Izvorni znanstveni članak
Interest in Elections and Electoral Participation
Ivan Šiber
; Fakultet političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The author stresses that participation has an intrinsic value for the citizens. In
addition, it is also important as a means of civic education, a process in which
citizens learn civic values. A comparison of electoral participation in democratic
polities shows great differences among them. The author argues that the level of
voter turnout depends on a number of factors, such as the features of electoral law,
the characteristics of social situation, voters’ motivation and political mobilization.
Electoral law influences electoral participation in two ways: directly through
legal provisions regulating the voting procedure and indirectly through basic characteristics
of the electoral system, which more or less motivate the voters. The
features of social situation that have an impact on voter turnout include importance
of elections, voters’ emotional involvement and uncertainty of electoral outcome.
Voters’ motivation depends on the type of individual involvement in politics,
which ranges from a minority of political activists to a majority of political
spectators, whose involvement is confined to voting, and a large number of apathetic
citizens, who don’t care for politics at all. Electoral campaigns can be considered
mainly as an instrument to mobilize the supporters of political parties, not
the apathetic. In the second part of the article the author looks more closely into
features of electoral participation or abstention in Croatia, based on empirical survey
data from 1990 to 2003. His findings show that mainly two factors are important
for the level of participation: the individual feeling of either helplessness
or positive impact in politics and the sense of political responsibility. Unlike in
most other democracies, socio-economic status doesn’t have a significant impact
on participation in Croatia.
Ključne riječi
elections; electoral participation; abstention; Croatia; democracy; voter turnout; electoral system; motivation
Hrčak ID:
21132
URI
Datum izdavanja:
25.8.2005.
Posjeta: 2.736 *