Unequal Political Participation Worldwide [Hardcover]

This book describes the levels of unequal electoral participation in thirty-six countries worldwide.This book describes the levels of unequal electoral participation in thirty-six countries worldwide, examines possible causes of this phenomenon, and discusses its consequences.This book describes the levels of unequal electoral participation in thirty-six countries worldwide, examines possible causes of this phenomenon, and discusses its consequences.Highly educated citizens vote at much lower rates than less educated citizens in some countries. By contrast, electoral participation exhibits no such bias in other countries as diverse as Spain, Denmark, and South Korea. This book describes the levels of unequal participation in thirty-six countries worldwide, examines possible causes of this phenomenon, and discusses its consequences. Aina Gallego illustrates how electoral procedures, party and media systems, unionization, and income inequality impact unequal participation through an original combination of cross-national survey data and survey experiments.Introduction; 1. Unequal participation around the world; 2. Heterogeneous consequences of contexts on participation; 3. The difficulty of the voting procedure; 4. Government fragmentation and media systems; 5. Trade unions in the highly educated membership era; 6. Income inequality and the participation of lower-status groups; 7. Consequences of unequal participation for representation; Conclusions. Unequal Political Participation Worldwide is a book that I would love to have written. We take it as a fact that turnout is lower among the less educated. Gallego establishes that the relationship varies a lot among countries. She meticulously shows why. It all depends on institutional features that increase or decrease the costs of voting. The empirical demonstration is masterful and the interpretation elegant and careful. Read the book: you will learn a lot!
Andr? Blais, Universit? de Montr?al Gallego's cross-nl3–