Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: A Genome-Wide Association Study of Voter Turnout

投票行为在所有民主国家都是一项至关重要的活动，但解释为什么个人在个体代价高昂的情况下进行大规模合作，已被证明是一个具有挑战性的理论和经验难题。现有的投票率解释的解释力有限，这促使政治科学家研究投票率的非传统预测因素。最近的发现，超过一半的选民投票率的变化可以归因于遗传因素（福勒，贝克道斯2008）持有深刻改变的方式一个人认为投票行为的潜力。然而，与投票率相关的特定基因或将基因与投票行为联系起来的精确因果通路仍然未知。该研究项目调查了整个人类基因组中的数十万种变异，以寻找哪些变异与选民投票率有关。识别这些变异可以更好地了解基因如何影响投票率，并最终有助于发展和完善政治行为理论。这项研究解决的具体问题是：1）哪些特定的遗传变异与投票率相关; 2）这些基因与投票行为之间的因果关系是什么？ 为了回答第一个问题，研究人员将对选民投票率进行全基因组关联研究。这特别需要寻找分布在人类基因组中的592，652个不同遗传变异中的每一个之间的显著关联，以及验证和自我报告的选民投票率。分析将基于约3，700名受试者的样本。为了回答第二个问题，数据集还包含了几个已知对投票率具有高度预测性的个人属性的信息，如收入，教育，个性特征和认知能力。因此，研究人员正式测试特定的遗传变异是否通过这些属性之一间接影响投票率。许多遗传变异被发现与选民投票率相关的特征有关，这让我们对调查哪些途径有了一个想法。例如，已知几种遗传变异与人格特质相关，最近的政治学研究表明人格特质影响投票率（Mondak，希宾，Canache，Seligson安德森2010，Gerber，Huber，Raso Ha 2008，Gerber，Huber，Doherty Dowling 2009，Mondak Halperin 2008）。研究与投票率相关的遗传变异的功能作用有助于揭示因果途径。基因与政治之间的联系的发现提出了从根本上改变我们如何看待投票行为的可能性。然而，在更好地理解基因与投票行为之间的联系机制之前，我们无法提出政府可以采取何种政策来促进更高的投票率，也无法提出政治行为者应该采取何种策略来动员他们的支持者。这项研究是必要的，以使这项新生的研究成为对政策制定者和政治行为者有用的东西，就像全基因组关联研究帮助研究人员更好地检测，治疗和预防疾病一样。

The act of voting is a fundamentally important exercise in all democracies but explaining why individuals cooperate on a large scale when it is individually costly to do so has proven to be a challenging theoretical and empirical puzzle. The limited explanatory power of extant explanations of turnout has prompted political scientists to look at non-traditional predictors of turnout. The recent finding that more than half of the variation in voter turnout could be attributed to genetic factors (Fowler, Baker & Dawes 2008) holds the potential of profoundly changing the way one views voting behavior. However, the specific genes associated with voter turnout or the precise causal pathway linking genes to voting behavior remains unknown. This research project investigates hundreds of thousands of variants across the entire human genome to look for which ones are related to voter turnout. Identifying these variants provides a better understanding of how genes influence voter turnout and will ultimately help to develop and improve theories of political behavior.The specific questions this research addresses are: 1) which specific genetic variants are associated with voter turnout; and 2) what is the causal pathway linking these genes to voting behavior? In order to answer the first question, the investigator will perform a genome-wide association study of voter turnout. This specifically entails looking for significant associations between each of 592,652 distinct genetic variants spread across the human genome and validated as well as self-reported voter turnout. The analysis will be based on a sample of approximately 3,700 subjects. To answer to the second question, the data set also contains information on several individual attributes known to be highly predictive of turnout such as income, education, personality traits and cognitive ability. Therefore, the investigator formally tests whether specific genetic variants indirectly influence turnout via one of these attributes. Many genetic variants have been found to be associated with traits related to voter turnout giving us an idea of which pathways to investigate. For example, several genetic variants are known to be associated with personality traits and recent research in political science has shown personality traits influence turnout (Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson & Anderson 2010, Gerber, Huber, Raso & Ha 2008, Gerber, Huber, Doherty & Dowling 2009, Mondak & Halperin 2008). Researching the functional role of genetic variants found to be associated with turnout helps uncover causal pathways.The discovered link between genes and politics presents the possibility of fundamentally changing how we view voting behavior. However, until one better understands the mechanism linking genes and voting behavior one cannot suggest what types of policies the government could put in place to promote higher turnout or the strategies political actors should adopt in order to mobilize their supporters. This research is necessary to move this nascent research into something useful for policy makers and political actors much in the way genome-wide association studies have aided researchers in better detecting, treating, and preventing diseases.