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This paper proposes a model of turnout in which citizens have a preference for conformism, which adds to the instrumental preference for the electoral outcome. Under this environment multiple equilibria arise, some that generate a (more realistic) high level of turnout, for a wide rage of parameter values. It is also shown that high levels of turnout are robust to the introduction of asymmetry and heterogeneity in the parameter governing the preference for conformism and with respect to the reference group for conformism. This model suggests that high turnout can only be achieved as the outcome of a particular coordination among citizens and, therefore, introduces a different perspective in understanding the citizens' decision to vote, which allows also to account for large shifts in turnout rates that are observed after compulsory laws have been introduced or abolished. Moreover, this set up proposes a theory for the D term used in rational theories of voting to account for high turnout rates.

One strategy in defence of compulsory voting is based on what I call the non-instrumental value of high turnout: the idea that almost-universal participation in elections is valuable per se. This article argues that we do not have democratic reasons to value compelled turnout. First, thanks to an original analysis of the practice of voting, I identify three constitutive rules that make the physical acts of marking and casting a ballot count as proper voting. This preliminary analysis serves to illuminate the fact that the act of voting has democratic value if it is performed in a free and reason-responsive way. Second, I identify political equality and popular control as democratic values that high turnout expresses. Finally, the article rejects the non-instrumental case for compulsory voting because it cannot ensure that people vote in a reason-responsive way and, if they do not, high turnout lacks democratic value.

Abstract. We examine turnout in 324 democratic national lower house elections held in 91 countries, between 1972 and 1995. We rely on Freedom House ratings of political rights to determine whether an election is democratic or not. We distinguish three blocs of factors that affect turnout: the socio–economic environment, institutions, and party systems. We show that turnout is influenced by a great number of factors and that the patterns that have been shown to prevail in studies dealing with more limited samples of countries generally hold when we look at a larger set of democracies. But we also show that the socioeconomic environment, which has been downplayed in previous studies, has a substantial impact on turnout.

This article develops a model that simultaneously considers individual turnout and vote choice while also accounting for uncertainty about candidates. The theoretical development of this model implies that the effects of uncertainty on turnout vary with the strength of individual preferences. Application of the model to individual choice in the 1996 American presidential election confirms that decreasing uncertainty about the character traits of the candidates decreases the probability of abstention for individuals with strong preferences but increases the probability of abstention for individuals with weak preferences.

World democracies widely differ in legislative, executive, and legal institutions. Different institutional environments induce different mappings from electoral outcomes to the distribution of power. We explore how these mappings affect voters' participation in an election. We show that the effect of such institutional differences on turnout depends on the distribution of voters' preferences. We uncover a novel contest effect: Given the preferences distribution, turnout increases and then decreases when we move from a more proportional to a less proportional power‐sharing system; turnout is maximized for an intermediate degree of power sharing. Moreover, we generalize the competition effect, common to models of endogenous turnout: Given the institutional environment, turnout increases in the ex ante preferences evenness, and more so when the overall system has lower power sharing. These results are robust to a wide range of modeling approaches, including ethical voter models, voter mobilization models, and rational voter models.

Turnout in municipal elections is even lower than that in presidential elections. Yet the problem has been largely ignored by academicians. In recent years, there have been court challenges under the 1982 Voting Rights Act to majority vote and other than single‐member districting provisions as requirements that are believed to dilute the political impact of minorities. The present analysis presents an overview of our knowledge to date, relating electoral districting and majority vote arrangements to black patterns of participation. It reviews the available literature, traces the associations that exist, identifies the problems in data collection and analysis that are present and sets forth a propositional inventory and set of conclusions that can serve as the basis for future research. The analysis incorporates original data and insights from the author's research and from cities in which he has served as a consultant.