Core and Peripheral Voters: Predictors of Turnout Across Three Types of Elections
| Author | Yosef Bhatti,Kasper M Hansen,Jens Olav Dahlgaard,Jonas Hedegaard Hansen |
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321718766246 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
766246PCX0010.1177/0032321718766246Political StudiesBhatti et al.
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Political Studies
2019, Vol. 67(2) 348 –366
Core and Peripheral Voters:
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Predictors of Turnout Across
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321718766246
DOI: 10.1177/0032321718766246
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Three Types of Elections
Yosef Bhatti1, Jens Olav Dahlgaard2,
Jonas Hedegaard Hansen3 and
Kasper M Hansen3
Abstract
Citizens who abstain from voting in consecutive elections and inequality in turnout in democratic
elections constitute a challenge to the legitimacy of democracy. Applying the law of dispersion,
which stipulates higher levels of turnout and higher levels of equality in turnout are positively
related, we study turnout patterns across different types of elections in Denmark, a high-turnout
European context. Across three different elections with turnout rates from 56.3% to 85.9%, we
use a rich, nationwide panel dataset of 2.1 million citizens with validated turnout and high-quality
sociodemographic variables. A total of 9% of the citizens are abstainers in the three consecutive
elections, and these are disproportionately male, of non-Western ethnic background, with little
education, and with low income. The law of dispersion finds support as inequalities in turnout
increase when turnout decreases and vice versa. Furthermore, municipalities with lower turnout
have higher inequalities in participation than high-turnout municipalities in local elections.
Keywords
voter turnout, participation, law of dispersion, inequality
Accepted: 1 March 2018
When the projected turnout for the European Parliament election in 2014 was announced
to be 43.1%, a small increase from 43% in 2009, the liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt said,
“The European Parliament will be more representative than the previous one” (Euractiv,
2014). While the final vote count showed that turnout was, in fact, 42.6%, a small decline
from 2009, Mr Verhofstadt’s focus on representativeness is in line with concerns expressed
by many European leaders. Not only political leaders have this focus. Indeed, studying
1VIVE – The Danish Center for Social Science Research, Copenhagen, Denmark
2Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
3Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Corresponding author:
Kasper M Hansen, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Email: kmh@ifs.ku.dk
Bhatti et al.
349
inequalities in political participation, and particularly voter turnout, remains a central
topic in political science. Participatory equality is often mentioned as a core democratic
ideal (Lijphart, 1997; Wolfinger and Rosenstone, 1980). If some groups disproportion-
ately abstain from voting, it may have important consequences for democracy. These
groups will have less influence on who is elected and become underrepresented by legis-
lators (Griffin and Newman, 2005; Leighley and Nagler, 2013; Martin, 2003) and, as a
consequence, they might identify less with their representatives and mistrust them more
(Mansbridge, 1999).
Aggregate turnout varies substantially across different types of elections. European
countries experience higher turnout rates in national elections than in local and European
elections (Blais, 2000: 37; International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
(IDEA), 2016; Morlan, 1984; Reif and Schmitt, 1980). Strong variation across elections
is not unique to Europe. In the United States, turnout surges for presidential elections and
declines when midterm elections take place (Campbell, 1987; McDonald, 2016). While
turnout studies often examine differences between voters and abstainers in individual
elections (e.g. Sigelman et al., 1985: 749), only little empirical attention has been given
to the variation in the predictors of voting across elections (e.g. Nawara, 2016; Persson et
al., 2013). Do the same sociodemographic factors explain the variation in turnout when
turnout is 43% as when turnout is 65% (i.e. the national election turnout average among
European Union (EU) member states in 2014; IDEA, 2016) and with the same strength?
We use validated turnout and register data for more than 2 million citizens who were all
eligible to vote in three Danish elections at, respectively, the local, European, and national
levels from 2013 to 2015. In the three elections, turnout ranged from 56.3% to 85.9%.
The turnout data from the elections are merged with administrative data at the individual
level, which contains hundreds of highly reliable sociodemographic variables. This
allows us to analyze the predictors of cumulative voting, the total number of votes cast in
a number of consecutive elections, in a high-turnout context and the potential differential
drop-off of voters across different types of elections. As we rely on a large administrative,
individual-level dataset with validated turnout and reliable covariates in different types of
elections, we overcome well-known problems of self-reported voting and small survey
samples which have characterized much of the previous literature (Bernstein et al., 2001;
Dahlgaard et al., 2018; Karp and Brockington, 2005; Smets and Van Ham, 2013).
Studies that examine multiple elections often look at cumulative turnout based on citi-
zens’ history of voting in one type of election (Ansolabehere and Schaffner, 2016;
Campbell, 1960; Sciarini et al., 2015; Sigelman et al., 1985; Sigelman and Jewell, 1986).
In the first part of our analysis, we look at cumulative turnout across three consecutive
elections and thus move beyond the vote/not vote variable in a single election.
Consequently, we will learn about those who selectively vote in some elections and not in
others. We also learn about the abstainers who seem permanently disconnected from the
elections under investigation.
To understand these inequalities in turnout further, we apply the law of dispersion,
which states that higher general levels of turnout come with higher levels of equality in
political participation (Lijphart, 1997; Tingsten, 1937). We take the analysis one step
further and investigate explicitly the variation in turnout inequalities across different
types of elections. Despite the prominence of the law of dispersion, only few studies have
empirically investigated it, and recent empirical contributions show mixed results as
Persson et al. (2013) find overall support for the law of dispersion, while Sinnott and
Achen (2008) find no support regarding social class and the law of dispersion. Across the
350
Political Studies 67(2)
three types of elections, we explore whether the difference in turnout between different
sociodemographic groups increases when fewer turn out to vote.
We find substantial inequalities in cumulative turnout. Across the three elections, 9.3%
of the voters, the abstainers, failed to cast even a single vote while 51.2% of the voters,
the core voters, voted in all three elections. Notably, the European elections were almost
only for the core voters. Only 6.4% of the voters cast a vote in the European election but
failed to do so in at least one of the other elections. Core voters and abstainers are far from
representative of the voters. Core voters are more likely to be female, better educated, and
earn higher incomes. They also tend to be older than abstainers, and they are less likely to
have a native background. Together, these findings show that the law of dispersion also
applies when studying cumulative participation.
We also find evidence supporting the law of dispersion when comparing the individual
elections. In low turnout elections, it is especially voters with no or little education who
drop off. The differences in turnout across ethnicity also increase as voters of Western
background are less behind ethnic Danes in local elections compared to national elec-
tions. Finally, we show that the turnout gap regarding education and ethnic background is
negatively correlated with turnout in local elections across Danish municipalities. This
indicates that inequalities follow the aggregate level of turnout, as predicted by the law of
dispersion and not just the type of election under investigation.
Studying Inequalities in Turnout and the Law of Dispersion
Inequalities in voter participation have been on political scientists’ agenda for decades.
Scholars concerned with the well-being of representative democracy argue that large
inequalities in turnout might pose a legitimacy problem for representative democracy as
the opinions of the elected politicians become too much out of sync with the attitudes of
the citizens (cf. Tingsten, 1937: 184). Furthermore, it is questionable whether the core
idea of elections—to elect representatives for the people—can be said to be meaning-
fully met if inequalities in participation are too large (Lijphart, 1997; Wolfinger and
Rosenstone, 1980).
With such concerns in mind, empirical research has focused on determining who votes
as well as what predicts and causes citizens’ turnout decision. Of particular relevance
regarding inequalities in turnout is the degree to which some sociodemographic charac-
teristics, such as ethnicity, age, gender, and education, predict turnout (Bhatti et al.,
2016c). In the existing literature, a substantial amount of research has investigated ques-
tions...
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