Explaining Voter Turnout in Latin America, 1980 to 2000

Abstract

Previous cross-national research on voter turnout has focused attention primarily on Western industrial democracies, with relatively little attention paid to turnout in developing countries. In this article, the authors extend the research program on comparative voter turnout to presidential and legislative elections held in Latin American countries from 1980 to 2000. Building on previous research, the authors estimate a series of models that represent the effects of institutional, socioeconomic, and political variables in shaping turnout. The findings suggest that turnout in Latin American countries is influenced primarily by institutional variables (such as unicameralism, compulsoryvoting, and concurrent legislative and executive elections) and political variables (i.e., founding elections and political freedoms). Surprisingly, the authors find that socioeconomic variables, which are found to have strong effects on turnout in Western democracies, are unrelated to turnout in Latin American countries.