The Turnout Decision

Abstract

Extensive individual- and aggregate-level meta-analyses have shown that turnout is connected to an array of factors. Numerous studies have suggested an association between voting and age, socio-economic resources, religiosity, party identification, gender, political interest and political knowledge. Others have identified institutional arrangements and contextual features that influence turnout including the electoral system, the economy, the political culture in a country, and the closeness of elections. Far from being exhaustive, however, interesting new findings on electoral behavior and turnout keep on emerging. Recently, for example, it has been shown that the effect of education on various aspects of political participation may be relative, being conditioned by the level of education in a person’s environment or by his/her position in social networks. Other recent contributions have elaborated the assumed causal link between education and turnout. Education appears to be proxy for pre-adult experiences factors since differences in political engagement can be found even before entering higher education. In addition, recent accounts of electoral behavior and turnout have suggested some completely new independent variables such as genes, personality traits and physical health. There is also lot to be learned regarding social networks and electoral behaviour. Not only is voting transmitted from parents to child, children may motivate political engagement among their parents, and peers living in the same household can influence each other. The workshop warmly welcomes studies examining all aspects of electoral behaviour and turnout from institutional-, neighbourhood-, network- or individual-level perspectives or a combination of the various levels. We also encourage comparative approaches. Papers utilising data from national election studies, government registers, or natural or survey experiments are particularly appreciated.

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