Competition and turnout revisited: The importance of measuring expected closeness accurately

Gábor Simonovits*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

This study aims at contributing to the literature on the effect of political competition on electoral participation. I test the Downsian Closeness Hypothesis (DCH) on data from runoffs in general elections in Hungary. The expected closeness of the runoffs is proxied with first round margins of victory. The findings of the paper are consistent with the DCH: increases in margins between two parties in the first round significantly decrease turnout in the second, even when turnout in the first round is controlled for. This is in line with the theoretical considerations of the DCH but contrary to a large part of the existing empirical literature. The estimates of closeness are substantially greater than in previous papers and suggest that previous studies of the DCH using actual closeness as a proxy for expected closeness encountered a serious measurement error problem.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)364-371
Number of pages8
JournalElectoral Studies
Volume31
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Closeness
  • Hungary
  • Rational choice
  • Turnout

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