This first link, between participation and policy outcomes,is a core tenet of much of the scholarly literature and popular thinking about politics. Even political participation at its most passive-the act of voting for elected representatives-has a clear expected link to policy outcomes: we expect that the different candidates and parties for which citizens vote will advocate, pass, and implement different policies. Where voters' preferences differ systematically across groups, and who votes, affects the type of policies that the government implements, including those policies that fundamentally shape the nature of society. For example,scholars expect that sudden increases in participation,such as those brought about by democratization,will have large effects on government policies,including those governing the redistribution of income (e.g., Meltzer and Richard, 1981; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003). Changes in participation may not only lead to different policy outcomes, but also, as scholars have argued,more involved democratic participation is likely to lead to superior social outcomes because of participation's role in aggregating information and preferences (e.g., Pateman, 1970; Barber,1984).