ESTUDIOS SOBRE LA ECONOMÍA ESPAÑOLA Influencing ‘Rational Voters’? The Effect of Simultaneous Calls in Regional Elections Turnout Joan Costa-Font Ricard Ramon –Sumoy EEE 216 November 2006 ISSN 1696-6384 Las opiniones contenidas en los Documentos de la Serie EEE, reflejan exclusivamente las de los autores y no necesariamente las de FEDEA. The opinions in the EEE Series are the responsibility of the authors an therefore, do not necessarily coincide with those of the FEDEA. INFLUENCING ‘RATIONAL VOTERS’? THE EFFECT OF SIMULTANEOUS CALLS IN REGIONAL ELECTIONS TURNOUT JOAN COSTA-FONT* Universitat de Barcelona and London School of Economics RICARD RAMON –SUMOY Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona * Contact address: Dr Joan Costa -i-Font, London School of Economics, Cowdray House, J7, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE, London. E-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgements: This research was supported by the Ministry of Education (Grant number: CICYT SEJ2005-06270) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant number: 2005-SGR-460). 1 Abstract. Rational voting models assume turnout results from net benefits being positive. However, low turnout questions the legitimacy of democracies, especially when it affects newly created institutional structures such as those resulting from decentralisation processes. In this paper we empirically estimate whether turnout rates of “less decisive” elections can be increased by the coincidence of several elections. We use a unique data from Spanish regional elections 1980-1999 where low turn out would influence institutional legitimacy of newly created regional state in a novel democracy. We employ controls for economic voting namely: inflation, unemployment and regional income. Our empirical findings illustrate that simultaneity systematically increases individuals average turnout regardless of the elections considered and that regional income reduces turnout. Key words: rational voting, turnout, economic voting, decentralisation, Spain. JEL: D72, F22, H73 2 1. INTRODUCTION A cause for alarm for the subsistence of modern democracies is ‘low’ voter turnout. Although a careful definition of what low turn out is, systematic low turnout - relative to previous times of other settings - might well compromise the legitimacy of elections as grounding tenets to elicit political support for competing political projects. Accordingly, the feature poses a question to analysts for a better underlying explanation of the phenomenon. Well known theories on rationality being abstention depart form Downs’ (1957) seminal contribution on the rational choice of voting. Accordingly, voting takes place when it portrays non-negative expected payoffs to individuals1. In this case, voting can be viewed as consumption actions (Riker and Ordershook’s, 1968), or a positional good leading to some subjective satisfaction and self-affirmation of one’s views with regard to the polity. This can be compared supporting sports competitions (Brennan and Buchanan, 1984). In turn, electoral abstention is a form of “free riding”, given the collective nature of electoral benefits of other’s “expressing” their vote along with the limited sanctions resulting from non- participation. This is especially the case of elections with limited decisiveness (e.g., regional elections) or those with null chances of being a pivotal voter (Barry, 1982). Yet, the likelihood of an individual to participate in an election is still open to theoretical and empirical scrutiny. An array of theoretical and empirical contributions has dealt with the influence of a set of features affecting an individual’s perceived costs (e.g., nature of election, electoral day and mechanism and so on). However, limited emphasis has been given to institutional determinants behind an individual’s perceived benefits from voting. and the final voting action. In dealing with the free riding problem, one might claim for individual’s social responsibility and social inclusiveness (Downs, 1957, Riker and Ordershook’s, 1968) should suffice. Furthermore, so long as voting takes the characteristics of positional goods, one might invoke prescriptive reasons such as civic values and moral obligations 1 That is, when its (expected) utility offsets a wide range of (expected) individual’s specific costs, including time, information update and other transaction costs as well as psychological deliberation efforts and emotional distress. 3 (Opp, 2001, Riker and Ordershook’s, 1968 Blais et al, 2000)2. Conversely, there is broad agreement that voting is a low cost - low benefit activity (Aldrich, 1993), so that the final outcome might be tightly dependent on the institutional determinants affecting the opportunity costs of voting, as well as any expected benefits from casing a vote3. Furthermore, evidence indicates that people who vote tend to overestimate their influence in electoral outcomes (Opp, 2001), which suggests that the act of voting might still be rational though subject cognitive limitations. Beside voter cognitive limitations and indifference attitudes towards politics (Colomer, 1991), non-pivotal voters might perceive that their contribution is not decisive or would make very little difference in the results4. This is especially the case of regional elections, where the benefits of the expected outcomes might not be perceived as being high enough to overcome the range of the information and procedural costs of casting a vote. Some individuals are strategically able to differentiate different electoral contests and to select those calls for which there is perceived participation is worthwhile - and opt-out form those where their vote might not be perceived as marginally decisive - . In other words, whilst national politics might be envisaged as ‘high politics’ and worth contributing to, regional politics might arguably be conceived as “less influential”5. On the other hand, regional elections provide higher incentives to free-ride. A counter argument might indicate that in regional elections, because the potential electorate is smaller than that at the national level, one might well argue that the probability of influencing the final electoral outcome is larger, and thus instrumental conceptions of voting might be more meaningful. 2 However, it does not seem plausible to solve the well sustained problem of voluntary contributions to collective goods (e.g., the formation of a parliament and democracy itself) claiming ethical or moral principles, especially when individuals disagree on the composition of such a collective good (e.g., the parliament composition). 3 Even anecdotal voting circumstances, including weekend day, sunlight, and the efficacy in casting the vote seem to influence the probability of electoral turnout. 4 Anecdotal evidence form Spanish regional elections suggests that the most decisive electoral call which could have determined the ‘nationalist majority’ in the Basque Parliament in 2001 is the one that has lead to the highest turn out ever in a regional election in Spain 5 Whilst some political activity was held in the Spanish region-states in during the dictatorship top oppose the system , with the democratization of Spain and the expansion of the public sector. High political activity has been shifted to the central state, s whilst only regional specific of local issues are discussed at a lower level. 4 The effect of simultaneous voting in increasing participation has received only anecdotal support. One exception refers to a study on European elections which identifies simultaneity as rising turnout by as much as 20 percentage points (Smith, 1999). However, this has not been examined further for other key election, such as regional and local elections which could condition the legitimacy of the electoral system and representative democracy. Indeed, prior studies do not control for other relevant factors. Arguably, simultaneous elections reduce the costs of voting if voting for several elections is conveyed as a “single civic duty”. Another explanation for regional turnout is the role of economic factors, especially regional income, inflation and unemployment. This has two main explanations, on the one hand, Spanish regional governments are entitled decide on some economic and social policy issues, so that participation could be viewed as an underlying expression of a views on such areas6. On the other hand, in a decentralized setting one might believe that regional governments might lobby to shift policies at a state level through some form of vertical competition (Costa-Font and Rico, 2006) . Finally, in poorer regions, regional governments might supply a large share of the employment in the area, so that a change in the regional government is likely to affect the economic activity and foster people’s electoral participation. The examination of Spanish regional elections has the added advantage of allowing for different “types” of simultaneous elections, e.g., regional elections coinciding with local, national, and/or European elections. All of them can take place together to reduce the costs of an election and its associated campaign. This allows the authors to compare the effect of simultaneously holding different types of elections on turnout. Furthermore, incumbent politicians might have some special interest in deciding the electoral calendar in a way that does or does not coincided with another election, so that coincidence might become a decision variable7. Some evidence from the US suggests that ultimately, the purpose would be to ensure that the incumbent candidate