Does corruption suppress voter turnout? Dahlberg, Stefan; Solevid, Maria
Journal of elections, public opinion and parties,
10/2016, Letnik:
26, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper investigates to what extent voters' perceptions of political corruption affect turnout. In previous research, two opposing views are put forward with regards to the relationship between ...corruption and turnout. On the one hand, corruption increases turnout because voters either are bought off to participate or because they are mobilized on clean government issues. On the other hand, corruption decreases turnout because presence of corruption corrodes the political system which leads to general cynicism, distrust and voter apathy. In this paper, we contribute to the existing research by adopting a multi-level approach to the relationship between corruption and turnout. We test the hypothesis that voters' perceptions of corruption dampens turnout but that the effect is conditional upon the corruption context. We test our hypothesis by combining individual-level data and country-level data from 26 countries from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and country-level data from the Quality of Government Data Set. The findings show that perceiving corruption negatively affects turnout, but only in countries with low to medium levels of system corruption.
Issues related to electoral integrity and the conduct of elections has gained increased scholarly and societal interest, also in countries with very high levels of electoral integrity. In this paper, ...we study whether there are any socioeconomic inequalities in voters’ waiting time at the polling station. But primarily, we study whether negative experiences of the voting process, with a specific focus on polling station lines, is related to trust in the conduct of elections. We use survey data from the 2022 Swedish National Election Study together register data on individuals’ socioeconomic status, and municipal and election district data. The findings show that there are no socioeconomic differences between voters with shorter or longer waiting time at the polling stations. However, both negative experiences of the visit to the polling station and waiting time at the polling station is associated with lower trust in the conduct of elections.
Previous studies have mainly tried to reduce overreporting to get as valid measures as possible. We take another approach and use items that increase, as well as items that decrease, reported ...participation to gauge the differences resulting from using different item constructions commonly applied in the major surveys. In this experiment, we test an experimental set-up that draws on and develops the designs used by Belli et al. (1999, 2006). We combine three forms of question introductions with two sets of response alternatives resulting in a full factorial design with six treatments in total. We test three different question introductions aiming at: (a) normalizing inactivity, (b) expressing social desirability, and, as a control, (c) give a neutral introduction to the question (neutral in the sense that it neither expresses that political participation is desirable nor aims to normalize inactivity). By comparing these three question introductions, we can test the effects of both trying to increase and decrease social desirability bias on political participation. We also test two different sets of response options: (a) only dichotomous response options (yes/no) and (b) dichotomous response options (yes/no) in combination with face-saving response options ("have done this before," "have not done this but would consider doing it in the future"). Adapted from the source document.
Concepts such as risk aversion and anxiety have received renewed attention in various strands of gender and politics research. Most contemporary scholars suggest that gender gaps in this area are ...related to social norms and stem from social learning rather than from inherent gender traits. Very few, however, elaborate on the gender variable to reach a fuller understanding of the dynamics at work. In this study, we examined gender gaps in levels of anxiety, an area closely related to risk aversion, and we applied a combination of categorical measures of gender distinguishing between “woman, “man,” and “other” and scales capturing grades of femininity and masculinity in individuals. We label this approach
fuzzy gender
, and we suggest that it can be used to advance research in our field. The key finding is an interaction effect between categorical measures of gender and fuzzy gender: The more female characteristics in women, the higher the levels of anxiety. Moreover, there is no difference in levels of anxiety between men and women with few female characteristics. The data used draw from a large-scale survey among Swedish citizens in 2013.
In 2009, Sweden allowed licensed wolf (canis lupus) hunting for the first time in 45 years. After record number of media attention and threat of legal action from the EU, the licenced hunt stopped, ...but protective hunting continued - as did the polarisation in public debate. This article will analyse how the wolf issue relates to the three main cleavage elements and to what extent the elements align. It provides an empirical investigation of the wolf issue, applying the three-step cleavage model on the 2010 Swedish National Election Study data. Our results show, first, that we can identify specific group features among persons with negative wolf attitudes (structural difference); second, that the wolf issue loads (if weakly) at a second non-economic dimension connecting to issues of self-determination and globalisation (attitudinal difference); and third, that this second dimension affects voting for the Greens and the Centre party (institutional difference). However, when controlling for both dimensions in the third step, the wolf issue alone has a lesser impact. Thus, the wolf issue may currently be seen as a so-called position divide, although with a future potential to serve as cleavage catalyst if mobilised in connection with aspects of self-determination and globalisation.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
According to the ‘law of dispersion’, the level of inequality in political participation is higher when voter turnout is low. We empirically test this hypothesis by evaluating levels of voter turnout ...in the 2010 Swedish election to the Västra Götaland county council and in the 2011 re-election for the same county council. The re-election voter turnout was reduced by almost half, from 80.6 per cent to 44.1 per cent. Our results support the law of dispersion: the level of inequality in participation substantially increased between young and old, rich and poor, low and high educated and politically interested and uninterested.
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