Turnout is at the heart of democracy. It is the decisive form of political participation to transfer power from citizens to political actors and it is the only participation mode used by a majority of the population. However, recent developments show a clear decline of turnout rates in most Western democracies and at all electoral levels. In the case of Germany this development culminated in the lowest turnout rate since the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009. Only 70.8 percent of the eligible citizens cast a ballot in the recent federal election. Electoral research has developed several explanations for individual non-participation as well as for the decline in turnout rates over time. However, in contrast to the sociological and the social-psychological approach, rational choice explanations of abstention are under-developed and lack from adequate operationalizations of voters’ perceptions of parties, candidates, the election, and its context. This paper will thus focus on the explanation of turnout and its decline in German federal elections between 1990 and 2009 introducing some innovative measures deducted from rational choice theory. I will test the importance of these measures in contrast to traditional explanatory variables of turnout with survey data from the German election studies since 1990 and aggregate level data for electoral districts. With its innovative and comprehensive approach the paper will provide new insights in the causes of abstention and the contribution of rational choice theory for the explanation of turnout.
