there has been a significant decline in electoral turnout in nearly all advanced industrial...

8/2/2019 There Has Been a Significant Decline in Electoral Turnout in Nearly All Advanced Industrial Societies Over the Last Fif

1/14

David Johnson Gv 300 Reg no: 0935451

There has been a significant decline in electoral turnout in nearly all advanced industrial societies

over the last fifty years. Using data from the comparative industrial democracies data set

investigate the relationship between the turnout and the political characteristics of these systems.

Discuss the explanations of the phenomena and examine your findings from this dataset.

Over the last fifty years, there has been a constant advancement in the social and economic

conditions of advanced economies. We would like to think that these conditions would translate to

increasing electoral participation; however the opposite has proven to be the case. Where intuition

may have failed statistical analysis may prove to be the answer, specifically the use of regression

models to help find correlation. By comparing the social conditions, political Institutions, and voter

preferences of advanced industrial societies this essay sets out identify trends and linkages common

to all countries, which may help explain falling electoral turnout across all advanced industrial

economies. As such, this essay will not set out to prove any specific hypothesis but instead peruse an

exploratory path; finding statistical evidence first and then seeking the relevant political theory or

literature to explain these findings.

The dependant variable in most of the analysis will be average voter turnout; as such it is

only proper that we begin our analysis here. By analysing the descriptive statistics and the relevant

histogram and box and whisker plots, we can better understand which nations have suffered most

from turnout decline.

average turnout in national elections

Mean N Std. Deviation Range Variance Median

80.5796 21 10.97729 40.35 120.501 82.2371

With a range four times the standard deviation, but with a close median and mean; we find that

sample of 21 has a significant difference between the highest and lowest value. It is important to

note that our sample include three countries with mandatory voting: Australia, Belgium and

Luxembourg. When these values are removed we find the following changes:

average turnout in national elections

Mean N Std. Deviation Range Variance Median

78.6255 18 10.60754 36.78 112.520 79.5647


2/14


When excluded we see little change in the standard deviation but, as expected, there is a drop in the

mean, median, and range; meaning that these countries were amongst the highest ranking, with one

being the largest value on the table. Knowing that these values can have a skewing effect I will reject

them from future samples; though I will not completely omit them from further analysis, as they

represent unique voting conditions. When we observe the histogram produced by the original

sample, we find 2 distinct groups of data; 70-75 and 85-95 with no outliers1. When we adjust the

sample size, we find greater uniformity in the data distribution, but maintaining an equal spike in the

70-75 and 80-852. We also see a very slight increase in the Shapiro-Wilk significance, implying that

the adjust value conforms more to a normal distribution; however this value is not significant

enough to warrant further investigation. The most significant result of the adjusted sample is the

creation of two outliers3, Sweden and USA, brought about by the reduction in the standard

deviation. Despite their new classification I will not omit these values from the sample for three

reasons. By removing the USA the sample size would lack geographical diversity, skewing the results

through factors the data may not represent; additionally America also contains the largest

population of any of the sample countries, bringing doubt over its valuation as an outlier. Finally,

they only became outliers through my own manipulation of the data, and this does not change

whatever characteristics justified their initial inclusion.

Governments and their makeup

Though each political institution is unique unto itself; the effect of percentages of government type

(left, centre or right wing) and the proportionality of representation (i.e vote percentage to

percentage of government held) on voting should be a transferable to all institution types. The most

appropriate statistical approach to evaluate these effects should be regression analysis; running

average turnout against the characteristics of the institutions and parliaments. Specifically the

percentage of cabinet held by party, RAE scores, number of government changes, percentage of

woman in parliament, index of ideology, and the degree of representation. Two things should be

noted here; first is that there is a large number of variables to observe, too large to provide each

variable with a meaning full commentary given the confines of an essay, as such I will compare each

to the average R value of the sample to determine which factors correlate best and thus worthy of

further analysis. The second is that I have introduced a new variable, a score of representation. This

indicates the difference between votes obtained and percentage of seats held, achieved by taking

1

See appendix 12 See appendix 23

See appendix 3


3/14


the absolute difference between votes and seats in countries which have above 75% of casted votes

represented.

Report

Variable

Mean N Std. Deviation

.0895 10 .07960

Variable R

rightgov .18

centgov .01

leftgov .16

govparty .19

govtype .01

change .08

women .17

parties .01

rae .00

represent .07

From this initial analysis, we find 2 sets of data worth examining, the percentage of woman in

parliament, and the ideological slant of the cabinet. Both of these variables represent two important

factors, ideological slant should allow us to observe the effect on political incentives on voter

turnout; while the percentage of woman in parliament is the only indicator of political participation

outside of voting provided by the data, all be it within a specific social group.

Starting with the percentage of woman in parliament, we find strong evidence for correlation, a

strong person value, a large coefficient, with a small deviation from the significance level.

Correlations

average vote

for left parties

average turnout in

national elections

average vote for left parties

Pearson Correlation 1 .721**

Sig. (2-tailed) .002

N 16 16


4/14


average turnout in national

elections

Pearson Correlation .721 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .002

N 16 18

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) 72.313 4.193 17.248 .000

percentage of women in

parliament.601 .331 .414 1.817 .088

a. Dependent Variable: average turnout in national elections

The simplest explanation for this would be that women vote for women, that countries with higher

turnouts simply have more women voting for female politicians. Such a theory is as easy disproved

as it is formed. Female voters have been high in countries which do not have a strong female

representation in parliament; in the UK and USA the gap is negligible, with some elections seeing a

higher female turnout45. What we find instead is a representation of political participation, that

countries with a higher percentage of women in parliament see a higher amount of the female

population involvement in politics, a figure which has typically been lower than male involvement6.

In their essay Schlozman, Burns and Verba describe the positive correlation between political

participation and underlying social factors, that female involvement in politics reflects higher levels

of female education and income. The correlation observed may not reflect direct causation, but

rather indirect via increased social conditions so often cited as having a positive relationship with

voter turnout7. This effect may be better observed in women than men, as their average income and

education levels are lower than those of their male peers. Another explanation for the correlation

between woman and turnout is a stronger preference for woman to vote for left parties.

Coefficientsa


Coefficients

t Sig.

4Young Women and Politics; Center for American Women and Politics;

5Gender and political participation; The Electoral Commission

6

Page 964; Gender and the Pathways to Participation: The Role of Resources; In: The Journal of Politics;Schlozman, Burns and Verba7

Page 22, Economic Inequality and Electoral Participation. A Cross-Country Evaluation, Jaime-Castillo


5/14


B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) 28.442 4.961 5.733 .000

percentage of women in

parliament.794 .399 .435 1.991 .063

a. Dependent Variable: average vote for left parties

Regression analysis provides evidence for this theory, with a high coefficient and t statistic. Further

on in the essay I will describe why there is a positive relationship between left party support and

voter turnout; to minimize redundancy I will only explain the causality between female participation

and left party voting. Lower rates of marriage, be they though increases in divorce or other reasons,

have increased the gender income gap, specifically for deviations in the middle income group.

Additionally there is also been a greater presence of women in the work force. As such female voters

stand to gain more from the redistributive policies of left wing parties8, as income redistribution

helps to reduce the income gap between men and women, as well as promoting policies which help

women within the workplace, such as mandatory maternity leave.

The ideology of the Cabinets also demonstrates correlation with average turnout, with a Pearson

correlation of -0.422 and linier coefficient of -0.155 for right wing cabinets and .405 and .175

respectively for left wing. As we would also expect, ideology also shows very strong correlation with

the percentage seats held by the relevant party. Due to this I will analyse the effect of both factorscollectively in the next section, as we would intuitively expect common factors between the two as

both are involved in the political decision making process., withhold any commentary on the

ideology of the cabinet as we can produce a common , as statically and.

Ideology

As mentioned above, the data warrants investigation into the effects of ideology on turnout; do

certain ideologies favour, or result in, a lower turnout; specifically left wing and right-wing, as these

are the represented ideologies with the largest vote share as well as the greatest difference in

policy. As the relationship between percentage of votes and percentage of seats is nearly co-liner for

left and right ideologies I will focus my analysis on percentage of seats, as this value better

represents the effect on political decision making.

Coefficientsa

8Page 953; why have women become left-wing?; in: The Quarterly Journal of Economics; Edlund and Pande


6/14



Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) 88.033 5.091 17.291 .000

percentage seats in

parliament held by right-.304 .143 -.493 -2.121 .052


Coefficientsa


Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) 60.083 5.179 11.601 .000

percentage seats in

parliament held by left.522 .134 .721 3.891 .002


Observing a negative relationship between turnout and percentage of seats held by the right and an

even stronger positive relationship with percentage of seats held by the left, both with significance

levels at or below 5%, and t statistics above 2. The explanation of the correlation and whether this is

infers causation can be found through political economy. Specifically that the provision of

redistributive polices by left wing parties, and their non-provision by the right; with redistribution

having a positive effect on voter turnout9. We need to first assume that left wing governments will

be more likely to redistribute income then right wing governments10. Secondly we assume that the

median voter theory holds; that governments will make decisions based on the preferences of the

median voter. Thirdly, we assume the positive relationship between education and wealth, and

voter turnout holds. From our third assumption we can theorise that countries with low turnouts

will see a proportionally wealthier voter base and that the median voter will be amongst the higher

earners in the country. Countries with low voter turnouts should see proportionally higher right wing

governments, as it is in the interest of the voter base to avoid costly policies of redistributions

associated with left wing governments11. However, countries with high turnouts should see greater

9Page 565; Party control of state government and public expenditures; in : Scandinavian journal of economics,

S. Ansolabehere and J. M. Snyder, J 10

Page 169; Negotiated expansion: Left-wing governments, corporatism and social expenditure in mature

welfare states; in : Comparative European Politics; Jensen11Page 64, Redistribution, Income, and Voting; American Journal of Politcal Science; Filer, Lawrence and

Morton


7/14


left wing governments, as it is in their each voters individual incentive to promote income

redistribution to raise average voters income. Though the logic holds this theory is not ideal as it

implies that a preference for a certain type of government is the caused by the level voter turn, the

opposite outcome we wished to obtain.

Through we cant infer direct causality, the cause of the observed correlation could still be self-

enforcing; both having a degree of causation on each other. The primary incentive for Governments

is to remain in power; as such they will pursue policies which best appeal to their voter base. For Left

wing governments, they will increase the utility of their voters by utilising redistributive policies such

as welfare spending and distribution of tax burdens. Right wing governments have different policy

incentives, as we have shown their median voter to be wealthier, they would be more concerned

with policies such economic stability. Yet governments cannot completely ignore policies of income

redistribution; assuming they care about economic activity, they would need to ensure a high level

of social capital as there is a clear positive relationship between productiveness of labour and

economic output12

. The minimum requirement for social spending explains why turnout has a

greater correlation with left governments.

In order for the above statement to infer causality, we need to find an explanation for a positive

relationship between redistribution and turnout. The first method of explanation is through voter

self-interest. Voters who receive benefits through redistributive policies will wish to maintain them,as such it is in their interest to come out and vote. As they stand to see a reduction in their income if

a government take power which will revoke their policies, the cost of not voting is much higher in

countries which have had historically left wing governments. Redistribution is a form of ratchet

effect, once there has been an increase in redistribution; it is difficult to undo it without seeing a

reduction in support. This explains why there is positive relationship between left-wing cabinets and

voter turnout, as left-wing cabinets are more likely to survive in high turnout countries. There is also

another transmission mechanism, via the opportunity cost of voting. Increasing the average income

of voters, specifically those in the lowest income bands, reduces the cost of becoming politically

informed13. As they do not need to devote a large proportion of their time to generating a sufficient

level of income we observe a positive relationship between free time and income, both a

consequence of redistribution. Becoming politically informed will also lead to a greater ideological

12See models such as the Solo Growth Model, and effect of increasing technology, a value which includes

productivity of labour13Page 102; Why do High Income People Participate More in Politics?; in :Political choice; Frey


8/14


belief amongst voters14, as they will become more aware of their own stakes in government

decisions, and as we have shown before, results in higher turnout.

With the intuitive knowledge in hand, we can also perform further statistical analysis. If we include

countries with compulsory voting, Luxembourg, Australia, and Belgium, we should see a positive

increase in the coefficient value of our regression; as a larger voting body should prefer more

redistributive policies.

Coefficientsa


Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) 60.873 5.476 11.117 .000

percentage seats in

parliament held by left.550 .141 .687 3.902 .001


Observing the increasing B value as infers casualty, if we assume that mandatory voting is

independent of ideology. This is evidence for causality shows that increased ideology is to some

extent being caused by increased turnout, not the other way around. We should also note a

decreased R squared value, from .52 to .472, a worsening goodness of it, so we should not be

entirely confident in this as proof of causality. It is also unreasonable to assume that mandatory

voting is independent, since governments are incentivised by power, a prominently right-wing

country would not pass such legislation, as it would jeopardise their likelihood of maintaining power.

If we plot histograms for the data, we can see some explanation for the distribution of average voter

turnout. We see similarities in shape when concentration of Left-wing15 parties and two

concentrations in average voter turn -out. However we do not observe a similarly shaped histogram

for right wing parties16. These similarities in distributions help to reinforce the statistical relevance of

our data.

14

Page 29; Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence from Britain; Larcinese15 See appendix 416

See appendix 5


9/14


Age

The final data set to analyse is age, under 25 and over 65.In order to account for the differences in

population we need to calculate their values as a percentage of population17. Once this has been

done we observe these regression results:

Coefficientsa


Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1(Constant) 99.860 13.234 7.545 .000

percentunder15 -.866 .585 -.321 -1.480 .155


Coefficientsa


Coefficients

t Sig.

B Std. Error Beta

1

(Constant) 64.006 17.211 3.719 .001

percentover65 1.372 1.411 .218 .972 .343


The outcomes of both of this regression can be rejected, as the fall well beyond acceptable

significance levels, observed at 5% throughout the essay, as well as having low t values. Though not

significant, age still deserves some analysis, as it is one of the few examples of social data in the

essay. There have been numerous studies showing the a negative relationship with youth

populations and voter turnout

18

; supported by the data to some degree as we observe a bettersignificance figure for under 15 then over 65. What we can infer form this is that the problems

associated with low youth turnout are common to all countries, not just those with lower turnout.

There may be other factors such as youth employment, and middle age turnout, which may better

explain the lack of correlation.

Conclusion

17See appendix 6

18Youth Voter Turnout has Declined, by Any Measure; Levine and Lopez


10/14


This essay has been successful in achieving its purpose, to find common factors which explained the

decline in voter turnout. The analysis of the data set produced 2 clear factors, percentage of woman

in parliament and ideology. From the analysis of woman in parliament we defined a clear linkage

between social factors and political participation. The correlation from ideology supports the ideas

of political economy, that voter and government incentives can define the costs and benefits of

voting and through this, explains the high voter turnout in countries with a strong left wing presence

in government. Though we have found common factors, I purposefully ignored factors unique to

certain countries, like Japans strong right wing cabinet or the lack of proportional vote

representation in the UK. Though I did not set out to explain individual factors, the fact that they

were completely ignored may cast doubt on the validity of our explanations of correlation, though it

is doubtful that I could provide meaningful analysis of such factors given the restrictions of the

essay. There is also a second criticism of the essay, not of the results, but of the data. So many of the

justifications of correlation come from social circumstances, such as income and education, yet there

are few variables in the data to reflect this. The only representation is through age and percentage

of woman in parliament. This lack of data does not reflect negatively on essay, but instead invites

further analysis if we wish to have a more complete understanding of common factors; especially as

we have identified the significance of social conditions.

Word Count: 2949


11/14


Bibliography:

Young Women and Politics; Center for American Women and Politics;

http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/voters/documents/young.pdf

Gender and political participation; The Electoral Commission; www.electoralcommission.org.uk;2004

Gender and the Pathways to Participation: The Role of Resources; The Journal of Politics; Schlozman,

Burns and Verba; Cambirdge Univeristy Press; Cambridge; 1994

Economic Inequality and Electoral Participation. A Cross-Country Evaluation; Jaime-Castillo;

University of Granada; 2006

Why have women become left-wing? the political gender gap and the decline in marriage; The

Quarterly Journal of Economics; Edlund and Pande; Harvard; 2002

Party control of state government and public expenditures; Scandinavian journal of economics Vol

108, S. Ansolabehere and J. M. Snyder, J; 2006

Negotiated expansion: Left-wing governments, corporatism and social expenditure in mature

welfare states; Comparative European Politics Vol. 9; Jensen; Macmillan Publishers; 2011

Redistribution, Income, and Voting; American Journal of Political Science Vol 37; Filer, Lawrence and

Morton; Midwest Political Science Association; 1993

Why do High Income People Participate More in Politics?; Political choice Vol 11; Frey; Springer;

1971

Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence from Britain; Larcinese; London

School and Economics and Political Science; 2007

Youth Voter Turnout has Declined, by Any Measure; Levine and Lopez; The Center for Information &

Research on Civic Learning & Engagement; 2002


12/14


Appendix

1.

.

2.


13/14


4.


14/14


5.

there has been a significant decline in electoral turnout in nearly all advanced industrial...

Documents