Understanding Turnout Decline

Abstract

The findings of past chapters – and especially those of Chapter 5 – have provided us with the raw material we need to understand turnout change of all kinds, but in this chapter we will focus particularly on turnout decline. This is a topic that has much exercised commentators, as reported in Chapter 1. In Chapter 5 it was established that the causes of turnout change primarily have to do with the character of elections, not the character of society, so commentators who see in falling turnout a reflection on the civic-mindedness of citizens, or on their commitment to democracy, appear to be mistaken. Variables such as party attachment (Wattenberg 2000, 2002), trust in government (Dalton 1999), or union membership (Gray and Caul 2000) contribute nothing to the explanation of turnout developed in this book and tested in Chapter 5 (see Chapter 5, note 36). So why has turnout declined? Evidently, the preferred model established in Chapter 5 plays out differently in different countries. We would certainly expect that changes in the responsiveness of the executive play a primary role in explaining Swiss turnout decline, while the abolition of compulsory voting must play a primary role in Dutch turnout decline. Nevertheless, the overall picture can still be painted in terms of all countries taken together provided that we bear in mind that certain developments take place (certain variables change their values) in some countries but not in others.