Suchergebnisse

The problem of low turnout at elections has become common in almost all post-communist countries. Given this weak participation in elections, some political scientists tend to see a crisis of emerging post-authoritarian political systems. Nevertheless, political participation, frequently considered to be the heart of democracy, should not be reduced to casting a ballot alone. This article makes an effort to discuss turnout more comprehensively. It aims at the association of this basic mode of civic engagement with less conventional political activities. Analysing European Social Survey data gathered in the Visegrad Four, the most advanced region in the former Eastern Bloc, it tries to address the issue of whether people who are active at a polling station simultaneously perform other activities in the broad repertoire of political participation. In other words, do active voters in the specific context of Central Europe also take part in different political actions, so that the relationship between participatory modes can be seen as tending to be complementary, or do voting and other forms of political action show little correlation? [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright the American Council of Learned Societies.]

The increasing levels of electoral abstention across 'new' European democracies can downgrade the legitimacy of these regimes. From this point of view, the basic question 'who does not vote and why?' gains new relevance. My article focuses on the determinants of non-voting from a cross-national perspective. I present two approaches towards explaining electoral abstention. The first, arising from the Michigan model, is based on a solid connection between party choice and participation. This approach considers the lack of party identification as the main reason for non-voting. The second approach emphasizes the role of the decision-making process in abstention itself, without regard to the selection of a preferred party, and is connected with well-known concepts like political efficacy, trust, interest, and satisfaction. These explanations have often been utilized for well-established democracies, yet how do they work in post-Communist space? After a brief theoretical discussion, I investigate the robustness of presented theories by means of empirical analysis of the situation in 11 post-Communist countries. The European Social Survey 2008 is used for the verification of the importance of both approaches. Adapted from the source document.

"Dieser Artikel analysiert die Bedeutung des Alters einer Demokratie für die Erklärung von Wahlbeteiligung. Er schlägt vor, dass die demokratische Reife die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Stimmangabe nicht nur direkt beeinflussen könnte, sondern zugleich auch als Verstärker der Effekte von Prädiktoren auf der Individual-Ebene. Aus der Bandbreite der Variablen, die für eine Erhöhung oder Verringerung der Wahrscheinlichkeit der Stimmabgabe verantwortlich sein könnten, hebt diese Studie hervor, dass das politische Responsivitätsgefühl (externe Wirksamkeit) vom Alter einer Demokratie abhängen könnte. Der Zusammenhang zwischen demokratischer Reife und externer Wirksamkeit für die Erklärung von Wahlbeteiligung lässt sich theoretisch aus Aspekten des politischen Sozialisationsprozesses herleiten. Unsere Hypothese ist, dass mit steigendem Demokratiealter auch die positiven Effekte externer Wirksamkeit auf die Wahlbeteiligung zunehmen. Diese Vermutung wird mittels einer empirischen Analyse getestet, die auf Survey-Daten aus dem dritten Modul der Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) zurückgreift. Das Daten-Set besteht aus insgesamt 34.440 Befragten in 27 Ländern. Es wird eine logistische Regression verwendet (Mehrebenen-Analyse inklusive Interaktions-Analyse), um die Wirkung der uns interessierenden Variablen auf die Wahlbeteiligung (nach den Angaben der Befragten) abzuschätzen." (Autorenreferat)