Democracy and mass partisanship in advanced industrial societies

Abstract

This paper assembles an impressive collection of cross-national data to demonstrate the behavioral consequences of partisan dealignment. For instance, aggregate electoral volatility increased in 15 of 18 nations between the 1950s and the 1990s, and the effective number of parties increased in 17 nations. Moreover, without the reinforcement of habitual party ties, more voters are uncertain about the ultimate voting choice as the campaign begins, and thus make their choice later in the campaign. And throughout most of world's established democracies, turnout is going down as parties have lost some of their ability to bring people to the polls.