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Participation, Information and Democracy: When Do Low Turnout and Low Information Make a Difference - and Why?
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Participation, Information and Democracy: When Do
Low Turnout and Low Information Make a Difference -
and Why?
Georg Lutz
University of Berne, Switzerland
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
e-mail: georg.## email not listed ##
August 2003
Abstract
Democracy is far from ideal in many countries these days: turnout is declining and/or is low, and vot-ers are often poorly informed. However, I argue in this paper that low turnout and low levels of infor-mation matter only if two conditions are fulfilled: (1) participation and information has to be socially discriminatory for some social groups and (2) the outcome of a vote is biased due to low turnout and low information of citizens in a way that outcomes would have been different if more citizens had participated and were better informed. The findings here confirm the generally known social factors that explain differences in turnout and differences in the level of information of voters to a great extent in the popular votes in Switzerland: better educated and more well to do people participate more and are better informed than poorer, less educated ones. In many of the analysed votes the outcome would have been different if non voters had participated and the badly informed would have become better informed however the lack of information seems to matter more than the level of participation. The government and the left wing parties would often have done better if citizens were better informed but the right wing parties would have done better if more citizens had voted. Several institutional variables can explain the bias: the issues in which people are relatively uninterested and find them difficult to understand, when turnout and information levels are low the risk of a turnout or information bias in-creases as well.
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Participation, Information and Democracy: When Do
Low Turnout and Low Information Make a Difference -
and Why?
Georg Lutz
University of Berne, Switzerland
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
e-mail: georg.## email not listed ##
August 2003
Abstract
Democracy is far from ideal in many countries these days: turnout is declining and/or is low, and vot-
ers are often poorly informed. However, I argue in this paper that low turnout and low levels of infor-
mation matter only if two conditions are fulfilled: (1) participation and information has to be socially
discriminatory for some social groups and (2) the outcome of a vote is biased due to low turnout and
low information of citizens in a way that outcomes would have been different if more citizens had
participated and were better informed. The findings here confirm the generally known social factors
that explain differences in turnout and differences in the level of information of voters to a great extent
in the popular votes in Switzerland: better educated and more well to do people participate more and
are better informed than poorer, less educated ones. In many of the analysed votes the outcome would
have been different if non voters had participated and the badly informed would have become better
informed however the lack of information seems to matter more than the level of participation. The
government and the left wing parties would often have done better if citizens were better informed but
the right wing parties would have done better if more citizens had voted. Several institutional variables
can explain the bias: the issues in which people are relatively uninterested and find them difficult to
understand, when turnout and information levels are low the risk of a turnout or information bias in-
creases as well.
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