Structure versus Culture: A Comparative Study of the Influence of Political Institutions and Cultural Modernization Factors on Voter Turnout in Swiss Sub-national Parliamentary Elections
| Date | 01 September 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512110371709 |
| Author | Markus Freitag |
| Published date | 01 September 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Corresponding author:
Markus Freitag, University of Konstanz, Department of Politics and Management, PO Box 84, D-78457 Konstanz,
Germany
[email: markus.freitag@uni-konstanz.de]
Structure versus Culture: A
Comparative Study of the Influence
of Political Institutions and Cultural
Modernization Factors on Voter
Turnout in Swiss Sub-national
Parliamentary Elections
Markus Freitag
Abstract
How can the differing levels of voter par ticipation in sub-national parliamentary elections be explained? To
answer this question I start from the current literature on cross-national comparative research, and apply
explanatory approaches from this literature to the analysis of electoral turnout in sub-national units. I focus
on two competing influential assessments in the literature, institutionalism and cultural modernization. The
first assumes that formal political institutions generate important incentives and habits that are capable of
shaping and constraining voting behavior. In contrast, a cultural modernization approach predicts that cross-
sectional differences in turnout are determined by cultural habits arising from the socialization process and
societal modernization. The systematic examination of electoral democracy in the Swiss cantons shows
that the differing rates of electoral participation in these sub-national units are primarily attributable to
the strength of political Catholicism. In this vein, rather than differences in turnout being a function of
institutional and electoral procedures, they reflect cultural norms in the Swiss cantons. Moreover, the findings
suggest that cultural conditions may be more significant for electoral behavior on a sub-national than on an
international level.
Keywords
Catholicism, elections, sub-national comparative method, voter turnout, Swiss cantons
Introduction
This contribution deals with a central question in comparative political sociology (Lijphart,
1997): how can the differing levels of voter participation in parliamentary elections be explained?
International Political Science Review
31(4) 428–448
© The Author(s) 2010
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512110371709
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Freitag 429
Existing empirical work remains inconclusive regarding the key determinants of electoral
partici pation (Blais, 2006; Geys, 2006; Norris, 2004).1 In the literature, one can distinguish two
alternative approaches, institutionalism and cultural modernization. The first approach assumes
that formal political institutions generate important incentives and habits that are capable of shap-
ing and constraining voting behavior (Jackman and Miller, 1995). The alternative approach claims
that cross-sectional differences in turnout are determined by cultural habits, e.g. deep-seated and
habitual patterns of behavior arising from the socialization process and societal modernization
(Inglehart, 1990; Norris, 2004). This controversy provides the starting point for the present
examination.
Contrary to the prevailing investigative practice, I intend to study this topic by analyzing sub-
national units, i.e. the Swiss cantons, rather than on an international comparative scale. At least two
reasons suggest an empirically based examination of this topic. First, in light of the political, cul-
tural and socioeconomic diversity of the Swiss cantons (Freitag, 2000, 2004, 2006; Kriesi et al.,
1996; Meier-Dallach and Nef, 1987), the Swiss ‘laboratory’ provides an unusual opportunity in
which to assess the competing explanatory approaches of comparative electoral participation
research, and to supplement existing research practice – unilaterally geared toward international
comparison – with sub-national insights. Second, the Swiss Federal State, with its more than two
dozen cantonal units, offers unusual methodological advantages: although the Swiss cantons reflect
a multitude of political, societal and economic structures, they are components of a unitary and
superordinate system (Vatter, 2002). In this sense, sub-national comparisons are particularly well-
suited to the most-similar cases design (Lijphart, 1971: 168; Snyder, 2001). Moreover, the cantonal
democracies provide a sufficiently high number of investigative units for a statistical-quantitative
research design (Vatter, 2002: 2).
In this article I focus on variations in levels of cantonal parliamentary voter turnout in 23
Swiss cantons between 1982 and 2005. The investigation excludes the cantons Appenzell Inner
Rhodes, Appenzell Outer Rhodes and Grisons, since no data concerning levels of participation
in cantonal parliamentary elections are available for these units. Starting with the first polls fol-
lowing the founding elections of the canton Jura (1978), the research period is intended to cover
both current developments and a sufficiently long investigative time span in order to minimize
possible distortions caused by short-term fluctuations. Thus, the analysis incorporates four to six
ballots.2
The macro-level investigation aims to assess the impact of institutional as well as cultural deter-
minants on the differences in levels of cantonal electoral participation. Hypotheses put forward
by – hitherto underdeveloped – empirical research on voter participation in cantonal parliamentary
elections share assumptions that have been developed and examined for the – considerably better
researched – international level (Linder, 2005: 67–68; Wernli, 1998). Thus, it seems prudent to
begin from current cross-national comparative research and to apply these explanatory approaches
to an analysis of sub-national units.
A systematic comparative examination of electoral democracy in the Swiss cantons reveals that
the differing rates of electoral participation in these sub-national units are primarily attributable to
the strength of political Catholicism. Therefore, rather than levels of voter turnout reflecting insti-
tutional and electoral procedures, they reflect cultural norms in the Swiss cantons. These results
could provide the impetus for comparative (sub-national) research that goes beyond the Swiss
context, as the political science literature on voter turnout tends to concentrate on institutional fac-
tors and largely ignores cultural or religious conditions. Investigations of these factors exist only at
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