Turnout twist : higher voter turnout in lower-level elections

American and European political scientists have claimed that subnational elections record lower voter turnout than national elections in most democracies. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, Japanese municipal elections often record considerably higher voter turnout than national elections, particularly in small towns and villages. Why is Japan different from most other democracies? Is Japan the only exception? What explains such exceptionally high local turnout in rural Japan? Under what conditions do lower-level elections produce higher voter turnout? By examining these questions, this dissertation aims to improve our understanding of incentives affecting electoral participation both at national and subnational levels. First, I show that Japan is not the only exception. There are some other important cases of higher voter turnout in lower-level elections, which I define as the "turnout twist" phenomenon. They can be found in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, India, Italy, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Switzerland. Second, I hypothesize that relative voter turnout in subnational vs. national elections is determined by the relative magnitudes of how much is at stake and how much votes count ("vote significance") in these elections. In lower-level elections, electoral outcomes may less significantly affect public policies, but citizens may be able to affect the electoral outcomes more significantly by voting. Therefore, if the effect of vote significance outweighs the effect of stake, "turnout twist" is a logically possible consequence.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Political Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Horiuchi, Yusaku, 1968-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen Ansolabehere.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8240