26th Annual Student Research Conference
Effective Parties and Voter Turnout
Jordan E. Hunt
Dr. Michael Rudy, Faculty Mentor
Active voter participation is crucial for the success of democracies, both new and established. Existing scholarship on voter turnout is fraught with contradiction, as changing data sets and methods of analysis continually overturn previous results. This paper attempts to continue this discussion. The focus here is on the relationship between the number of effective political parties and voter turnout. The most recent parliamentary elections in 50 democracies are examined, with controls for socioeconomic, institutional, and historical variables. A linear regression analysis is used, with results indicating that the most common variables in the existing literature are not adequate predictors of voter turnout.
Keywords: Participation, Voter Turnout, Party Systems
Topic(s):Political Science
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 210-5
Location: MG 1000
Time: 10:30