Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T16:33:07.642Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How to Increase Turnout in Low-Salience Elections: Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Concurrent Second-Order Elections on Political Participation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Arndt Leininger ,
Lukas Rudolph  and
Steffen Zittlau
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Voter turnout in second-order elections is on a dramatic decline in many modern democracies. This article investigates how electoral participation can be substantially increased by holding multiple of these less important elections simultaneously. Leading to a relative decrease in voting costs, concurrent elections theoretically have economies of scale to the individual voter and thus should see turnout levels larger than those obtained in any stand-alone election. Leveraging as-if-random variation of local election timing in Germany, we estimate the causal effect of concurrent mayoral elections on European election turnout at around 10 percentage points. Exploiting variation in treatment intensity, we show that the magnitude of the concurrency effect is contingent upon district size and the competitiveness of the local race.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 509 - 526
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Arndt Leininger, Research Fellow, University of Mainz ([email protected]). Lukas Rudolph, Research Fellow, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich) ([email protected]). Steffen Zittlau, Research Fellow, University of Mannheim ([email protected]). Tarik Abou-Chadi, Felix Arnold, Christopher Gandrud, Thomas Gschwend, Daniel Stegmüller, Markus Tepe, Natascha Neudorfer, Paul W. Thurner, Robert Schmidt, Christian Traxler, panel participants at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Electoral Studies Working Group of the German Political Science Association, as well as colloquium participants at the Geschwister Scholl Institute of Political Science, LMU Munich, the University of Mannheim, the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin and the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences provided very helpful comments and suggestions. The authors thank the Office of the Elections Administrator in Lower Saxony, the Ministry of the Interior, Lower Saxony (especially Gerhard Fischer and Hiltrud Scheferling) as well as the Statistical Office of Lower Saxony (especially Michael Kölbl and Ralf Martins) for providing data and background on election timing in Lower Saxony. Lukas Rudolph acknowledges a research scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. All remaining errors are the authors’ own. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2016.38

References

Aldrich, John H. 1993. ‘Rational Choice and Turnout’. American Journal of Political Science 37 (1):246–278.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joschua D. and Pischke, Jörn-Steffen. 2009. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Armbrust, Peter. 2007. Einführung in das niedersächsische Kommunalrecht, vol. 5, Hamburg: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Arnold, Felix. 2015. ‘Turnout and Closeness: Evidence from 60 Years of Bavarian Mayoral Elections’. DIW Berlin Discussion papers no. 1462.Google Scholar
Artés, Joaquín. 2014. ‘The Rain in Spain: Turnout and Partisan Voting in Spanish Elections’. European Journal of Political Economy 34:126–141.Google Scholar
Basu, Debabrata, and Rubin, Donald B.. 1980. ‘Randomization Analysis of Experimental Data: The Fisher Randomization Test’. Journal of the American Statistical Association 75(371):575–582.Google Scholar
Bechtel, Michael M., Hangartner, Dominik, and Schmid, Lukas. 2015. ‘Does Compulsory Voting Increase Support for Leftist Policy?’. American Journal of Political Science 60(3):752–767.Google Scholar
Börgers, Tilman. 2004. ‘Costly Voting’. American Economic Review 94(1):57–66.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard W. 1989. ‘The Effects of Primaries and Statewide Races on Voter Turnout’. The Journal of Politics 51(3):730–739.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Munger, Michael C.. 1989. ‘Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1982 U.S. House Elections’. The American Political Science Review 83(1):217–231.Google Scholar
Detjen, Joachim. 2000. Demokratie in der Gemeinde: Bürgerbeteiligung an der Kommunalpolitik in Niedersachsen. Hannover: Niedersächsische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung.Google Scholar
Dhillon, Amrita, and Peralta, Susana. 2002. ‘Economic Theories of Voter Turnout’. Economic Journal 112(480):F332–F352.Google Scholar
Endersby, James W., Galatas, Steven E., and Rackaway, Chapman B.. 2002. ‘Closeness Counts in Canada: Voter Participation in the 1993 and 1997 Federal Elections’. The Journal of Politics 64(2):610–631.Google Scholar
Fauvelle-Aymar, Christine, and François, Abel. 2015. ‘Mobilization, Cost of Voting and Turnout: A Natural Randomized Experiment with Double Elections’. Public Choice 162(1):183–199.Google Scholar
Ferrara, Federico, Herron, Erik S., and Nishikawa, Misa. 2005. Mixed Electoral Systems. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ferwerda, Jeremy. 2014. ‘Electoral Consequences of Declining Participation: A Natural Experiment in Austria’. Electoral Studies 35:242–252.Google Scholar
Finseraas, Henning, and Vernby, Kåre. 2014. ‘A Mixed Blessing for the Left? Early Voting, Turnout and Election Outcomes in Norway’. Electoral Studies 33:278–291.Google Scholar
Fowler, Anthony. 2015. ‘Regular Voters, Marginal Voters and the Electoral Effects of Turnout’. Political Science Research and Methods 3(2):205–219.Google Scholar
Garmann, Sebastian. 2014. ‘A Note on Electoral Competition and Turnout in Run-Off Electoral Systems: Taking Into Account Both Endogeneity and Attenuation Bias’. Electoral Studies 34:261–265.Google Scholar
Geys, Benny. 2006. ‘Explaining Voter Turnout: A Review of Aggregate-Level Research’. Electoral Studies 25(4):637–663.Google Scholar
Haspel, Moshe, and Knotts, H. Gibbs. 2005. ‘Location, Location, Location: Precinct Placement and the Costs of Voting’. The Journal of Politics 67(2):560–573.Google Scholar
Herron, Erik S., and Nishikawa, Misa. 2000. ‘Contamination Effects and the Number of Parties in Mixed-Superposition Electoral Systems’. Electoral Studies 20(1):63–86.Google Scholar
Hershey, Marjorie Randon. 2009. ‘What We Know About Voter-ID Laws, Registration, and Turnout’. PS: Political Science & Politics 42(1):87–91.Google Scholar
Hodler, Roland, Luechinger, Simon, and Stutzer, Alois. 2015. ‘The Effects of Voting Costs on the Democratic Process and Public Finances’. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7(1):141–171.Google Scholar
Imbens, Guido W., and Rubin, Donald R.. 2014. Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Indridason, Indridi H. 2008. ‘Competition & Turnout: The Majority Run-Off as a Natural Experiment’. Electoral Studies 27(4):699–710.Google Scholar
Ipsen, Jörn. 2011. Niedersächsisches Kommunalrecht. Stuttgart; Munich: Boorberg.Google Scholar
Kayser, Mark Andreas. 2005. ‘Who Surfs, Who Manipulates? The Determinants of Opportunistic Election Timing and Electorally Motivated Economic Intervention’. The American Political Science Review 99(1):17–27.Google Scholar
Kirchgässner, Gebhard, and Meyer zu Himmern, Anne. 1995. ‘Expected Closeness and Turnout: An Empirical Analysis for Germany’. International Advances in Economic Research 1(3):314.Google Scholar
Krishna, Vijay, and Morgan, John. 2011. ‘Overcoming Ideological Bias in Elections’. The Journal of Political Economy 119(2):183–211.Google Scholar
Lechner, Michael. 2011. ‘The Estimation of Causal Effects by Difference-in-Difference Methods’. Foundations and Trends in Econometrics 4(3):165–224.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1997. ‘Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma’. The American Political Science Review 91(1):1–14.Google Scholar
Lupia, Arthur, and Strom, Kaare. 1995. ‘Coalition Termination and the Strategic Timing of Parliamentary Elections’. The American Political Science Review 89(3):648–665.Google Scholar
Lutz, Georg, and Marsh, Michael. 2007. ‘Introduction: Consequences of Low Turnout’. Electoral Studies 26(3):539–547.Google Scholar
Mattila, Mikko. 2003. ‘Why Bother? Determinants of Turnout in the European Elections’. Electoral Studies 22(3):449–468.Google Scholar
Meredith, Marc. 2009. ‘The Strategic Timing of Direct Democracy’. Economics and Politics 21(1):159–177.Google Scholar
Rallings, Colin, and Thrasher, Michael. 2005. ‘Not All “Second-Order” Contests are the Same: Turnout and Party Choice at the Concurrent 2004 Local and European Parliament Elections in England’. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7(4):584–597.Google Scholar
Rallings, Colin, Thrasher, Michael, and Borisyuk, G.. 2003. ‘Seasonal Factors, Voter Fatigue and the Costs of Voting’. Electoral Studies 22(1):65–79.Google Scholar
Reif, Karlheinz. 1997. ‘European Elections as Member State Second-Order Elections Revisited’. European Journal of Political Research 31:115–124.Google Scholar
Reif, Karlheinz, and Schmitt, Hermann. 1980. ‘Nine Second-Order National Elections – A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results’. European Journal of Political Research 8(1):3–44.Google Scholar
Riker, William H., and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1968. ‘A Theory of the Calculus of Voting’. American Political Science Review 62(1):25–42.Google Scholar
Rubin, Donald B. 1974. ‘Estimating Causal Effects of Treatments in Randomized and Nonrandomized Studies’. Journal of Educational Psychology 66(5):688–701.Google Scholar
Schakel, Arjan H., and Dandoy, Régis. 2014. ‘Electoral Cycles and Turnout in Multilevel Electoral Systems’. West European Politics 37(3):605–623.Google Scholar
Schmid, Lukas. 2015. ‘Concurrent Elections, the Calculus of Voting, and Political Decisions’. Working Paper, http://www.lukasschmid.net/s/concurrent_refs23.pdfGoogle Scholar
Shachar, Ron, and Nalebuff, Barry. 1999. ‘Follow the Leader: Theory and Evidence on Political Participation’. The American Economic Review 89(3):525–547.Google Scholar
Singh, Shane P. 2015. ‘Compulsory Voting and the Turnout Decision Calculus’. Political Studies 63(3):548–568.Google Scholar
Smith, Alastair. 2003. ‘Election Timing in Majoritarian Parliaments’. British Journal of Political Science 33(3):397–418.Google Scholar
STK. 2013. ‘Kommunale Vertretungen und Hauptverwaltungsbeamte sollen künftig synchron gewählt werden – erste „neue“ Wahlen im Herbst 2014’. Available at http://www.stk.niedersachsen.de/aktuelles/presseinformationen/kommunale-vertretungen-undhauptverwaltungsbeamte-sollen-kuenftig-synchron-gewaehlt-werden--erste-neue-wahlen-im-herbst-2014-118124.html, accessed 19 September 2016.Google Scholar
VanderWeele, Tyler J., and Hernán, Miguel A.. 2013. ‘Causal Inference Under Multiple Versions of Treatment’. Journal of Causal Inference 1(1):1–20.Google Scholar
Vetter, Angelika. 2015. ‘Just a Matter of Timing? Local Electoral Turnout in Germany in the Context of National and European Parliamentary Elections’. German Politics 24(1):67–84.Google Scholar
Wong, Janelle S. 2000. ‘The Effects of Age and Political Exposure on the Development of Party Identification Among Asian American and Latino Immigrants in the United States’. Political Behavior 22(4):341–371.Google Scholar
Wright, James D., Verba, Sidney, and Nie, Norma H.. 1975. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper Row.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Leininger supplementary material

Appendix

Download Leininger supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 461.4 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Leininger et al. Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/TJTZT2
Link