Democratization Boost or Bust? Electoral Turnout After Democratic Transitions

How do democratization processes affect voter turnout in new democracies? Existing work points to an expected boost in electoral turnout after democratization as newly democratic citizens are euphoric to exert newly democratic freedoms or because they developed new political attitudes and behaviours...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Comparative political studies 2024-09, Vol.57 (10), p.1735-1766
Main Author: Olar, Roman-Gabriel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CSES
Democracy
Democratization
Demokratie
Eurobarometer 1979-1995
ISSP 2002-2013
National elections
Political attitudes
Politikwissenschaft
politische Kultur
politische Soziologie
politische Willensbildung
Respondents
Voter turnout
Voters
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:How do democratization processes affect voter turnout in new democracies? Existing work points to an expected boost in electoral turnout after democratization as newly democratic citizens are euphoric to exert newly democratic freedoms or because they developed new political attitudes and behaviours by mobilizing for democracy. While intuitive and normatively appealing, these explanations have not been theoretically nor empirically scrutinized within the literature. This paper develops and tests novel theoretical expectations on the processes and legacies of democratization that impact voter turnout in new democracies. Using electoral turnout data from 1086 national elections between 1946 and 2015, and turnout survey data of over 1 million respondents between 1982 and 2015, we find that the boost in voter turnout (1) exists only for the first election after transition, (2) its effect depends on the life cycle during which individuals experienced the transition and (3) it is less dependent on transition type.
ISSN:0010-4140
1552-3829
DOI:10.1177/00104140231194922