Endogenous Electoral Institutions: Historical Perspective on the Adoption and Persistence of Compulsory Voting

This paper investigates two related questions. Firstly we explain why some democracies adopted compulsory voting (CV) while others did not. Secondly, we look at the factors that account for its persistence across time. We argue that moving to CV is part of adopting a new institutional bundle when old electoral rules are reconsidered. Once universal suffrage is adopted, the Right parties supported the implementation of compulsory voting as their electorate became increasingly under-mobilised relative the voters from the Left. Once adopted, CV persisted given the high cost of changing constitutions. We test these hypotheses using a historical panel dataset that cover parliamentary and presidential elections from 1880 to 2015 in Western and Latin American democracies. Using duration models and accounting for the endogeneity of the model, we find empirical support for our claims.