Monthly Archives: September 2017

Does Democratic Consolidation Lead to a Decline in Voter Turnout? Global Evidence Since 1939

  By Filip Kostelka, Institutions and Political Economy Research Group (IPERG), University of Barcelona & Centre d’études européennes, Sciences Po, Paris   Voting rates in new democracies often decline dramatically. For instance, in less than twenty years after democratization, voter turnout fell by 17.5 percentage points (pp) in Portugal (which has held democratic elections since […]

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What’s Happening in Catalonia? The Crackdown May Increase Support for an Unpopular Plan

By Eric Guntermann, Université de Montréal People all over the world this week read about Spanish police arresting Catalan government officials and confiscating ballots for an independence referendum. Rather than harming the Catalan government, however, I argue that the crackdown may help it raise support for its unpopular roadmap towards independence. In the last regional […]

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Was my decision to vote (or abstain) the right one?

By André Blais, Fernando Feitosa and Semra Sevi, Université de Montréal  How do individuals, after the election, evaluate their decision to vote or abstain? This is the question our study examines in our recent publication in Party Politics.   Respondents were asked, right after the election, how satisfied they are with their decision to vote […]

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