The economic model of voter participation: A further test

✍ Scribed by Tikva Darvish; Jacob Rosenberg

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 347 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0048-5829
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00115757

✦ Synopsis

This paper examines the usefullness of the economic model in explaining the degree of voter participation in elections. The key argument of the economic model is that the subjective probability of affecting election results will determine the level of voter participation. By comparing here voter participation in municipal elections to voter participation in national elections, the assumption is put to a more rigorous empirical test than in previous research efforts.

Section I briefly reviews the economic model. Section 2 develops the empirical test. Section 3 analyzes the results. Section 4 discusses the relevancy of the economic model to voter participation. Section 5 contains a summary and conclusions.

* The authors wish to thank Joseph Ternpelman for several helpful suggestions.