Rejoinder: Reinvestigating the Causal Relationship between Higher Education and Political Participation

Abstract

In this issue, Henderson and Chatfield (2011) and Mayer (2011) critique the findings of our initial article, suggesting that in fact, higher education does have an effect on political participation. Both research notes raise concerns of inherent biases in our findings due to our use of propensity score matching and reestimate the relationship between higher education and participation using genetic matching. In this response, we take up their methodological critiques. We also provide additional evidence based on genetic matching which supports our initial conclusions. Finally, we discuss epistemological issues regarding the question of whether higher education causes political participation.