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This article contributes to existing explanations of political participation by proposing that citizens' attitudes towards risk predict participation. I argue that people who are risk accepting participate in political life because politics offers novelty and excitement. Analyses of two independent Internet surveys establish a positive, significant relationship between risk attitudes and general political participation. The analyses also suggest that the relationship between risk attitudes and action varies with the political act: people who are more risk accepting are more likely to participate in general political acts, but they are no more or less likely to turn out in elections. Further analyses suggest that two key mechanisms—novelty seeking and excitement seeking—underlie the relationship between risk attitudes and political participation.

In this article, I focus on the extent to which gender structures economic voting in presidential elections from 1980 to 2004. Existing literature suggests that women and men rely on sociotropic and pocketbook considerations to differing degrees. The overriding view is that women vote more sociotropically than men and men vote more egocentrically than women. Contrary to conclusions drawn by scholars and cited by subsequent researchers, I find that men and women alike vote sociotropically - and to essentially the same degree. There is no evidence to suggest that women vote more sociotropically than men. Moreover, pocketbook voting is hard to find - among both men and women. The evidence overall suggests more similarity than difference in women and men's economic voting. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]