Turnout and fractionalization

Ignacio Lago, Sandra Bermúdez, Marc Guinjoan and Pablo Simón

No 1404, Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization from Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network

Abstract: The literature has largely shown that social fragmentation is negatively correlated with the quality of government. Surprisingly, fragmentation has been omitted in most influential cross-sectional studies of turnout, and when it has been included evidence is, at best, mixed. Using aggregated data from 22 countries and individual data from Canada and Spain, this article examines the impact of social heterogeneity on turnout. The results show that turnout is inversely related to ethnolinguistic fractionalization, even after controlling for institutional, political and socioeconomic determinants. However, social fragmentation only affects the behavior of those individuals who lack a strong internal motivation to vote.

Keywords: Fractionalization; Turnout; Heterogeneity; Civic Duty; Social Capital. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Y80 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2014-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol and nep-soc
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gov:wpaper:1404

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