Voter Turnout in Electoral Autocracies: An Empirical Investigation
Mentor 1
Professor Ora John Reuter
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
29-4-2016 1:30 PM
End Date
29-4-2016 3:30 PM
Description
Electoral authoritarian regimes are by far the most common type of autocracy in the world today. And yet, political scientists still have a limited understanding of the dynamics of these systems. One aspect of these regimes that is particularly misunderstood is voter turnout. Conventional wisdom suggests that autocracies should all have high voter turnout either because of electoral fraud or because autocrats seek to generate high turnout in order to demonstrate their invincibility. And yet levels of voter turnout vary widely among autocratic regimes. Why is this? What factors explain variation in voter turnout in autocracies? This project uses an original data on voter turnout under all electoral autocracies in the world between 1973 and 2013 to shed new light on this question.
Voter Turnout in Electoral Autocracies: An Empirical Investigation
Union Wisconsin Room
Electoral authoritarian regimes are by far the most common type of autocracy in the world today. And yet, political scientists still have a limited understanding of the dynamics of these systems. One aspect of these regimes that is particularly misunderstood is voter turnout. Conventional wisdom suggests that autocracies should all have high voter turnout either because of electoral fraud or because autocrats seek to generate high turnout in order to demonstrate their invincibility. And yet levels of voter turnout vary widely among autocratic regimes. Why is this? What factors explain variation in voter turnout in autocracies? This project uses an original data on voter turnout under all electoral autocracies in the world between 1973 and 2013 to shed new light on this question.
