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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 hypothesis. The empirical estimates suggest economic globalization as a central cause of the general decline in turnout within established democracies. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Reform efforts to improve turnout typically focus on reducing the costs of participation or strengthening appeals to civic duty. While these efforts generate modest effects, this paper explores whether citizens might respond to extrinsic rewards to encourage voting. We conduct a field experiment offering lottery prizes to undergraduate students in conjunction with a student government election at a major public university. We find that extrinsic rewards appear to boost voting significantly in these low turnout elections and that the effects of a lottery appear to be especially strong among those of lower socio-economic status.

The research addresses youth voter turnout in the United States and, specifically, tests the relationship between candidate age and a commitment to vote by young people in a controlled experiment. We learn that potential young voters are more willing to commit to vote when they view pictures of younger candidates running. This is the case after controlling for the age and partisanship of respondents. In a real-world test of our experimental results, we examine state-level variation in youth voter turnout in midterm governor and Senate races (1994-2010). In the state-level analysis, we find a larger candidate age gap in governor and Senate races associates with higher levels of youth mobilization. In all, the research affirms the value of candidate characteristics as a predictor of voting behavior.

Voter turnout in the United States is much lower than in almost all other democratic countries. This has been interpreted as a symptom of popular alienation from the political system, suspicion of politicians, and pessimism about the consequences of political activity. When these perspectives are measured directly, however, it is clear that Americans score very low on almost every item. Indeed, there is no relationship between political con‐ tentment and turnout. Turnout does not reflect international variations in acceptance of politicians or the political system. Rather, it responds to variations in the bureaucratic steps required to cast a ballot. The United States is one of a handful of countries that require a separate step–registra‐ tion–before the citizen can vote; and with the partial exception of France it is the only country in which the individual rather than the state bears the responsibility for registration.

Past research on the relationship between income inequality and turnout has produced mixed results, with some studies suggesting that income inequality leads to lower turnout while other studies find little or no significant effects. In this article, we investigate the extent to which these mixed results are due to the contingent nature of inequality on turnout, which depends upon the nature of the policy options that are presented to the electorate. We test these expectations on data from national elections in 30 established democracies from 1965 through 2017 covering 300 elections. Regression analysis using country-level fixed effects reveals consistent evidence in favor of our hypotheses: Inequality tends to have a negative impact on turnout, especially in depolarized party systems, but as party system polarization increases the negative impact of inequality is mitigated.

The study analyses the micro-level determinants of voting turnout rates in Greece. In particular, we test for the effects of citizens' socio-economic features, political participation, activism and trust as pointing to either an expressive or instrumental voting decision process. The analysis involves bootstrap logistic regression techniques and ESS data covering the 2002-2011 period. Evidence is found of instrumental voting in Greece as suggested by the effects of absolute and relative income and the effect of civic participation and trust variables. In addition, the profile of voters is differentiated in the pre- and during the crisis periods. The study makes a twofold contribution. First, the suggested analysis is unique for Greece, and thus it provides important information regarding citizens' motives towards electoral participation. The second contribution relates to the study's relevance to policy analysis and design. Results suggest that not only ideology but also the economic agenda might be an important predictor of electoral participation and consequently, legitimization and the quality of democracy in Greece.

This paper investigates the causal link between voter turnout and policy outcomes related to the size of government. Tax rate and public expenditures are the focal policy outcomes in this study. To capture the causal mechanism, Swedish and Finnish municipal data are used and a constitutional change in Sweden in 1970 is applied as an instrument for voter turnout in local elections. In 1970, Sweden moved from having separate election days for different levels of government, among other things, to a system with a single election day for political elections, thus reducing the cost associated with voting. This constitutional reform increased voter turnout in local elections in Sweden. The overall conclusion of this paper is that higher voter turnout yields higher municipal taxes and larger local public expenditures. Second, there is some evidence that higher turnout decreases the vote share for right-wing parties.

Many studies find that voter turnout is higher in proportional representation (PR) elections than in plurality elections, but because the two systems differ in multiple ways and are used in different contexts it is difficult to know precisely why. I focus on municipal elections in France, where cities above a certain population threshold are required to use a PR system while those below use a type of plurality rule; this setting allows me to compare political outcomes across electoral systems while holding fixed a large set of social and political features. I find that the PR system noticeably increases turnout compared with plurality. I provide evidence suggesting that it does so in part by encouraging turnout in lopsided races and in part by inducing entry of new candidates. The findings highlight the importance of electoral proportionality in explaining cross-national differences in voter turnout. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

This paper provides a partial test of the widely-held assumption that preference primaries are the most representative element of the presidential nominating system. It notes that the average voting turnout in presidential primaries is only 39 per cent, compared with 69 per cent in the same states' ensuing general elections. The representative quality of these electorates is examined with data from sample surveys of the 1968 New Hampshire and Wisconsin primaries. A comparison of the primary participants with non-participants among each party's identifiers shows, first, that presidential primary electorates are demographically unrepresentative of their nonvoting fellow partisans in age, education, income, and social status. Second, primary participants have no more intense party identifications than do non-participants. Third, participants hold issue positions more strongly than nonparticipants do, and on some issues they even hold positions contrary to those of nonparticipants. Finally, both of the Democratic primaries overrepresented Johnson sentiment and underrepresented McCarthy and Kennedy sentiment. The author concludes that the preference primaries' claim to be the most representative element of the presidential nominating system may not be warranted, especially if and when the national conventions are reformed along lines such as those laid down by the McGovern-Fraser Commission. In any case, 1972 offers a unique opportunity to study the comparative representativeness of local, state, and national party conventions and the preference primaries.

In this article, we focus on the consequences of quorum requirements for turnout in referendums. We use a rational choice, decision theoretic voting model to demonstrate that participation quorums change the incentives some electors face, inducing those who oppose changes in the status quo and expect to be in the minority to abstain. As a result, paradoxically, participation quorums decrease electoral participation. We test our model's predictions using data for all referendums held in current European Union countries from 1970 until 2007, and show that the existence of a participation quorums increases abstention by more than ten percentage points. Adapted from the source document.

What is the impact of different referenda designs on the willingness of the electorate to vote? In this article, we focus on quorum requirements. We use a rational choice-voting model to demonstrate that certain types of quorum requirements change the incentives each elector faces. In particular, participation quorums induce electors who oppose changes in the status quo and expect to be in the minority to abstain rather than vote. As a result, such quorums decrease turnout. We test this model prediction using data for all referendums held in current European Union countries from 1970 until 2007. We show that that the existence of participation quorums does increase abstention by 10 percentage ...