Search results for "Voter turnout"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
How representative are referendums? Evidence from 20 years of Swiss referendums
2017
Direct democracy allows citizens to reverse decisions made by legislatures and even initiate new laws which parliaments are unwilling to pass, thereby, as its proponents argue, leading to more representative policies than would have obtained under a purely representative democracy. Yet, turnout in referendums is usually lower than in parliamentary elections and tends to be skewed towards citizens of high socio-economic status. Consequently, critics of direct democracy argue that referendum outcomes may not be representative of the preferences of the population at large. We test this assertion using a compilation of post-referendum surveys encompassing 148 national referendums held in Switze…
Left-Authoritarians and Voter Turnout in West European Countries
2017
Parties with a left profile on economic issues and an authoritarian profile on socio-cultural issues have been largely absent from the supply side of the typical post-World-War-II policy space of West European democracies. As a result, citizens with economically left and socio-culturally authoritarian policy positions have faced difficulties in identifying parties that match their preference bundle. Building on previous inquiries into the party preferences of left-authoritarians, this study hypothesizes that the cross-pressures left-authoritarians typically encounter when looking for a party that matches their preferences translate into an overall lower likelihood to turn out to vote in nat…
Economic globalisation, the perceived room to manoeuvre of national governments, and electoral participation: Evidence from the 2001 British General …
2016
Recent macro-level research argues that economic globalisation negatively affects electoral turnout by constraining the leeway of national governments and thereby rendering elections less meaningful to voters. This article analyses the link between perceptions of the national government's room to manoeuvre and turnout on the individual level. Drawing on the 2001 British General Election, it is shown that citizens who believe that economic globalisation leaves the national government with less influence on the economy are less likely to report to have voted. Further findings also support the proposed theoretical model according to which room to manoeuvre perceptions affect turnout via views …
European Issues, but National Campaigning of German Parties
2021
Germany is a political and economic heavyweight in the European Union and political issues that demand for European solutions rather than national policies, like migration or climate change, gained importance on the German public agenda in recent years. Nonetheless, EP elections regularly have the status of second-order elections when it comes to campaigning efforts as well as voter turnout. In 2019, the election turnout was extraordinarily high, and as this chapter shows, German parties focused on political issues mostly addressing the EU level. Implementing successful Facebook campaigns by initiating user engagement and emphasising issues ‘owned’ by their parties, the Greens and the right…
Economic globalization and voter turnout in established democracies
2010
This paper asks whether international economic integration negatively affects electoral turnout. The theoretical model builds on the premise that economic integration constrains the ability of national governments to shape outcomes. Citizens are conscious of such constraints and take them into account when considering the costs and benefits of casting a vote in national elections. The result is a lower inclination to vote under conditions of high economic integration. Consequently, aggregate turnout is lower the more internationally integrated a national economy is. Analysis of aggregate data for parliamentary elections in 23 OECD democracies over the period 1965–2006 robustly supports this…