Valdeltagande i Finland : rationalitet eller socialt tryck?

Authors

• Åsa Bengtsson

Abstract

How does the political environment influence voters’ behaviour on the Election Day? In order to study the importance of the political context, two different theoretical approaches are used – the social and the rational model. The overarching question is whether the same mechanisms determine how actively citizens participate in elections at the national level and at the local level. The two theoretical approaches have radically different views on what determines voters’ behaviour. They also give rise to different predictions of how the political context might influence turnout. Results indicate that the electoral activity of citizens is strongly influenced by the political context and that voters act according to the predictions based on the social rather than the rational model.