrat, where one town has a higher rate of youth civic engagement and the other has a lower rate of youth civic engagement, the town with a higher rate of civic engagement will have higher levels of youth political participation, which will also result in higher rates of Democratic young voters. I conducted case studies of three demographically similar towns (Becket, Chester, and Chesterfield) in a rural region in western Massachusetts called the Hilltowns (Fig. 1). The Hilltowns are home to greater partisan diversity than Massachusetts at-large, with a number of communities voting Republican, including Chester, which went for President Trump in 2020, while Becket and Chesterfield went for President Biden. I conducted interviews with residents in each town, asking them questions regarding their civic engagement, political participation, partisanship, and their perceptions of how civic engagement may be a contributing factor to their political participation and partisan choices. To evaluate H-1, I compared the results of my interviews across the three towns in an effort to draw a causal relationship between high levels of civic engagement, increased political participation, and greater Democratic partisanship. I found in all three towns that residents who are civically engaged are more likely to be politically engaged, as well as be more Democratic. The opportunities for civic engagement in each town differed significantly, based on resources available, but for all three, it became apparent that there is a small portion of the population that devotes itself to civic affairs, while most people remain unengaged from civic engagement and local political participation, especially. Ultimately, I found a link between those who are already civically engaged, political participation, and Democratic partisanship, though socioeconomic status, which influences one’s ability to participate civically, also plays a role in whether and how people engage civically and participate politically. Thus, socioeconomic status became an apparent contributor to residents’ propensity to participate civically and politically. I had a more difficult time evaluating H-2. To evaluate this hypothesis, I anticipated speaking with youth in Becket and Chesterfield, both Democratic, to see whether the town with greater youth civic engagement saw even more youth political participation and higher levels of youth Democratic partisanship. Given the time constraints of this project, however, I found it very challenging to make inroads with young people, especially those ages 18-25, in both towns. I did speak to one high school senior who works with the local newspaper in Becket, who told me he believes young people are civically engaged, though the types of activities people partake in are often connected with their existing political ideologies; young people care far more about national than local politics; and that those who are left-leaning are increasingly leaving the Hilltowns, with few draws to keep them in the region. Meanwhile, I was able to disseminate a survey regarding civic engagement, political participation, and partisanship at the high school Chesterfield is part of. However, of the nine students who completed my survey, none were from Chesterfield because it is a regional school. This made extrapolating results particularly difficult, as I cannot say the beliefs expressed by students in other communities are generalizable to Chesterfield. So, I was not able to conclude that youth civic engagement, political participation, and partisanship are causally tied, primarily because of the time constraints I faced. While I found socioeconomic status, as well as rural consciousness, to be additional factors influencing rural civic engagement, political participation, and partisanship, I did still find a relationship between those who are civically engaged and those who are more politically engaged. I believe the limitations of my study were, first and foremost, my challenges reaching rural youth, and also my limited view of political participation, which did not account for more informal political activities, like discussing current events or following political news online. My limitations clear the way for future scholars to use a broader definition of political engagement to understand how civic engagement, political engagement, and partisanship may be causally linked. Additionally, future scholars could consider the role socioeconomic status plays in young rural residents’ abilities and propensities to engage in civic and political affairs. I believe this research is only the beginning of further investigations into the role of civic engagement as a potential influence on partisan identity, especially for young rural voters, who represent the future of American democracy