IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v22y2021i3p545-565.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disengaging elections? Political interest, number of elections, and turnout in elections to the European Parliament

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffrey Nonnemacher

Abstract

Since direct elections to the European Parliament began in 1979, variations in voting behavior in European Parliament elections from national elections have raised interesting questions about political behavior. I add to a growing literature that explores turnout in European Parliament elections by focusing on the count of national elections between European Parliament elections. Through a cross-national study of elections, I find that turnout decreases in the European Parliament contest following cycles with numerous national contests. Then, using data from the European Election Study, I argue that this is the result of frequent elections decreasing turnout particularly among already low interest voters who stay home. My findings have implications for how formal rules of multi-level elections shape political behavior more generally and voter fatigue in particular.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey Nonnemacher, 2021. "Disengaging elections? Political interest, number of elections, and turnout in elections to the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 22(3), pages 545-565, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:22:y:2021:i:3:p:545-565
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116521998455
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116521998455
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116521998455?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valentino Larcinese, 2009. "Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence From Britain," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 237-276, April.
    2. Hobolt, Sara B. & Spoon, Jae-Jae & Tilley, James, 2009. "A Vote Against Europe? Explaining Defection at the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 93-115, January.
    3. Garmann, Sebastian, 2017. "Election frequency, choice fatigue, and voter turnout," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 19-35.
    4. Hermann Schmitt & Alberto Sanz & Daniela Braun & Eftichia Teperoglou, 2020. "It All Happens at Once: Understanding Electoral Behaviour in Second-Order Elections," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 6-18.
    5. Andrew B. Whitford & Jeff Yates & Holona L. Ochs, 2006. "Ideological Extremism and Public Participation," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(1), pages 36-54, March.
    6. Denny, Kevin & Doyle, Orla, 2008. "Political Interest, Cognitive Ability and Personality: Determinants of Voter Turnout in Britain," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 291-310, April.
    7. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Mary Stegmaier, 2006. "European parliament electoral turnout in Post-Communist Europe," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques j06004, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    8. Esben Hogh & Martin Vinæs Larsen, 2016. "Can Information Increase Turnout in European Parliament Elections? Evidence from a Quasi-experiment in Denmark," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(6), pages 1495-1508, November.
    9. Lijphart, Arend, 1997. "Unequal Participation: Democracy's Unresolved Dilemma Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1996," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-14, March.
    10. Garmann, Sebastian, 2016. "Concurrent elections and turnout: Causal estimates from a German quasi-experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 167-178.
    11. Hainmueller, Jens & Mummolo, Jonathan & Xu, Yiqing, 2019. "How Much Should We Trust Estimates from Multiplicative Interaction Models? Simple Tools to Improve Empirical Practice," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 163-192, April.
    12. Marsh, Michael, 1998. "Testing the Second-Order Election Model after Four European Elections," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 591-607, October.
    13. Brady, Henry E. & Verba, Sidney & Schlozman, Kay Lehman, 1995. "Beyond SES: A Resource Model of Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(2), pages 271-294, June.
    14. Arceneaux, Kevin, 2006. "Do Campaigns Help Voters Learn? A Cross-National Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 159-173, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Hajo G. Boomgaarden & David Johann & Sylvia Kritzinger, 2016. "Voting at National versus European Elections: An Individual Level Test of the Second Order Paradigm for the 2014 European Parliament Elections," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 130-144.
    3. Bernt Bratsberg & Andreas Kotsadam & Jo Thori Lind & Halvor Mehlum & Oddbjørn Raaum, 2019. "Election Turnout Inequality - Insights from Administrative Registers," CESifo Working Paper Series 7465, CESifo.
    4. R. Urbatsch, 2012. "The paradox of voting intelligently," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 511-524, March.
    5. Stefano Camatarri & Francesco Zucchini, 2019. "Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 425-446, September.
    6. Jörg Dollmann, 2022. "The Political Integration of Immigrants: How Pre- and Postmigration Contexts Matter," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1091-1125, September.
    7. Rene Lindstadt, Jonathan B. Slapin & Ryan J. Vander Wielen, 2009. "Balancing Competing Demands: Position-Taking and Election Proximity in the European Parliament," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp295, IIIS.
    8. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Share," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-10, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    9. Ronconi, Lucas, 2019. "From Citizen's Rights to Civic Responsibilities," IZA Discussion Papers 12457, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Christopher Prosser, 2016. "Second order electoral rules and national party systems: The Duvergerian effects of European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 366-386, September.
    11. Kevin Denny & Patrick Orla Doyle, 2005. "Political Interest, Cognitive Ability and Personality - Determinants of Voter Turnout in Britain," Working Papers 200511, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    12. David Dreyer Lassen, 2005. "The Effect of Information on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 103-118, January.
    13. Geeyoung Hong, 2015. "Explaining vote switching to niche parties in the 2009 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(4), pages 514-535, December.
    14. Joost van Spanje & Claes de Vreese, 2011. "So what’s wrong with the EU? Motivations underlying the Eurosceptic vote in the 2009 European elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 405-429, September.
    15. Nadia Fiorino & Nicola Pontarollo & Roberto Ricciuti, 2017. "Supra National, National and Regional Dimensions of Voter Turnout in European Parliament Elections," JRC Research Reports JRC108755, Joint Research Centre.
    16. Ondrej Kuba & Jan Stejskal, 2021. "Economic and Political Consequences of the Compulsory Voting in Public Parliamentary Elections: Czech Case Study," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-15, April.
    17. Deniz Guvercin, 2019. "Going to the Polls or Feeding Children? An Empirical Investigation of Voter Turnout among Turkish Women with Children at Home," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 1-16.
    18. Nicholas Clark, 2015. "The Federalist Perspective in Elections to the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 524-541, May.
    19. André Schmidt, 2017. "Determinants of Corporate Voting – Evidence from a Large Survey of German Retail Investors," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 18(1), pages 71-103, February.
    20. David Jesuit, 2003. "The Regional Dynamics of European Electoral Politics," European Union Politics, , vol. 4(2), pages 139-164, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:22:y:2021:i:3:p:545-565. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.