Labor Schweiz: Vergleichende Wahlbeteiligungsforschung bei Kantonalen Parlamentswahlen

How to explain different levels in voting turnout among the Swiss sub-national units? To answer this question, this study presents the first comparative and macro-quantitative investigation of the voting participation in parliamentary elections of the Swiss Cantons between 1982 und 2004. The paper evaluates political institutions, socio-economic factors, and cultural foundations. According to our statistical inquiry we present four main determinants of cross-cantonal variance in voting turnout: mandatory voting laws, electoral thresholds, the coverage of partisan membership, and a culture of Catholicism. Moreover, the estimations reveal that there is no systematic influence of patterns of direct democracy on the voting participation in parliamentary cantonal elections.