Beyond Turnout: A Typology of Non-Voters in European Parliament Elections 2024

The elections to the European Parliament represent the most fundamental form of political participation in the European Union (EU). While elections alone cannot secure legitimacy, participation by EU citizens is essential for sustaining the EU’s democratic foundations and therefore its relevance in the future. Despite the increase in turnout in 2019 and its stabilization in 2024, participation continues to mostly lag behind national elections and varies considerably across member states. Compared to the well-researched determinants of non-voting, the motives and characteristics of the various types within the heterogeneous group of non-voters remain underexplored. Although existing research on non-voting determinants offers relevant insights, it treats non-voters largely as a uniform group, overlooking how typologies can reveal diverse abstention patterns and provide starting points for targeted mobilization strategies. Initial EU-level approaches (e.g., Schäfer 2017, 2021) show that non-voters differ substantially in their motives. However, this has not yet resulted in a comprehensive EU-wide typology. This gap is particularly relevant in light of current debates on democratic representation and the persistent challenges the EU faces in mobilising politically disengaged citizens. This paper addresses this gap by developing an EU-wide typology of non-voters for the 2019 and 2024 EP elections based on abstention motives as well as socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Drawing on political culture research, traditional models of electoral behaviour and EU-specific concepts (SEO model, EU issue voting), the study uses post-election Eurobarometer data from 2019 and 2024. Starting with mean comparisons, they reveal that non-voters who abstain due to technical problems or illness resemble voters in many respects. By contrast, EU-specific non-voters - despite showing higher political interest - exhibit stronger EU scepticism. Additionally, multinomial logistic regressions confirm significant differences in abstention determinants across the deductively defined non-voter groups (technical, principled, EU-specific non-voters) as well as across member states. Building on this, an exploratory hierarchical-agglomerative cluster analysis inductively identifies EU non-voter types that are considerably more specific than conventional approaches. The exploratory method yields new insights with important implications for understanding abstention in EP elections. It opens up new avenues for mobilization strategies tailored to the distinct motives and needs of different non-voter types.