Compelled Turnout and Democratic Turnout: Why They Are Different
| Published date | 01 May 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00323217221148038 |
| Author | Chiara Destri |
| Date | 01 May 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217221148038
Political Studies
2024, Vol. 72(2) 805 –822
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00323217221148038
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Compelled Turnout and
Democratic Turnout: Why
They Are Different
Chiara Destri
Abstract
One strategy in defence of compulsory voting is based on what I call the non-instrumental value
of high turnout: the idea that almost-universal participation in elections is valuable per se. This
article argues that we do not have democratic reasons to value compelled turnout. First, thanks
to an original analysis of the practice of voting, I identify three constitutive rules that make the
physical acts of marking and casting a ballot count as proper voting. This preliminary analysis
serves to illuminate the fact that the act of voting has democratic value if it is performed in
a free and reason-responsive way. Second, I identify political equality and popular control as
democratic values that high turnout expresses. Finally, the article rejects the non-instrumental
case for compulsory voting because it cannot ensure that people vote in a reason-responsive way
and, if they do not, high turnout lacks democratic value.
Keywords
democracy, compulsory voting, non-instrumental value, political equality, popular control
Accepted: 12 December 2022
Introduction
As the history of modern democracy has been dominated by struggles for universal suf-
frage, the right to vote is its distinctive feature (Ceva and Ottonelli, 2021) and the most
widely exercised form of participation by citizens (Verba et al., 1995). Yet, voter turnout
has been steeply declining for decades, making electoral participation an unequal busi-
ness in which primarily age, education and income determine who shows up at the voting
booth (Cancela and Geys, 2016; Kostelka and Blais, 2021; Smets and Van Ham, 2013).
This decrease has been less dramatic in countries where voting is mandatory, which has
led various scholars in the past 20 years to advocate for compulsory voting (henceforth
CV) as an effective remedy for the plague of declining turnout (Hill, 2002b, 2006, 2014;
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Corresponding author:
Chiara Destri, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Max-Horkheimer-Straße 2, Frankfurt am Main 60323,
Germany.
Emails: chiara.destri@sciencespo.fr; cdestri@em.uni-frankfurt.de
1148038PSX0010.1177/00323217221148038Political StudiesDestri
research-article2023
Article
806 Political Studies 72(2)
Lijphart, 1997; Birch, 2009; Chapman, 2019; Elliott, 2017; Engelen, 2007; Lacroix,
2007; Umbers, 2020).
Among numerous defences of CV, one strand revolves around high turnout as a demo-
cratic good. Intuitively, if democracy requires that all the people rule, there seems to be
something inherently democratic about having high-turnout elections. Famously, Arend
Lijphart (1997) asserts that ‘the democratic goal should be not just universal suffrage but
universal or near-universal turnout’ (2). Similarly, Lisa Hill (2014: 166) claims that ‘when
turnout is high and socially even, not only are elections more procedurally legitimate, but
the governments they deliver are also more able to be “of the people, by the people, for
the people”’. In her recent article, Emilee Chapman (2019: 103) claims that ‘when char-
acterized by nearly universal participation’, elections ‘command the attention of the gen-
eral public and manifest the equal political authority of all citizens’.
The democratic value of high turnout can be fleshed out either in instrumental or non-
instrumental terms. Instrumentally, high turnout is valuable for what it supports, such as
more egalitarian political outcomes (Bechtel et al., 2016; Birch, 2009; Fowler, 2013;
Lijphart, 1997; cf. Miller and Dassonneville, 2016) and more responsive politicians
(Chapman, 2019; Engelen, 2007; Hill, 2002b). By contrast, a non-instrumental view val-
ues high turnout as a democratic good regardless of its impact on how people vote and
how elected officeholders respond to their votes. These two cases are usually endorsed in
conjunction, but they are different. While advocates often fail to sharply distinguish
between them, that high turnout is relevant regardless of what people vote for is a claim
that some explicitly endorse (Engelen, 2007: 28; Hill, 2002a: 93), as is the idea that high
turnout enhances democratic legitimacy by expressing citizens’ equal and collective
authority (Chapman, 2019: 103–104).1
This article focusses on the non-instrumental case for CV and aims to show that, unless
further qualified, it fails. Critics have already objected that high turnout is not a public
good (Lever, 2009a: 70) and that it is not democratically desirable (Saunders, 2012: 307),
but I do not deny that high turnout may be democratically valuable. I only contest the
assertion that CV is the appropriate way to achieve the kind of high turnout required by
the democratic ideal. In other words, I argue that if we consider the democratic principles
invoked to defend the non-instrumental value of high turnout, we realise that high turnout
is good for democracy only under certain conditions. CV must thus satisfy these condi-
tions if it is to achieve the right kind of high turnout.
The article expands the recent literature on the ethics of voting in three ways.
To my knowledge, it offers the first analysis of voting as a social practice defined by
three constitutive rules.2 Voting is a practice that takes place when (1) a group must make
a collective decision from a slate of options, (2) each member expresses their choice (3)
in a way that influences said decision. While this conceptual analysis may appear trivial,
it helps us rule out what may be considered regular instances of voting that nevertheless
fail to meet these criteria.
Second, this article develops a normative account of democratic voting that defines
two conditions for citizens’ act of voting to have democratic value. Voting is not always
a democratic practice; voters may not be equal or free to vote as they like. I turn to a
fundamental understanding of democracy as collective self-rule (Lafont, 2019) to draw
out two principles that voting, as all other democratic institutions, ought to fulfil: politi-
cal equality and popular sovereignty. These principles not only establish a democratic
institutional framework but also identify how citizens should act within that framework.
As a democratic practice, voting must be performed in a certain way: freely and
reason-responsively.
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