A Sense of Belonging: Habitual Voting among Latinos Angela X. Ocampo ∗† University of California, Los Angeles April 28, 2016 Abstract Research on Latino political behavior has primarily focused on participation crosssectionally. Little is known about the cycle of Latino participation over time and no theoretical framework exists to understand such process. To address these shortcomings, this paper examines and theorizes on Latino habitual participation. The paper asks: what factors influence Latinos to engage on a habitual or inconsistent basis? I hypothesize that Latino political behavior is anchored on the concept of belonging. Latinos with a strong sense of attachment to U.S. society are likely to maintain consistent levels of participation over time. Those lacking a sense of belonging are likely to become inconsistent or become disengaged. To test these hypotheses
https://www.democracy.uci.edu/newsevents/events/gradconference16/CSDpaper%20-%20AngelaOcampo.pdf
