Economic and political effects on European Parliamentary electoral turnout in post-communist Europe

Abstract

The relatively low voter turnout rates in the June 2004 European Parliamentary elections in many of the post-communist states surprised observers. While the average turnout rate for these new-EU member states barely surpassed 30%, turnout exhibited much variance at the national and sub-national levels. In this article, we study the economic and political determinants of European Parliamentary voter turnout in the post-communist countries using a unique region-level dataset. Our regression results reveal that regional unemployment rates have a statistically significant impact on turnout. Regions with higher unemployment rates experienced lower turnout, even after controlling for political and socio-demographic factors. In contrast to some previous work on the impact of EU support on EP turnout, our study uncovers a positive relationship between these two variables. Further, we show that the timing of the election relative to the next national election and the frequency of elections affected turnout.