Everyone likes a winner: An empirical test of the effect of electoral closeness on turnout in a context of expressive voting

John Ashworth, Benny Geys and Bruno Heyndels ()

Public Choice, 2006, vol. 128, issue 3, 383-405

Abstract: Under instrumental voting closer elections are expected to have higher turnout. Under expressive voting, however, turnout may increase with decreasing closeness when voters have a preference for winners. An empirical test using data on Belgian municipal elections supports this. We find that turnout reaches a local maximum when the largest party in the election obtains just over 52% of the seats and then falls (supporting the “instrumental” closeness-argument). There is, however, another turning point: the presence of a highly dominating party (receiving at least two-thirds of the votes) stimulates turnout despite the fact that dominance implies lower closeness. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006

Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-9006-8

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