The link between subjective well-being and electoral participation: Cross-national perspective

Authors

  • Iuliia E. Moreva The article was written within the framework of the Fundamental Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3005-6991

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2023.405

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between subjective well-being and elections turnout. The purpose of the article is to determine how subjective well-being affects turnout. To achieve the purpose, the link between subjective well-being and electoral participation should be studied along with the influence that political regime has on this link. The majority of previous
research papers indicate that there is a positive relationship between the studied variables. Most of these studies were based on data from specific democratic countries. Little attention has been paid to cross-national comparison and to countries with less developed democratic institutions. According to the theory of retrospective voting, voters tend to use elections to
reward or punish the incumbent. Thus, it can be hypothesized that subjective well-being increases the likelihood to participate in elections, and that the democratic context strengthens the link between subjective well-being and voters turnout. The joined dataset of the European Social Survey and World Values Survey is used for the empirical analysis. Multilevel binary logistic regression is used as the main method of analysis. The results of the study show a statistically significant relationship between the high level of subjective well-being and voter turnout. People with higher levels of subjective well-being are more likely to vote in elections. In democratic countries, this relationship is stronger. These findings support the conclusions of previous research and confirm a modified version of the retrospective voting theory, which uses subjective well-being as a predictor of electoral behavior.

Keywords:

subjective, well-being, happiness, political participation, voting, elections, voter turnout

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
 

References

Литература/References

Flavin P., Keane M. Life satisfaction and political participation: Evidence from the United States // Journal of Happiness Studies. 2012. Vol. 13, no. 1. P. 63–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-011-9250-1

Lorenzini J. Subjective well-being and political participation: A comparison of unemployed and employed youth // Journal of Happiness Studies. 2015. Vol. 16, no. 2. P. 381–404.

Herrin J., Witters D., Roy B., Riley C., Liu D., Krumholz H.M. Population well-being and electoral shifts // PLoS ONE. 2018. Vol. 13, no. 3. P. 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193401

Liberini F., Redoano M., Proto E. Happy voters // Journal of Public Economics. 2017. Vol. 146, iss. C. P. 41–57. URL: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:146:y:2017:i:c:p:41-57 (дата обращения: 20.12.2021).

Turner J.C., Tajfel H. The social identity theory of intergroup behavior // Worchel S., Austin W.G. (eds). Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago: NelsonHall Publishers, 1986.

Stryke S., Owens T., White R. Self, Identity, and Social Movements. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

Diener E., Fujita F. Social comparisons and subjective well-being // Buunk B.P., Gibbons F.X. (eds). Health, Coping, and Well-Being: Perspectives from social comparison theory. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, 1997. P. 329–357.

Edlin A., Gelman A., Kaplan N. Voting as a rational choice: Why and how people vote to improve the well-being of others // Rationality and Society. 2007. Vol. 19, no. 3. P. 293–314. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043463107077384

van Stekelenburg J., Klandermans P.G. The handbook of social movements across disciplines // Individuals in Movements: A social psychology of contention. New York: Springer, 2007. P. 157–204.

van Stekelenburg J. The political psychology of protest // European Psychologist. 2013. Vol. 18, no. 4. P. 224–234. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000156

Ayanian A.H., Tausch N. How risk perception shapes collective action intentions in repressive contexts: A study of Egyptian activists during the 2013 post‐coup uprising // British Journal of Social Psychology. 2016. Vol. 55, no. 4. P. 700–721. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12164

Tavits M. Representation, corruption, and subjective well-being // Comparative Political Studies. 2008. Vol. 41, no. 12. P. 1607–1630. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414007308537

Frey B. S., Stutzer A. Measuring preferences by subjective well-being // Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE). 1999. Vol. 155, no. 4. P. 755–778. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40752166 (дата обращения: 10.12.2021).

Lindholm A. Does subjective well-being affect political participation? // Swiss Journal of Sociology. 2020. Vol. 46. P. 467–488. https://doi.org/10.2478/sjs-2020-0023

Bozogáňová M., Výrost J. Social and psychological factors of political participation according to recent European Social Survey Data // Intersections. 2019. Vol. 5, no. 3. https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v5i3.488

Weitz-Shapiro R., Winters M. S. The link between voting and life satisfaction in Latin America // Latin American Politics and Society. 2011. Vol. 53, no. 4. P. 101–126.

Schedler А. The menu of manipulation // Journal of Democracy. 2002. Vol. 13, no. 2. P. 36–50.

Fiorina M. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.

Feddersen T., Alvaro S. A theory of participation in elections // American Economic Review. 2009. Vol. 96, no. 4. P. 1271–1282.

Hanna N. An argument for voting abstention // Public Affairs Quarterly. 2009. Vol. 23, no. 4. P. 275–286. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40441535 (дата обращения: 22.12.2021).

Popovic M. Strongmen cry too: The effect of aerial bombing on voting for the incumbent in competitive autocracies // Journal of Peace Research. 2022. Vol. 59, iss. 6. https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211056517

Gedeshi I., Rotman D., Krytzinger S. EVS/WVS. European Values Study and World Values Survey: Joint EVS/WVS 2017–2022 Dataset (Joint EVS/WVS) // GESIS Data Archive, Cologne, Dataset Version 1.0.0. 2020. https://doi.org/10.4232/1.13899

Inglehart R., Foa R., Peterson C., Welzel C. Development, freedom, and rising happiness: A global perspective (1981–2007) // Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2008. Vol. 3, no. 4. P. 264–285. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00078.x

Coppedge M., Gerring J., Knutsen C.H., Lindberg S.I., Teorell J., Altman D., Bernhard M., Fish M. S., Glynn A., Hicken A., Lührmann A., Marquardt K. L., Kyle L., McMann K.M., Paxton P., Pemstein D., Seim B., Sigman R., Skaaning S.-E., Staton J.K., Wilson S.L., Cornell A., Gastaldi L., Gjerløw H., Ilchenko N. Krusell J., Maxwell L., Mechkova V., Medzihorsky Ju., Pernes J., von Römer J., Stepanova N., Sundström A., Tzelgov Ei., Wang Y., Wig T., Ziblatt D.V-Dem [Country-Year/Country-Date] Dataset v9. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, 2019. https://doi.org/10.23696/vdemcy19

Downloads

Published

2024-06-05

How to Cite

Moreva, I. (2024). The link between subjective well-being and electoral participation: Cross-national perspective. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology, 16(4), 428–438. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2023.405

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 4 (2023): Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology

Section

Social processes and social dynamics

License

Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.