Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Karlštejn Castle is one of the most popular tourist sights in the Czech Republic. This thesis therefore focuses on the use of this conservation area, especially in the second half of the 20th century and all the 21st century. Based on the available archival documents, in the thesis there are described changes of the expositions in the castle's rooms that are opened to the visitors. The thesis is also focused on the tour routes and development of the visitors' turnout. Last of all, in this thesis there are mentioned past and present events held in the castle and other "crowd-pullers" that are attractive to the visitors. In the first part the thesis also deals with the issue of the castle's ownership and the effort for the integration among the UNESCO sights.

Using the 1990, 1994 and 1998 Congressional mid-term elections, this study looks at whether the type of primary system in a person's state has an effect on whether or not that person will vote in the general election. The five types of primary systems (closed, semi-closed, semiopen, open and blanket) are explained as well as traditional factors for likelihood of voting. It is hypothesized that the more closed the primary system, the less likely a person is to vote. Data analysis shows that when significant, living in an open primary state does significantly increase the likelihood that a person will vote. However, primary type was significant in only six of the nine models studied here.

Political participation is paramount to the well being of a democracy. Concerns over low turnout rates across the world have prompted a growing body of research on the potential for political institutions to foster electoral participation. Amongst those institutions, compulsory voting is found to have the largest and most robust impact on maximizing participation rates. Under this system, eligible citizens are required by law to go to the polls on election day, and are subject to penalties if they fail to do so. Beyond its positive impact on turnout, we know far less about what other aspects of the democratic process are influenced by compulsory voting. The main goal of this dissertation is to inform the debate on how and when the effects of compulsory voting extend beyond voter turnout. Specifically, I draw on numerous sources of survey data across the world to investigate the impact of compulsory voting (herein CV) on three distinct political aspects: citizen attitudes towards voting, political engagement, and elite campaigning. The first step in understanding the broader effects of CV is to examine whether it influences citizens’ perceptions of the democratic act of voting. In chapter two, I develop a detailed theoretical framework that highlights whether compulsory voting increases citizens’ feelings of civic duty, or generates resentment amongst eligible voters. I also argue that the impact of CV on attitudes could be neutral—by devaluing the act of voting and making individuals indifferent towards the democratic process. Using a hierarchical modeling technique and survey data from Latin America, I show that voters living under CV are no more likely to report either increased feelings of civic duty or higher rates of resentment, compared to their counterparts under voluntary voting. Instead, individuals who are required to turn out by law are slightly more likely to feel indifferent towards electoral participation. Then, chapter three takes advantage of the recent abolition of compulsory voting in Chile to evaluate whether CV laws promote political engagement beyond election day. An empirical analysis of public opinion surveys over a 10-year period pre and post reform shows that rates of political engagement—specifically, watching and reading political news and discussing politics with family—are significantly higher under compulsory than under voluntary voting, and this is especially the case for those with lower levels of education. These findings suggest that when presented with the task of turning out at the polls, citizens seem to incur the extra costs necessary to make an informed decision. Finally, in chapter four I investigate whether mandatory voting laws alter the way political parties decide to engage in outreach during political campaigns. Using a comprehensive dataset of post-election surveys of over 40,000 individuals in 27 different countries, I find that political elites do adjust to their institutional context—when voting is mandatory, parties invest in campaign outreach at similar levels (not less) than when voting is voluntary, and that this outreach is much less skewed towards individuals of higher socioeconomic status compared to when voting is voluntary. I also show evidence that parties under CV are more likely to engage in persuasion rather than mobilization via party outreach. Taken together, this dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of how maximizing electoral participation through a legal requirement to vote shapes individual and elite behavior, contributing to our understanding of the implications of political institutions for the quality of representative democracy worldwide.

De acordo com a teoria tradicional, governantes eleitos adotam políticas conforme as preferências do eleitor mediano. No entanto, a presença de abstenção nas eleições pode levar a uma diferença entre a preferência dos eleitores efetivos e da população com um todo. O Brasil se destaca por ser um dos países com voto obrigatório com maior percentual de eleitores faltosos nas eleições. O recadastramento biométrico representa uma oportunidade para se estudar os mecanismos de incentivo para participação política, permitindo verificar seu impacto sobre as políticas públicas, em particular as despesas públicas municipais. Por meio de uma metodologia que combina variáveis instrumentais e um modelo de diferenças em diferenças, encontram-se evidências de que o recadastramento biométrico aumentou, em média, oito pontos percentuais a taxa de participação eleitoral nos municípios que passaram pela política. Por sua vez, esta elevação da participação reduziu as despesas em saúde e assistência social. Além do uso do recadastramento biométrico ser inédito na literatura brasileira na área de Economia Política, o mesmo fornece um mecanismo para se verificar como a ampliação da votação entre indivíduos com maior educação influencia as despesas públicas, uma abordagem pouco comum na literatura já existente, cujo foco é a ampliação da partipação eleitoral de camadas menos privilegiadas da sociedade / According to mainstream theory, elected governments adopt policies in order to address the preferences of the median voter. However, low turnout rates can lead to a difference between the preference of voters and the preference of the population as a whole. Despite compulsory voting, Brazil stands out among other countries as it computed high rates of abstention during recent elections. Biometric registration represents an opportunity for the study of the mechanisms behind the decision of voting, which ultimately impacts public policies. By means a methodology that combines instrumental variables and differences in differences, we find evidence that the biometric registration increased, on average, eight percentage points the turnout rate in the cities that have already been completed the registration. This increase of turnout, in turn, decreased health and social assistance expenditures. In addition, the study of the biometric registration has no precedent in the Brazilian Political Economy literature, as it provides a mechanism to verify how the enfranchisement of individuals with higher education affects public expenditure, and unusual fact in the traditional literature, which focuses on the enfranchisement of less educated voters

This thesis extends our understanding of a ‘puzzle of participation’ (Brody 1978). Across established Western democracies, turnout in elections has been steadily falling - at the same time, society is modernising. Central to this latter phenomenon is educational expansion, a process in which there is increased higher education (HE) enrolment, rising attainment levels, and even wider citizenship education. Under classic civic education hypotheses, such factors are anticipated to increase political literacy, raise electoral interest, and provide encouraging environments for political participation. Hence, the patterns we observe in turnout present as paradoxical. This is especially evident among the very youngest electors, who comprise arguably the most educated generation yet but are also the least likely to vote. The thesis thus poses the question: Why is the comparatively higher level of education enjoyed by young people today not associated with a higher level of voter turnout? My response takes inspiration from Norris’s ‘critical citizens’ (1999, 2011) and combines this with repertoire replacement (Dalton 2008; Norris 2003) and sorting model (Nie et al 1996) theories to develop an argument based on a multiplicity of education effects on turnout. Specifically, I present a thesis which contends that higher levels of education today encourage the emergence of a non-voting disaffected citizenry, characterised by two distinct dimensions. The first, a dissatisfied-disaffection is thought to be present among growing student populations. It is this demographic group which, in response to its members’ HE experiences, is challenging established political processes, becoming more demanding of an active role in politics, and turning to alternative participation activities when opportunities arise. Within this I posit two non-voter types: (a) frustrated electors, committed to voting yet exasperated by the responsiveness of political actors and their policy offers at elections, and (b) engaged activists, pointedly rejecting voting in favour of more direct and ongoing influencing activities. The second dimension reflects alienated-disaffection. Here, individuals who lack HE experience are seeing their status and position decline in line with educational inflation, and, as a consequence, experience limited political network mobilisation, find their confidence for participation falling, and so withdraw from politics altogether. They are marginalised citizens. Meanwhile, a number of young people will continue to vote, receiving encouragement from their social networks and partisan attachments; mobilised voters. This thesis makes its contributions in testing and refining these propositions in the case of the British electorate using data from the British Election Study, British Participation Survey, and the Citizens in Transition Survey. Through a range of statistical techniques (including logistic regression, latent class analysis, and structural equation modelling) I devise new ways of operationalising disaffection, and assess its varied impact on turnout. This thesis progresses to explore typologies of participation repertoires, within which combinations of disaffection attitudes and turnout behaviours exist. It then examines in more detail the educational mechanisms through which these occur.

We introduce an electoral pollster in a two-candidate costly voting model to study the incentives that pollsters have regarding the release of poll results. In our model, the pollster has private knowledge about the distribution of citizens\' preferences, but it may report false information to the public. If this happens, we say the pollster is misreporting the poll. An often heard criticism about pollsters is that they might manipulate in order to benefit some candidate. We show that they have incentives to misreport even in the absence of ideological motives. Moreover, misreported polls are welfare-improving relative to truthful polls. / Introduz-se um instituto de pesquisa eleitoral em um modelo de voto custoso a fim de estudar quais incentivos os institutos possuem ao divulgarem suas pesquisas. No nosso modelo, o instituto possui informação privada a respeito da distribuição de preferências da sociedade sobre os candidatos, mas pode escolher reportar incorretamente essa informação ao público. Se isso acontece, diremos que o instituto manipulou a pesquisa eleitoral. Uma preocupação comum das pessoas em relação aos institutos de pesquisa é a possibilidade de eles manipularem uma pesquisa eleitoral com o objetivo direto de beneficiar um determinado candidato. Nós mostramos que eles possuem incentivos para manipular a pesquisa mesmo na ausência de motivações partidárias. Ainda, essa manipulação aumenta o bem-estar da sociedade, em comparação com pesquisas verdadeiras.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the correlation between economic development and inclusive political institutions. Research in the field of development economics highlights the importance of durable institutions for sustained economic growth. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson propose that we should consider inclusive political institutions are key drivers of economic development, but political inclusion is challenging to measure quantitatively. We investigate novel ways ways to operationalize political inclusion and economic development by using voter turnout as the independent variable while median income acts as the dependent variable to better reflects the living standards of the broad population. Our thesis is that increased voter participation as a percentage of voting age population should correlate to a higher median income. Our bivariate regression shows a clear relationship but low explanatory power since linear regression doesn’t explain significant variations in the data. Multivariate linear regression results show a weaker correlation than expected but explains our data better by highlighting a clear tendency for high income democracies to enjoy high voter turnout whereas low income countries have varied outcomes. A high degree of data variability raises doubts about the validity of comparing voting participation between different political systems.

My dissertation explains the extent to which electoral institutions and declining political party competition precipitated a steep decline in U.S. turnout after 1896 from which the nation never recovered. Turnout dropped from 83 to 66 percent in less than ten years. This is a persistent puzzle in political science because data limitations have stymied empirical assessment of existing theories. Using original datasets on nineteenth century voter registration laws and records on political gambling on presidential elections from 1880 to 1916, I test the hypothesis that the shift in electoral behavior was a function of registration reforms and declining competition. I find that registration laws and political competition modestly explain the decline. Registration reforms explain one percent of the seventeen point turnout drop, and the combined effect of registration and declining competition is approximately two to three percentage points of the drop. I also found that the effect of registration are conditional on immigration, the effect is stronger in states with higher immigrant populations. For the most part, political party competition had a positive effect on turnout in the expected direction. In states remaining competitive after 1896, the long-term average effect of competition on turnout was an increase of about 14 percentage points. To validate this argument, I use election-betting data to create a measure of the public's perception of electoral competition in the states. My findings indicate that highly informed individuals accurately predicted election outcomes, which suggests the public was aware of the electoral competitiveness of presidential elections in the states. This means that perceptions about the electoral competitiveness of races likely influenced voters' decisions to participate. My dissertation advances our empirical and theoretical understanding of the interaction between institutions and political behavior and helps to inform the current debate on the potential implications that contemporary legal reforms in election laws might have on voter participation in America.