Analysis Of Factors Affecting Voter Turnout

Electoral participation is the main indicator of democratic performance as well as a measure of a state’s legitimacy. Bingham Powell, a professor of political sciences, studied the mean turnout of 17 countries during the 1970s to understand factors correlated to this measure. Nationally competitive districts where voting incentives are homogeneously distributed and strong group-party linkages simplifying the vote by clear associations of different parties (not only political) where found to be positively influencing turnout. We will now study turnout variation following the work found in Powell’s 1982 book which uses data from 29 countries. 3 types of variables are defined, the constitutional setting, the socio-economic environment, and party systems and election outcomes, differing in their scope (in order: distant, intermediate, and proximate). First, the impact of institutions can affect turnout by their structuring nature as well as their coercive and/or incentive measures. Indeed, compulsory voting measures have been found to increase turnout by 13 percentage points on average with minimal deviation.

Despite strong empirical evidence to support this finding, the effect is conditional on having control sanctions and their enforcement. Also, the context plays as in “Older” democracies where normative incentives to follow and support democratic processes are more present. The electoral system itself can influence turnout through the constrained set of possibilities it defines. Studies in modern democracies and post-communist countries have correlated positive turnout variation with proportional representation and/or large district size. However, outside Europe and notably in Latin America, the electoral system has little to no influence on turnout which suggest specific contextual explanations and the existence of third variables and/or different types of interaction dynamics. The relative importance of elections can be positively correlated to turnout as well. The incentive to vote is higher when the stakes and possible consequences of an election are important. Despite mix findings, unicameralism seems to affect turnout, but the exact dynamics are still unclear with studies using different measures as “electoral decisiveness” and “parliamentary responsibility”. As we’ve seen, institutional factors are linked to turnout variations, but the empirical evidences are inconsistent. We can suppose that those factors have indirect relations with turnout resting on individual-level interactions. Thus, the micro foundations of institutional factors are at this point unknown. Regarding the socioeconomic environment, only extremes are drawing correlations, turnout being visibly lower in poor countries and higher in exceptionally small countries Malta. In this case, the economic context as adverse effects counterbalancing each other, thus explaining the correlation found only at extremes.

Lastly, party systems and electoral outcomes are supposed to affect turnout as they also constrain and shape the workings of elections. An increasing number of parties would seem to affect turnout positively by providing more voting option and stimulate electoral mobilization, but fractionalization reduces the decisiveness of an election by broadening coalitions. However, the closeness of the electoral outcome is strongly correlated to turnout but with a small magnitude. All 3 types of factors influence turnout because of their structuring and constraining nature. However, most are intersubjective (decisiveness, and number of parties and closeness), weakly correlated and/or conditional of non-election related variables.