Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-9b74x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-09T07:28:23.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A General Model of Abstention Under Compulsory Voting*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2016

Gabriel Katz  and
Ines Levin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Invalid voting and absenteeism are alternative sources of abstention under compulsory voting. Previous research failed to systematically study the mechanisms behind each form of non-voting and the relationships between them. We develop an analytical framework and an empirical strategy to jointly examine invalid voting and absenteeism in Brazil, the world’s largest democracy with mandatory voting. Using Bayesian inferential methods and analyzing both individual and district-level data, we show that less educated and politically knowledgeable citizens are less likely to vote and, when they do, they are typically unable to successfully complete their ballot. Unlike absenteeism, invalid voting also has a political dimension reflecting voters’ disenchantment with elections and democratic performance. Both sources of abstention coexist and, together, undermine electoral participation.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 489 - 508
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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Gabriel Katz is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4QJ (G.Katz@exeter.ac.uk). Ines Levin is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine, 3151 Social Science Plaza B, Irvine, CA 92697 (i.levin@uci.edu). The authors gratefully acknowledge the editor’s and reviewers’ helpful suggestions, and thank Timothy Power for sharing his data set on Brazilian elections. Katz’ contribution was partly supported by a British Academy grant (Skills Innovator Awards 2015–2016). To view supplementary material for this article, please visit https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2016.49

References

Aitchison, John. 1986. The Statistical Analysis of Compositional Data. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Austin, Peter. 2010. ‘Estimating Multilevel Logistic Regression Models When the Number of Clusters is Low: A Comparison of Different Statistical Software Procedures’. International Journal of Biostatistics 6(1):1–20.Google Scholar
Birch, Sarah. 2009. Full Participation—A Comparative Study of Compulsory Voting . Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Brazilian Electoral Commission. 2015. ‘Repositório de Dados Eleitorais’. Available at http://www.tse.jus.br/eleicoes/estatisticas/repositorio-de-dados-eleitorais, accessed 20 July 2015.Google Scholar
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. 2003. Estatísticas do Século XX. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE.Google Scholar
Congdon, Peter. 2005. Bayesian Models for Categorical Data. Chichester: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Datafolha. 2014. ‘Rejeição a voto obrigatório atinge 61% e alcança taxa recorde entre brasileiros’. Available at http://datafolha.folha.uol.com.br/eleicoes/2014/05/1453158-rejeicao-a-voto-obrigatorio-atinge-61-e-alcanca-taxa-recorde-entre-brasileiros.shtml, accessed 7 January 2016.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Figueiredo, Marcus. 1990. O Voto Obrigatório (Comportamento Do Eleitor Brasileiro). CEM Anos De Eleições Presidenciais . Sao Paulo: IDESP.Google Scholar
Franklin, Mark. 2004. Voter Turnout and the Dynamics of Electoral Competition in Established Democracies Since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew. 2006. ‘Prior Distributions for Variance Parameters in Hierarchical Models’. Bayesian Analysis 1(3):515–533.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and Hill, Jennifer. 2007. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Ben, and Ruthrauff, Holly. 2013. Implementing and Overseeing Electronic Voting and Counting Technologies. Washington, DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.Google Scholar
Gray, Mark, and Caul, Miki. 2000. ‘Declining Voter Turnout in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997: The Effects of Declining Group Mobilization’. Comparative Political Studies 33(9):1091–1122.Google Scholar
Hirczy, Wolfgang. 1994. ‘The Impact of Mandatory Voting Laws on Turnout: A Quasi-Experimental Approach’. Electoral Studies 13(1):64–76.Google Scholar
Katz, Gabriel, Alvarez, R. Michael, Calvo, Ernesto, Escolar, Marcelo, and Pomares, Julia. 2011. ‘Assessing the Impact of Alternative Voting Technologies on Multi-Party Elections: Design Features, Heuristic Processing and Voter Choice’. Political Behavior 33(2):247–270.Google Scholar
Katz, Jonathan, and Katz, Gabriel. 2010. ‘Correcting for Survey Misreports Using Auxiliary Information with an Application to Estimating Turnout’. American Journal of Political Science 54(3):815–835.Google Scholar
Katz, Jonathan, and King, Gary. 1999. ‘A Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data’. American Political Science Review 93(1):15–32.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1997. ‘Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma’. American Political Science Review 91(1):1–14.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa. 2011. Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Panagopoulos, Costas. 2008. ‘The Calculus of Voting in Compulsory Voting Systems’. Political Behavior 30(4):455–467.Google Scholar
Power, Timothy. 2009. ‘Compulsory for Whom? Mandatory Voting and Electoral Participation in Brazil, 1986–2006’. Journal of Politics in Latin America 1(1):97–122.Google Scholar
Power, Timothy, and Garand, James. 2007. ‘Determinants of Invalid Voting in Latin America’. Electoral Studies 26(2):432–444.Google Scholar
Power, Timothy, and Roberts, Timmons. 1995. ‘Compulsory Voting, Invalid Ballots, and Abstention in Brazil’. Political Research Quarterly 48(4):795–826.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
Singer, Andre. 2012. Os Sentidos do Lulismo: Reforma Gradual e Pacto Conservador. Sao Paulo: Companhia das Letras.Google Scholar
Thum, Yeow M. 1997. ‘Hierarchical Linear Models for Multivariate Outcomes’. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics 22(1):77–108.Google Scholar
Tillman, Erik R. 2008. ‘Economic Judgments, Party Choice, and Voter Abstention in Cross-National Perspective’. Comparative Political Studies 41(9):1290–1309.Google Scholar
Uggla, Fredrik. 2008. ‘Incompetence, Alienation, or Calculation: Explaining Levels of Invalid and Extra-Parliamentary Votes’. Comparative Political Studies 41(8):1141–1164.Google Scholar
UK Electoral Commission. 2006. Compulsory Voting Around the World. London: The Electoral Commission.Google Scholar
Vowles, Jack, Katz, Gabriel, and Stevens, Daniel. 2016. ‘Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections, 1964–2010’. Political Science Research and Methods (forthcoming). https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2015.67Google Scholar
Wakefield, Jon. 2004. ‘Ecological Inference for 2×2 Tables’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 167(3):385–444.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Katz and Levin Dataset

Dataset

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/BZ5BLZ
Link
Supplementary material: File

Katz and Levin supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Katz and Levin supplementary material(File)
File 528.2 KB