Search

In this thesis I explore a novel context sensitive conceptualisation of civic duty according to which the conduct (or misconduct) of elected officials affects whether eligible voters feel either a duty to vote (DTV) or a duty to abstain (DTA). Specifically, I argue that under conditions of corruption the norm of electoral accountability may override peoples’ sense of DTV in which case they instead feel a DTA. This context sensitive account is contrasted with a Kantian account of civic duty according to which eligible voters feel a duty to always vote, regardless of contextual factors. The empirical results provides tentative support for the claim that corruption not only decreases eligible voters’ sense of DTV but also increases their sense of DTA. This thesis thus contributes not only to the advancement of the conceptualisation of civic duty in relation to voter turnout, but its results also has important implications for how the rational choice perspective approaches the cost/benefit analysis commonly associated with the voting decision. In the latter case these results indicate that abstainers too may act out of duty and can therefore be assumed to gain positive utility from their abstention. However, the possibility that abstention (just as voting) yields unique costs and benefits has to my knowledge never been acknowledged in the rational choice literature on voter turnout. I therefore conclude by presenting a novel suggestion of how the potential costs and benefits of abstention can be incorporated into the calculus of voting.

This study is mainly centred around a twofold theoretical aim, but also pursues a secondary empirical aim. The first part of the theoretical aim is to critically examine and identify problems for previous research within a group of rational choice theories that sets out to explain voter turnout in terms of utility maximisation. A new and seemingly overlooked theoretical approach is then suggested according to which both voting and abstention can be explained primarily by psychological utility, namely in the following way; voters value expressing a political satisfaction when they vote, and abstainers value expressing a political dissatisfaction when they don’t. Three testable hypotheses to that fashion are then suggested. The empirical aim is to investigate whether the suggested theoretical approach and its hypotheses holds up empirically. The results indicate that political abstainers are significantly more dissatisfied with how democracy is functioning than both non-political abstainers and voters. The results of the first theoretical and empirical aims thus suggest that psychological utility indeed can follow from the act of abstention – at least when the abstention constitutes a political act. Lastly, the second part of the theoretical aim is to tie the theoretical and empirical endeavours together by providing a possible solution to the previously identified problems. I argue that since the act of abstention has its own utilities, the voting formula which these theories use to describe the decision to either vote or abstain must include new abstention-terms in order for it to accurately describe the full extent of the decision at hand. Otherwise, the formula gives an inadequate explanation for abstention. I therefore conclude by developing a new and extended voting formula which includes such abstention-terms and in doing so hope to pave way for further research.