Electoral Strategy under Compulsory Voting: Understanding Partisanship

• In Event: Compulsory Voting, Political Inclusion and Democratic Stability

Abstract

When voting is compulsory, more people identify with political parties. Past accounts of this phenomenon argued that the experience of voting produces partisanship, but recent empirical studies have cast doubt on this explanation. In this paper, I argue that compulsory voting generates broader partisanship by changing the incentives facing political parties. In a formal model of political competition under compulsory and voluntary voting, I show that parties distribute resources across a broader set of citizens when voting is mandatory. By contrast, when voting is voluntary, parties concentrate their efforts on a smaller set of citizens so they can ensure that their supporters turn out to vote. I present empirical evidence for the theory in both qualitative and quantitative tests. I study the effects on party strategy through interviews conducted in four countries with varying voting rules. I then test the implications for partisan identification using multiple sources of survey evidence. In addition to cross-national analysis, I exploit variation within countries that have recently introduced or eliminated compulsory voting, and those that have subnational variation in voting laws.

Author

• Eli Gavin Rau, Princeton University