IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v2y2001i3p309-328.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Structural Factors Cause Turnout Variations at European Parliament Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Mark N. Franklin

    (Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA, and University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)

Abstract

The June 1999 elections to the European Parliament were the fourth to show lower turnout, suggesting to some a decline in support for the European project. This paper shows, however, that turnout decline has been built into the EC/EU enlargement process. In the first EP elections, voting was compulsory in 40% of participating countries; but no more compulsory voting countries have joined the EC/EU, so the effects of this variable have become increasingly diluted. An even more important factor has been the boost to turnout that new member countries generally enjoy at their first EP election. The loss of this boost in subsequent elections joins with the declining proportion of compulsory voting countries to explain virtually all the decline in turnout at EP elections since 1979. This finding emphasizes the importance of keeping track of the changing composition of the entity being studied when trying to understand electoral change.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark N. Franklin, 2001. "How Structural Factors Cause Turnout Variations at European Parliament Elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 2(3), pages 309-328, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:2:y:2001:i:3:p:309-328
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116501002003003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116501002003003
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116501002003003?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. Beck, Nathaniel & Katz, Jonathan N., 1995. "What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(3), pages 634-647, September.
    2. Jackman, Robert W., 1987. "Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(2), pages 405-423, June.
    3. Franklin, Mark N., 1999. "Electoral Engineering and Cross-National Turnout Differences: What Role for Compulsory Voting?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 205-216, January.
    4. Powell, G. Bingham, 1986. "American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 17-43, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:gig:joupla:v:1:y:2009:i:1:p:97-122 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Cigdem Kentmen-Cin, 2017. "What about Ambivalence and Indifference? Rethinking the Effects of European Attitudes on Voter Turnout in European Parliament Elections," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(6), pages 1343-1359, November.
    3. Hermann Schmitt & Ilke Toygür, 2016. "European Parliament Elections of May 2014: Driven by National Politics or EU Policy Making?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(1), pages 167-181.

    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. Danny Hayes & Seth C. McKee, 2009. "The Participatory Effects of Redistricting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 1006-1023, October.
    2. repec:gig:joupla:v:1:y:2009:i:1:p:97-122 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Adalbert Abraham Ghislain Melingui Bate, 2020. "The effect of education on voter's turnout in african presidential elections," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1607-1622.
    4. Mijeong Baek, 2009. "A Comparative Analysis of Political Communication Systems and Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 376-393, April.
    5. Benny Geys & Bruno Heyndels, 2006. "Disentangling The Effects Of Political Fragmentation On Voter Turnout: The Flemish Municipal Elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 367-387, November.
    6. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September.
    7. Herrera, Helios & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & McMurray, Joseph C., 2019. "Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    8. Daniel Stockemer, 2017. "Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 943-962, September.
    9. Helios Herrera & Massimo Morelli & Salvatore Nunnari, 2016. "Turnout Across Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(3), pages 607-624, July.
    10. Alber, Jens & Kohler, Ulrich, 2008. "The inequality of electoral participation in Europe and America and the politically integrative functions of the welfare state," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2008-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    11. Vincent Mahler, 2002. "Exploring the Subnational Dimension of Income Inequality: An Analysis of the Relationship between Inequality and Electoral Turnout in the Developed Countries," LIS Working papers 292, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Martins, Rodrigo & Veiga, Francisco José, 2014. "Does voter turnout affect the votes for the incumbent government?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 274-286.
    13. Gäbler, Stefanie & Potrafke, Niklas & Rösel, Felix, 2017. "Compulsory Voting, Voter Turnout and Asymmetrical Habit-formation," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168074, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Alberto Melo, 2003. "Colombia: Los problemas de competitividad de un país en conflicto," Research Department Publications 1002, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    15. Alejandro Corvalan, 2011. "Institutional Design aganist Electoral Participation: the case of Chile," Working Papers 32, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad Diego Portales.
    16. Gaebler, Stefanie & Potrafke, Niklas & Roesel, Felix, 2020. "Compulsory voting and political participation: Empirical evidence from Austria," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    17. Rodrigo Martins & Francisco Veiga, 2013. "Economic performance and turnout at national and local elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 429-448, December.
    18. Roger Congleton & Feler Bose, 2010. "The rise of the modern welfare state, ideology, institutions and income security: analysis and evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 535-555, September.
    19. Jaitman, Laura, 2013. "The causal effect of compulsory voting laws on turnout: Does skill matter?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 79-93.
    20. David Jesuit, 2002. "Regional Economic Distress and Political Participation in National and European Parliamentary Elections in Western Europe," LIS Working papers 281, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    21. Rauh, Christopher, 2017. "Voting, education, and the Great Gatsby Curve," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1-14.

    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:2:y:2001:i:3:p:309-328. 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.