[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gov/wpaper/1404.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Turnout and fractionalization

Author

Listed:
  • Ignacio Lago
  • Sandra Bermúdez
  • Marc Guinjoan
  • Pablo Simón
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.

Suggested Citation

  • Ignacio Lago & Sandra Bermúdez & Marc Guinjoan & Pablo Simón, 2014. "Turnout and fractionalization," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 1404, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
    • Handle: RePEc:gov:wpaper:1404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://infogen.webs.uvigo.es/WP/WP1404.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    2. Copeland, Cassandra & Laband, David N, 2002. "Expressiveness and Voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 110(3-4), pages 351-363, March.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2000. "Participation in Heterogeneous Communities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 847-904.
    4. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    5. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2011. "Segregation and the Quality of Government in a Cross Section of Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1872-1911, August.
    7. Oliver, J. Eric, 2000. "City Size and Civic Involvement in Metropolitan America," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 361-373, June.
    8. La Ferrara, Eliana, 2002. "Inequality and group participation: theory and evidence from rural Tanzania," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 235-273, August.
    9. Denver, David & Halfacree, Keith, 1992. "Inter-Constituency Migration and Turnout at the British General Election of 1983," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 248-254, April.
    10. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    11. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    12. Edward L. Glaeser & David I. Laibson & José A. Scheinkman & Christine L. Soutter, 2000. "Measuring Trust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 811-846.
      • Glaeser, Edward Ludwig & Laibson, David I. & Scheinkman, Jose A. & Soutter, Christine L., 2000. "Measuring Trust," Scholarly Articles 4481497, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    13. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    14. Oberholzer-Gee, Felix & Waldfogel, Joel, 2005. "Strength in Numbers: Group Size and Political Mobilization," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 73-91, April.
    15. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(2), pages 187-278.
    16. Shane Singh & Ignacio Lago & André Blais, 2011. "Winning and Competitiveness as Determinants of Political Support," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 92(3), pages 695-709, September.
    17. Alford, Robert R. & Lee, Eugene C., 1968. "Voting Turnout in American Cities," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(3), pages 796-813, September.
    18. Timothy J. Feddersen, 2004. "Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 99-112, Winter.
    19. Russell S. Sobel & Gary A. Wagner, 2004. "Expressive Voting and Government Redistribution: Testing Tullock's `Charity of the Uncharitable'," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(1_2), pages 143-159, April.
    20. Carole Uhlaner, 1989. "“Relational goods” and participation: Incorporating sociability into a theory of rational action," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 253-285, September.
    21. Lago-Peñas, Ignacio & Lago-Peñas, Santiago, 2010. "The determinants of tax morale in comparative perspective: Evidence from European countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 441-453, December.
    22. Shayo, Moses, 2009. "A Model of Social Identity with an Application to Political Economy: Nation, Class, and Redistribution," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 103(2), pages 147-174, May.
    23. Eiji Yamamura, 2011. "Effects of social norms and fractionalization on voting behaviour in Japan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1385-1398.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lindqvist, Erik & Östling, Robert, 2010. "Political Polarization and the Size of Government," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 543-565, August.
    2. Kotera, Go & Mizuno, Nobuhiro & Okada, Keisuke & Samreth, Sovannroeun, 2015. "Ethnic diversity, democracy, and health: Theory and evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 353-376.
    3. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    4. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    6. Casey, Gregory P. & Owen, Ann L., 2014. "Inequality and Fractionalization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 32-50.
    7. Ahlerup, Pelle & Hansson, Gustav, 2011. "Nationalism and government effectiveness," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 431-451, September.
    8. Lassen, David Dreyer, 2007. "Ethnic divisions, trust, and the size of the informal sector," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 423-438, July.
    9. Serguei Kaniovski & Dennis Mueller, 2006. "Community size, heterogeneity and voter turnouts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 399-415, December.
    10. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/30a25e1csn8pqrmbq8oije0o6j is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Yann Algan & Camille Hémet & David D. Laitin, 2016. "The Social Effects of Ethnic Diversity at the Local Level: A Natural Experiment with Exogenous Residential Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(3), pages 696-733.
    13. Dimitrova-Grajzl Valentina & Grajzl Peter & Guse A. Joseph & Smith J. Taylor, 2016. "Racial Group Affinity and Religious Giving: Evidence from Congregation-Level Panel Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 689-725, April.
    14. Joseph Flavian Gomes, 2020. "The health costs of ethnic distance: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 195-226, June.
    15. José Garcia Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2002. "Why ethnic fractionalization? Polarization, ethnic conflict and growth," Economics Working Papers 660, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2002.
    16. Chih Ming Tan, 2010. "No one true path: uncovering the interplay between geography, institutions, and fractionalization in economic development," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(7), pages 1100-1127, November/.
    17. Desmet, Klaus & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2012. "The political economy of linguistic cleavages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 322-338.
    18. Yann Algan & Camille Hémet & David Laitin, 2012. "The Social Effects of Ethnic Diversity at the Local Level," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01171148, HAL.
    19. Desmet, Klaus & Gomes, Joseph Flavian & Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio, 2020. "The geography of linguistic diversity and the provision of public goods," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    20. Andreoni, James & Payne, A. Abigail & Smith, Justin & Karp, David, 2016. "Diversity and donations: The effect of religious and ethnic diversity on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 47-58.
    21. GOMADO, Kwamivi Mawuli, 2018. "Diversité ethnique et déforestation dans les pays en développement: identification des principaux canaux [Ethnic diversity and deforestation in developing countries: identifying the transmission ch," MPRA Paper 89380, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fractionalization; Turnout; Heterogeneity; Civic Duty; Social Capital.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Y80 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Related Disciplines - - - Related Disciplines
    • Z18 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gov:wpaper:1404. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Patricio Sanchez-Fernandez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/geviges.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.