How does turnover affect turnout? Government alternation and voter participation in parliamentary democracies

A crucial difference between political systems is the nature of government alternation: that is, whether when a government changes, all parties now in government were previously in opposition (‘wholesale alternation’) or whether just some parties were (‘partial alternation’) (Mair 1997). Bergman and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electoral studies 2019-06, Vol.59, p.49-63
Main Authors: Otjes, Simon, Willumsen, David M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accountability
Disproportionality
Government alternation
Participation
Political parties
Political systems
Turnout
Voter turnout
Voters
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Summary:A crucial difference between political systems is the nature of government alternation: that is, whether when a government changes, all parties now in government were previously in opposition (‘wholesale alternation’) or whether just some parties were (‘partial alternation’) (Mair 1997). Bergman and Strøm (2011) suggest that wholesale alternation gives voters a clear choice between alternative governments and allows them to hold the government accountable, while partial alternation is associated with one (centre) party becoming a (near-) permanent government party who can govern with either the parties to its right or to its left. However, this relationship has not been tested. We propose to examine the effect of partial and wholesale alternation on turn-out in a large-N cross-country study, showing that there is an interaction effect between disproportionality and wholesale turn-out. Wholesale decreases turn-out but only when it when disproportionality is high.
ISSN:0261-3794
1873-6890
DOI:10.1016/j.electstud.2019.02.008