Economics and Accounting Honors Theses

Date of Creation

5-1-2022

Degree Type

Departmental Honors Thesis - Restricted Access

First Advisor

Professor Melissa Boyle

Abstract

As institutions that provide individuals with opportunities for communication and the ability to research, libraries help to promote civic engagement within their communities. Utilizing branch library and voting data from the State of California, this study examines the effect that the introduction of a new library in a county has on political participation, focusing specifically on voter registration, presidential election voting, and political party affiliation. Through a fixed effects methodology, the main results of this study show a statistically significant connection between libraries and political participation with regard to registration data. In the average county, a new library corresponds to a 0.737 percentage point increase in the percent of registered voters, a 0.471 percentage point increase in the percent of registered Democrats, and a 0.254 percentage point decrease in the percent of registered Republicans. Considering the closeness of recent national elections, these registration choices have the potential to alter America’s political landscape. Though political socialization and education have been examined in the past for their impact on political participation, libraries have not been explored through a similar lens. As such, these results not only provide new information to the discipline, but also provide a way to increase a community’s civic engagement and affiliation with a political ideology. Thus, understanding this impact both furthers research efforts regarding political participation and allows us to have a better grasp on how we might control legislation within a given region.

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