Community size, heterogeneity and voter turnouts
Community size, heterogeneity and voter turnouts
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DOI：
10.1007/s11127-006-9063-7
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发表时间：
2006-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.6
通讯作者：
Mueller, Dennis C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kaniovski, Serguei;Mueller, Dennis C.
许多研究发现，选举的接近程度、选民规模和选民投票率之间存在负相关关系。人们经常声称，这种关系支持理性选民假说，亲近度和规模代表了投票的决定性。我们提供了不同的解释。较大的社区比较小的社区更具异质性，而投票率与社区的异质性成反比。我们使用挪威学校语言公投的选民投票率数据为这一假设提供实证支持。研究发现，社区规模对选民投票率有负面影响，即使在考虑了一次投票的决定性可能性和这种异质性的语言维度之后也是如此。我们的研究结果质疑了投票率回归在检验理性选民假设中的充分性，因为既不是亲密度和投票率之间的正相关，也不是规模和投票率之间的负相关，都不能完全归因于工具性投票。
Numerous studies have found a negative relationship between the closeness of an election, the size of the electorate and voter turnout. It is often claimed that this relationship supports the rational voter hypothesis, with closeness and size proxying for the decisiveness of a vote. We offer a different interpretation. Larger communities are more heterogeneous than smaller ones, and turnouts are inversely related to the heterogeneity of a community. We present empirical support for this hypothesis using data for voter turnouts in Norwegian school language referendums. Community size is found to have a negative effect on voter turnouts, even after accounting for the probability of a single vote being decisive and the linguistic dimension of this heterogeneity. Our findings question the adequacy of the turnout regression in testing the rational voter hypothesis, as neither a positive correlation between closeness and turnout, nor a negative correlation between size and turnout can be exclusively attributed to instrumental voting.