VOLEBNÍ ÚČAST A JEJÍ DETERMINANTY VE STARÝCH A NOVÝCH DEMOKRACIÍCH EVROPY

• Authors: Michal Nový

Title variants

EN

Voter turnout and its determinants in old and new European democracies

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Despite more than twenty years of freedom is voter turnout in successfully democratized post-communist countries far below the average of West European democracies. This article handles with two macro-theories, societal modernization theory and institutionalism. These ordinary approaches generally assume that more advanced communities offering stronger positive institutional incentives will have higher rate of political involvement. Based on these theories, nine possible determinants which can affect turnout were chosen – human development, non-agrarian population, urbanization, parliamentarism, direct vote of the president, closeness, electoral system proportionality, population size and compulsory voting. Moreover, the author ś study supplements classical theories with factor of post-communism. It emphasizes that communist legacy per se brings important condition for (non-)participation. The principal objective of this article is to trace the importance of post-communism compared with other factors which can cause differences in aggregate voter participation among European democracies and to demonstrate that post-communism works as some kind of condition for certain factors – it can change their intensity and direction. The author examines turnout in 213 national lower house elections held in 36 European countries. Regression analysis enriched by interaction effects is used to estimate the explanatory model.

Keywords

EN

VOTER TURNOUT; SOCIETAL MODERNIZATION THEORY; INSTITUTIONALISM; POST-COMMUNISM; EUROPE

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociológia (Sociology)
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 195 – 228

Contributors

author

Michal Nový

• FSS MU, Joštova 10, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic