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Why is Turnout Higher in Some Countries than in Others?


2. Turnout and Socio-economic and Geographic Variables

Tables 1A and 1B compare voter turnout with a series of socio-economic and geographic variables. From the outset, we created a special variable for Mali, where the turnout rate of barely 20 percent is unique. There were no other elections with turnout rates of less than 40 percent. Mali is clearly a "deviant" case, and it seemed advisable to treat it as such in our statistical analysis. Appendix D provides information about how to read and interpret the following regression analyses.

2.1 Social and Economic Development

The existing literature (Powell, 1982) suggests that economic development can have major effects on the political involvement of citizens. Economic development promotes the creation and dissemination of socio-economic resources such as access to information and higher education levels and income. Furthermore, economic development transforms the relations among different groups in society, thereby creating a diversity of interests. All of this may well amplify the political involvement of citizens and stimulate voter turnout. In our model, we included the usual indicator of economic development, gross domestic product per capita.3

Literacy rates and life expectancy at birth also seem to be important factors. Political involvement requires certain civic skills (Verba, Schlozman and Brady, 1995) and a certain quality of life (Moon, 1991). We therefore included these two measurements in our analysis.

2.2 Size and Density

Another major factor is the size of the country. According to some authors (Verba and Nie, 1972; Oliver, 2000), attitudes that stimulate voter turnout develop more easily in relatively small political environments where community relations are closer and more direct. We used a population measurement to examine the relationship between the size of the country and voter turnout.

We added another variable, population density. We assumed that, in countries with higher population densities, electors are more concentrated and easier to mobilize (Lipset, 1981).

2.3 Geography

The final factor included at this stage concerns the influence of geography. We assumed that, in some regions, voter turnout tends to be higher or lower because of a similar political culture or environment. We therefore created five variables reflecting each country's location in a particular continent: Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania (with Europe serving as the reference point). We made another major distinction for Eastern Europe because its recent Communist past may have given rise to a particular political culture in this region.4

As shown in Tables 1A and 1B, turnout rates are higher in countries that are smaller in population and economically more developed,5 and lower in North America and Eastern Europe. The two turnout indicators show the same relationships, although they are more significant when the denominator is the number of registered electors, partly because there are more cases.


3 All the socio-economic data are taken from electronic files produced by the World Bank: World Development Indicators, 1999–2001. Washington, DC: Development Data Group, The World Bank.

4 In this study, Eastern Europe included the following countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

5 The two correlations are logarithmic, which means that the greatest difference is between countries with the smallest populations and lowest GDPs per capita and all other countries.

Table 1A – Determinants of Voter Turnout:

Socio-economic and Geographic Factors
Independent Variables Dependent Variable: Turnout by Number of People Registered on the Lists of Electors

 Regression Coefficient

 (Error)

Africa
-3.67
(5.28)
North America
-8.16**
(3.49)
South America
3.11
(4.05)
Asia
0.71
(3.61)
Oceania
5.02
(4.36)
Eastern Europe
-8.08*
(4.12)
Illiteracy
0.13
(0.14)
Life expectancy
-0.48
(0.31)
Population density
0.0003
(0.01)
Population (log)
-3.90***
(1.23)
GDP per capita (log)
14.67**
(6.08)
Mali
-38.60***
(11.63)
Constant
68.73***
(19.23)

Number of cases: 148
Adjusted R2: 0.32
*     significant at 0.10 (two-tailed test)
**   significant at 0.05 (two-tailed test)
*** significant at 0.01 (two-tailed test)




Table 1B – Determinants of Voter Turnout:

Socio-economic and Geographic Factors
Independent Variables Dependent Variable: Turnout Rate by Population of Voting Age

 Regression Coefficient

 (Error)

Africa
-4.62      
(6.74)
North America
-8.51*    
(4.41)
South America
0.07      
(5.04)
Asia
-3.90      
(4.71)
Oceania
8.78      
(5.56)
Eastern Europe
-6.52      
(5.10)
Illiteracy
0.11      
(0.18)
Life expectancy
-0.36      
(0.38)
Population density
0.01      
(0.01)
Population (log)
-3.14*    
(1.62)
GDP per capita (log)
12.33      
(7.63)
Mali
-34.40***
(12.60)
Constant
62.15**  
(24.48)

Number of cases: 108
Adjusted R2: 0.29
*     significant at 0.10 (two-tailed test)
**   significant at 0.05 (two-tailed test)
*** significant at 0.01 (two-tailed test)