Political identity moderates the effect of watchful eyes on voter mobilization: A reply to Matland and Murray (2019)

Abstract

Matland and Murray (2019) reanalyze three of their previous field experiments and fail to reproduce the finding reported in Panagopoulos and van der Linden (2016) that political identity moderates the watchful eye effect on voter mobilization in elections. We highlight several concerns with their empirical approach, including lack of power and between-study differences, that lead us to conclude that the authors offer little evidence against partisan heterogeneity. By contrast, closer inspection and additional analyses of the data reported in Panagopoulos and van der Linden (2016) only reinforce our original conclusion that partisanship moderates voter responsiveness to watchful eyes. Specifically, Republicans appear to be more susceptible to watchful eyes compared to Democrats in the context of voting in elections.