C hapter V

Individual and S ystemic D eterminants

of El e c t o r l abstention

1 Introduction 173
2 Individual incentives and the institutional setting of the vote 177
2.1 Com pulsory voting and voting facilities 177
2.2 Effective electoral threshold and preference expression 183
2.3 The consequences of different effects 186

3 In d iv id u a l in c e n tiv e s a n d p a r ty sy stem e m b e d d e d n e s s 188

3.1 Cultural differentiation 189
3.2 O rganisational encapsulation 191
3.3 The consequences of party system embeddedness 194

4 Election decisiveness and individual characteristics 195

4.1 Institutional decisiveness 195
4.2 Political decisiveness 199
4.3 The consequences of etection decisiveness 203

5 S y stem ic a n d in d iv id u a l in cen tiv es 204

6 S u m m a ry 208

Conclusions 211

A ppendix A. S urvey Data S ources 219

A ppendix B. W eights Construction 221
A ppendix C. C haracteristics of the E lectoral S ystems 225

B ibliography 229

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