Voter Turnout Decline and Party Responsiveness

Lawrence Ezrow,Werner Krause

doi:10.1017/s0007123421000673

Lawrence Ezrow, Werner Krause

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123421000673

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Abstract

AbstractNumerous studies conclude that declining turnout is harmful for democracy. However, we uncover the arguably positive effect that political parties become more responsive to the median voter in the election after turnout has decreased. We assume that parties are vote seeking and show that moderate voters are responsible for changes in turnout, and we argue that declining turnout in an election sends a clear signal to political parties that there is an opportunity to mobilize disaffected voters in the following election by responding to changes in public opinion. We report the results of statistical analyses on data from thirteen democracies from 1977 to 2018 that provide evidence that declining voter turnout in one inter-election period is associated with increasing party responsiveness to public opinion in the following period. Our findings have important implications for our understanding of voter turnout, political representation, and parties' election strategies.

Highlights

Several studies identify party responsiveness to shifts in public opinion as a key component in the representative process and use this framework extensively to analyze policy linkages between citizens and parties over time (Dassonneville 2018; Ferland 2020; Homola 2019; Klüver and Spoon 2016; Spoon and Klüver 2014; Spoon and Klüver 2015; Williams and Spoon 2015)
We examine the relationship between turnout and responsiveness by addressing the question: how do changes in turnout influence party responsiveness to the median voter? The empirical analyses of political parties in thirteen democracies from 1977 to 2018 support the finding that when voter turnout declines in an election, mainstream political parties are more responsive to shifts in the median voter position in the following election to appeal to disaffected voters
Parties are sensitive to changes in turnout; it is the decreases in turnout that motivates political elites to respond to shifts in public opinion in the following election

Summary

Introduction

Several studies identify party responsiveness to shifts in public opinion as a key component in the representative process and use this framework extensively to analyze policy linkages between citizens and parties over time (Dassonneville 2018; Ferland 2020; Homola 2019; Klüver and Spoon 2016; Spoon and Klüver 2014; Spoon and Klüver 2015; Williams and Spoon 2015). These coefficient estimates of party responsiveness to the mean voter position increase as the lagged turnout variable decreases in value.

Results

Conclusion