Suchergebnisse

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.

Differences in electoral rules and/or legislative, executive or legal institutions across countries induce different mappings from election outcomes to distributions of power. We explore how these different mappings affect voters' participation in a democracy. Assuming heterogeneity in the cost of voting, the effect of such institutional differences on turnout depends on the distribution of voters' preferences for the parties: when the two parties have similar support, turnout is higher in a winner-take-all system than in a power sharing system; the result is reversed when one side has a larger base. The results are robust to a wide range of modeling approaches, including the instrumental voting model, ethical voter models, and voter mobilization models. Findings from laboratory experiments provide empirical support for most of the theoretical predictions.

A growing literature has argued that electoral turnout decreases the more government policy constrained by economic and institutional factors. This paper investigates whether a certain type of policy constraint, fiscal rules, lowers turnout. Since fiscal rules set limits for government fiscal policy, they should lower the incentive for citizens to participate electorally. However, using parliamentary turnout data in a large panel of democratic countries, little robust evidence is found in favor of fiscal rules having a depressing effect on electoral turnout. Analysis of European individual-level data also suggests that national fiscal rules do not affect inequality in electoral turnout between income groups either. Difference-in-discontinuity evidence from Italian municipalities further suggests that the results are causally identified.

Differences in electoral rules and/or legislative, executive or legal institutions across countries induce different mappings from election outcomes to distributions of power. We explore how these different mappings affect voters' participation in a democracy. Assuming heterogeneity in the cost of voting, the effect of such institutional differences on turnout depends on the distribution of voters' preferences for the parties: when the two parties have similar support, turnout is higher in a winner-take-all system than in a power sharing system; the result is reversed when one side has a larger base. Moreover, the winner-take-all system has higher welfare if and only if the support is uneven. We compare the 'size effect' and the 'underdog compensation effect' under different systems. All systems induce an underdog compensation which is partial. Namely, unlike other costly voting models, the side with the larger support almost surely wins the majority of the votes. The results obtained in the rational voter model, characterized by the voter free-riding problem, continue to hold in other models of turnout such as ethical voter models and voter mobilization models.

Is the decline in voter turnout an indicator of a worse health of a representative democracy? We build a simple probabilistic-voting model with endogenous turnout to address this question. We find that a lower turnout caused by a higher cost of voting implies higher political rents. Contrarily, a lower turnout caused by a higher ideological mobility of voters or by a lower expressive benefit of voting implies lower political rents. If voters have a civic-duty motive to vote that depends on the level of rents, multiple equilibria (a high-rents low-turnout and a low-rents high-turnout) arise.

This paper studies the impact of term limits on voter turnout, using the recent introduction of term limits at the local government level in Portugal as a natural experiment. Although instrumental, expressive, and information-based theories of voter participation imply effects of term limits on turnout, this is clearly an under-researched topic. Applying a difference-in-differences approach to data at both the municipal and parish levels, we find strong evidence that the introduction of term limits increased voter participation. Our results contrast with previous findings for California and demonstrate that more re search on this topic is clearly necessary. ; Compete 2020, Portugal 2020, Feder, FCT ...

We set up a model of elections or referendums with two alternatives to study how voter turnout and election outcomes are affected by the publication of exit polls on election day. We find that the introduction of an exit poll influences the incentive to vote both before and after the poll is published, but the signs of the effects are generally ambiguous. The fact that exit polls influence the incentive to vote before they are even published is sometimes overlooked in the debate on their desirability. We show that this can lead to premature conclusions about the impact of exit polls on election outcomes.

The number of people choosing to vote or abstain varies over elections and across countries. The reasons why individuals may choose to vote in one election but not the next are not completely known. Election context seems to play a role but there is not a clear set of contextual variables that political scientists employ that capture why turnout - or individual decisions to vote - fluctuates from one election to the next. There remains a need fill this literature gap. This dissertation attempts to move our understanding of turnout variation forward. It does so by analysing three election contexts with cross-national as well as individual-level data for specific countries. The results suggest that factors such as emotional responses to election issues, the economy, the party system, and class voting, have an impact on whether people vote or not. ; El número de personas eligiendo si votar o abtenerse varia entre elecciones a tavés de países. Las razones por la que un individuo pueda decidir votar en unas elecciones, pero no en las siguientes són completamente desconocidas. El contexto de las elecciones parece desempeñar un papel, pero no hay un claro grupo de variables contextuales que politólogos usen que explique porque la participación electoral fluctúe de unas elecciones a las siguientes. Sigue existiendo la necesidad de llenar este vacío en la literatura. Esta tesis doctoral intenta mover la comprensión de la variación de la participación hacia adelante. Mediante el analisis de tres contextos electorales y usando datos de varios paises así como a nivel individual para ciertos países, los resultados sugieren que factores como respuestas emocionales a temas electorales, la economia, el sistema de partidos y el voto de clase, tienen un impacto en si la población votará o no.

Previous studies have stressed the role of a child's family environment for future political participation. This field of research has, however, overlooked that children within the same family have different experiences depending on their birth order. First-borns spend their first years of life without having to compete over their parents' attention and resources, while their younger siblings are born into potential rivalry. We examine differences in turnout depending on birth order, using unique population-wide individual level register data from Sweden and Norway that enables precise within-family estimates. We consistently find that higher birth order entails lower turnout, and that the turnout differential with respect to birth order is stronger when turnout is lower. The link between birth order and turnout holds when we use data from four other, non-Nordic countries. This birth order effect appears to be partly mediated by socio-economic position and attitudinal predispositions.

Previous studies have stressed the role of a child's family environment for future political participation. This field of research has, however, overlooked that children within the same family have different experiences depending on their birth order. First-borns spend their first years of life without having to compete over their parents' attention and resources, while their younger siblings are born into potential rivalry. We examine differences in turnout depending on birth order, using unique population-wide individual level register data from Sweden and Norway that enables precise within-family estimates. We consistently find that higher birth order entails lower turnout, and that the turnout differential with respect to birth order is stronger when turnout is lower. The link between birth order and turnout holds when we use data from four other, non-Nordic countries. This birth order effect appears to be partly mediated by socio-economic position and attitudinal predispositions.

We exploit a natural experiment in Massachusetts in 2012 to estimate the causal effect of lowering voter registration costs on: voter registration, turnout and voting behavior in presidential elections. Both a within Massachusetts specification and a cross-state specification (utilizing Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire data) find a statistically significant effect on voter registration and turnout that is of a material magnitude. However, conditional on registration we find no material difference in turnout. Finally, we find a large treatment effect on Democrat voteshare. Our results highlight the importance of voter registration costs for electoral participation, especially for citizens from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and disproportionately imprisons minorities, particularly African-Americans. Research shows that incarceration has many impacts on the individuals and families affected. One important question is whether high rates of incarceration silence the voices of minority communities by discouraging voting, affecting the structure of the political system. We use county-level data from 2010-2018 to study the impact of incarceration on the voter turnout rate in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. We find that incarceration has an insignificant effect on voter turnout after controlling for other demographic variables. However, the impacts of incarceration may operate through other channels, impacting demographic characteristics such as income and education. Thus, further research is needed to determine the effects of mass incarceration on voter engagement.

First published online on Oct 2020 ; We introduce a model where social norms of voting participation are strategically chosen by competing political parties and determine voters' turnout. Social norms must be enforced through costly peer monitoring and punishment. When the cost of enforcement of social norms is low, the larger party is always advantaged. Otherwise, in the spirit of Olson (1965), the smaller party may be advantaged. Our model shares features of the ethical voter model and it delivers novel and empirically relevant comparative statics results.

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Information Analysis and Management ; The decline of voter turnout in Portugal has been confirmed in the last legislative election of 2015. This fact, together with the unquestionable democratic value associated with the act of voting, leads to the discussion of the issue and emphasizes the need for additional investigation concerning the portuguese context. Particularly, it is crucial to identify the characteristics of citizens who vote, to better understand the phenomenon and think about solutions. This work aims to identify the most significant sociodemographic variables in explaining voter turnout in continental Portugal and describe the relationship between those variables and voter turnout, including the geographical variation existing across the municipalities. Data related to sociodemographic variables are provided from population census 2011, and turnout results concerns the legislative election of the same year. The chosen variables have been addressed in literature, both in meta-analyses studies and in country level empirical investigation. The analysis starts with the conventional Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), and continue with more spatially sensitive methods, namely Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) and its semiparametric extension (SGWR). The final method, SGWR, enables the investigation of local variations in turnout values, simultaneously considering that its relationship with some variables might not vary over space. Results show that turnout is a complex process, influenced by a set of sociodemographic variables. While some variables affect turnout differently over the country (percentage of family cores with children aged less than 15, and percentage of owner-occupied houses), others affect it uniformly (percentage of graduated residents, percentage of classic families, and distance to Lisbon or Oporto – the nearest). This highlights the use of a semiparametric approach to better understand turnout and for further research on voting issues.

[Abstract 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.