Republican Liberty and Compulsory Voting

Abstract

Armin Schäfer is a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne.MPIfG Discussion Papers are refereed scholarly papers of the kind that are publishable in a peer-reviewed disciplinary journal. Their objective is to contribute to the cumulative improvement of theoretical knowledge. The papers can be ordered from the institute for a small fee (hard copies) or downloaded free of charge (PDF). AbstractThis paper starts from four observations: (1) voter turnout is declining in established democracies; (2) low turnout means socio-economically unequal turnout; (3) compulsory voting is an effective means to increase turnout; (4) even low-turnout countries, however, have neither introduced nor even contemplated a legal obligation to vote. A closer look at the arguments against compulsory voting shows that these draw on assumptions from liberal political theory, which defines freedom negatively as non-interference. This concept of freedom has been challenged by "neo-republican" writers who, in the neo-Athenian tradition, understand freedom as "sharing in self-government" and, in the neo-Roman, as "non-domination." Both strands of republicanism attach importance to political participation and, it will be argued, offer reasons to support compulsory voting. The purpose of this paper is to show that opponents to mandatory voting have to rely on liberal assumptions that have not remained uncontested and to outline a republican defense of equal participation. ZusammenfassungAufgrund von vier Beobachtungen diskutiert das Papier, ob sich eine Wahlpflicht rechtfertigen lässt: (1) In vielen etablierten Demokratien sinkt die Wahlbeteiligung; (2) eine niedrige Wahlbeteiligung ist immer sozial ungleich; (3) eine Wahlpflicht ist ein effektives Mittel, die Wahlbeteiligung anzuheben, aber dennoch (4) gibt es selbst in Ländern mit niedriger Wahlbeteiligung kaum Bestrebungen, Bürger zur Wahlteilnahme zu verpflichten. Argumente gegen die Wahlpflicht stützen sich überwiegend auf Annahmen der liberalen politischen Theorie, in der Freiheit negativ als Abwesenheit von Einmischung verstanden wird. Gegen dieses Freiheitsverständnis wenden sich "neo-republikanische" Autoren, die in der neo-athenischen Spielart Freiheit als Selbstregierung und in der neo-römischen als Nichtdominierung verstehen. Beide Varianten betonen die Bedeutung politischer Partizipation für die Demokratie und bieten Rechtfertigungsgründe für die Einführung einer Wahlpflicht. Das Papier führt den Nachweis, dass die Gegner einer Wahlpflicht sich auf Annahmen stützen, die nicht unumstritten sind, und entwickelt eine republikanische Verteidigung gleicher politischer Partizipation.

Unionization, Inequality and Redistribution

“…Kenworthy and Pontusson : 459–62). Mahler also demonstrates that income‐based disparities in voter turnout tend to decline as aggregate voter turnout rises, an empirical observation that is reinforced by Schäfer () and Schäfer and Streeck (: 13–16). Given that relative income is a strong (negative) predictor of support for redistribution at the individual level, it seems highly plausible to suppose that the cross‐national association between voter turnout and redistribution stems from the fact that low‐income citizens represent a more important electoral constituency in countries with higher voter turnout and that the same logic applies to temporal variation within countries.…”

Artificial Intelligence and Democracy

“…Indeed, if participation levels have decreased, they also have aligned with income levels (Bartels, 2016;Gilens & Page, 2014;Solt, 2008). It has become evident that the decrease in participation corresponds mainly to the withdrawal of the most socially disadvantaged parts of the population (Birch, 2009;Schäfer, 2011Schäfer, , 2013 and is strongly related to inequalities in economic status and education level (Lijphart, 1997). Hence, there is a social bias in the decline of political participation: it is primarily the less educated and low-income citizens who vote less often and show less interest in politics (Jörke, 2016).…”

Political participation, social inequalities, and special veto powers

“…In addition, it has become apparent that it is especially socially disadvantaged citizens who refuse to vote and have withdrawn from political parties (Birch 2009, Schäfer 2011. This withdrawal is -and this is the initial hypothesis -a serious threat to democracy insofar as it embodies a social-bias that leads to 'a weakening of the political importance of ordinary working people' (Crouch 2004, p. 29).…”