Levels Of Electoral Turnout Research Articles

Puun ja kuoren välissä? Paikallistason poliittisen kilpailun yhteys kuntien talouteen

Kunnat ovat suomalaisen hyvinvointivaltiomallin keskiössä, ja se, miten kunnat hoitavat talouttaan, vaikuttaa koko järjestelmän kestävyyteen. Tässä tutkimuksessa kysymme, millainen yhteys paikallistason poliittisella kilpailulla on vaihteluun kuntien taloustilanteessa. Odotamme, että paikallisen poliittisen järjestelmän kilpailullisuuteen liittyvät muuttujat ovat ei-lineaarisessa yhteydessä keskeisiin julkistaloudellisiin muuttujiin, jotka mittaavat kuntien menojen tasoa ja tulorahoituksen riittävyyttä menojen kattamiseen. Tarkemmin ottaen odotamme, että kohtalainen kilpailun taso suosii lopputuloksia, jotka ovat sopusoinnussa julkisten varojen tehokkaan ja pitkänäköisen käytön kanssa, siinä missä sekä vähäinen että voimakas kilpailu suosivat erityisintressipolitiikkaa ja lyhytnäköisyyttä. Manner-Suomen kunnat vuosina 2001–2014 kattavan aineiston analyysi viittaa siihen, että menojen tason yhteys puoluejärjestelmän hajanaisuuteen on U:n muotoinen. Löydämme myös viitteitä siitä, että tulorahoituksen riittävyys on sitä parempi, mitä korkeampi äänestysprosentti on, mutta tämä yhteys on jokseenkin epävarma.

¿Democracia en crisis? El futuro de los partidos políticos y de la democracia representativa

Los partidos políticos tradicionales de los países de Europa occidental han conseguido un menor apoyo electoral en las elecciones que se han venido celebrando recientemente. Desde la Gran Recesión, nuevos partidos han entrado en sistemas de partidos consolidados y formaciones que hasta el momento ocupaban un segundo plano en la vida política – la mayoría de ellas con un discurso anti-establishment – han visto como su número de votos crecía notablemente. Este proceso de des-alineamiento electoral ha quedado patente a través de varios indicadores, como la menor participación electoral, la caída en la identificación y membresía partidista, así como la bajada en la confianza en los partidos y demás instituciones representativas. Con ello, el mapa político se ha fragmentado y los electorados son cada vez más imprevisibles. Este trabajo tiene dos objetivos principales. Por un lado, dar a conocer la evolución de distintos indicadores (participación electoral, volatilidad, membresía a partido, fragmentación y voto a nuevas formaciones y partidos populistas) que son un reflejo de las dinámicas de los sistemas de partidos y, por otro lado, evaluar si la democracia representativa ha tocado a su fin y es necesario plantearse otro tipo de modelo político o, si por la contra, el fin del modelo actual está aún muy lejos de producirse.

Factores de mediano y largo plazo para el análisis del proceso electoral de 2014 en Uruguay

This article analyzes the 2014 Uruguayan electoral process, based on the medium and long-term patterns of continuity and change observed in the Uruguayan party system. In the first place, the evolution of the party system in the last 40 years is discussed. This perspective allows to understand the changes and continuities in the distribution of votes among the parties, regarding the 2009 elections. Moreover, it explains which parameters can be associated with the little variations that the October 2014 elections have shown, in comparison to what occurred five years earlier. In the second place, primary party elections are examined in order to analyze the levels of electoral turnout and the difficulties to extrapolate these results to the national election, both between and within parties. Finally, the article explores the institutional factors that determine the characteristics of the legislative supply of the main internal fractions of parties.

The End of Voters in Europe? Electoral Turnout in Europe since WWII

th , 2012; revised December 11 th , 2012; accepted December 22 nd , 2012 Over the past twenty years, the scientific community and politicians in consolidated democracies have been regularly alarmed by political and electoral participation, portrayed as undergoing a brutal and linear decline. Each election is now scrutinized in terms not only of its results but also of its level of electoral turnout. This paper deals with two important issues—the reality of changes in electoral turnout in Europe and the impact of the institutional constraint of compulsory voting in voter turnout levels—through an analysis of 402 elections held in thirty-five States from 1944 until December, the 31st 2009. We do observe a contemporary erosion of voter turnout but at this stage voters are not so impossible to find as some claim they are. Furthermore, the assumption that interest in, and the importance of, compulsory voting as an institutional constraint encouraging voter turnout is confirmed.

Bullets and Votes: Violence and Electoral Participation in Mexico

In this paper we analyze the effect of criminal violence on electoral participation in Mexico. Many scholars have studied the origins of criminal violence, as well as the success or failure of contemporary regimes in dealing with it. However, few have studied how it affects voter turnout. Following recent findings in the behavioral subfield, we hypothesize that as criminal violence increases, citizens abandon public channels of participation and take refuge in their private spheres. Using longitudinal and geostatistical tools to analyze Mexican municipalities in the last decade, we find that the level of electoral turnout is lower in the most violent regions of the country. In the final section, we use survey data to confirm that citizens exposed to high levels of criminal violence are less likely to vote.

The personal vote and voter turnout

The level of electoral turnout is arguably the most widely monitored form of electoral participation. Consequently, electoral systems have often been cited as having a significant effect on turnout levels even though scholars do not agree on the effects of these complex institutions. Since most previous studies have relied on categorical or dichotomous electoral system indicators, this study utilizes Carey and Shugart’s personal vote index to gain theoretical leverage on other electoral system components. In short, I find that where electoral competition is predicated on party, rather than candidates’, reputations, turnout levels rise. The results of a time-series cross-sectional analysis reveal that the personal vote index significantly influences turnout levels even when controlling for a host of other factors.

Government Inequality Reduction in Comparative Perspective: A Cross-National Study of the Developed World

This article offers an empirical assessment of a number of aspects of the reduction of market income inequality as a result of government taxes and transfers, and of the distributive effect of wage-bargaining institutions and minimum wages, in thirteen developed countries over the last twenty five years. It considers five broad themes in the literature: the median voter approach, which argues that government redistribution is associated with inequality of pre-government income; the power resources approach, which emphasizes partisan political contestation and electoral participation; the institutional approach, which focuses on political institutions such as the electoral system; the labor organization approach, which argues that labor unions play a key role in government efforts to achieve a more egalitarian distribution of market income; and the economic globalization approach, which argues that integration into the global economy has undermined public social protection efforts. The article finds consistent positive relationships between direct government redistribution and four variables: the extent of pre-government inequality; the level of electoral turnout; the share of the labor force that is unionized; and the presence of proportional representation electoral systems. As to wage-bargaining institutions, the article confirms that there is a positive relationship between the degree of coordination of wage bargaining and a relatively egalitarian distribution of earnings across various income groups, and (more weakly) between the level of statutory minimum wages in a country and the earnings share of the lowest-income group.

Electoral behaviour behind the gates: partisanship and political participation among Canadian gated community residents

Gated communities have been characterised as representing processes of ‘forting up’ and ‘civic secession’, in which their residents use gating as a strategy for withdrawing from political life and from taking collective responsibility for others. The assumption is that the residents of private gated communities should be less likely to participate in political life, and/or be more likely to support political parties on the right who advocate privatisation, reduced government expenditures and lower taxes. If the act of living in a gated community is associated with either greater support for parties and policies on the right of the political spectrum, or limited political participation, then the growth of such forms of privatised communities has potential implications for the future of urban politics and even for national political systems. However, despite surveys that have dealt with social attitudes ‘behind the gates’, insufficient attention has been paid to the politics of gated community residents. This paper fills this gap through a comparative analysis of electoral behaviour during the 2006 federal election at the level of the polling station. Electoral participation and partisanship in 27 gated communities in three Canadian metropolitan areas is compared against that of non‐gated residents. Regression analysis is conducted in order to determine whether gated community residents differ from their non‐gated counterparts in the way they vote and their levels of electoral turnout, after controlling for social composition. The potential implications of this research are then discussed.