The following paper assesses a statistical relationship between Economic Inequality and Voting Participation among a sizable amount of nations across the world representing all continents. With an deductive approach, three theoretical standpoints of interest are presented: one that describes a negative, another inconclusive, and one with a positive relationship between the variables of interest. Through panel data analysis the study finds support in favour of a negative relationship in that as economic inequality rises, voting participation in parliamentary elections decreases.

The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) assets referendum and the anti-corruption referendum took place alongside the Legislative election in January 2008. The same year, the other national referendums on joining UN and returning to UN were held with the Presidential election in March. In the Legislative election, while 59 percent of electorate voted, turnout rate for the referendums are surprisingly low to 26 percent. In the Presidential election, in spite of a high turnout rate of 76 percent, turnout rate for the referendums are merely 36 percent. What is the reason for people to vote in elections but not on referendums? Partisanship probably explains people¡¦s turnout on referendum, but I suspect that there are more factors. This research provides a framework and a model of voting participation in referendum. Base on my analysis of Taiwan¡¦s Election and Democratization Study(TEDS), I find the following: First, Partisanship is the only factor which affect the referendums in the Legislative election and the Presidential election. However, people¡¦s partisanship reflects their values and leads to take or not to take referendum ballots. Other important factors of referendum voting participation are political interest, identity of Taiwanese or Chinese, What newspaper is used to read, unification-independence issue and perspectives on the relation between President and Legislative Yuan. Second, with identity of Taiwanese or Chinese and unification-independence issue, we could infer that attitudes about referendum issue affect referendum voting participation behavior. Finally, by the electors that prefer to check and balance between the executive power and the legislative power likely decide to take referendum ballots, we could assume that some voters who realize and support referendum system intend to vote on referendum.

We follow the approach of expressive voting and consider that voters with more extreme ideology can enjoy higher utility after voting. However, along with effect of ideology, voters also take the difference of his ideology and candidate¡¦s into account. Given the above assumptions, two candidates choose their ideology before voters decide whether and for whom to vote. Two candidates¡¦ ideology converges to the middle point if voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach is less important than by instrumental voting approach. In the opposite, two candidates¡¦ ideology diverge and the voters with mild ideology refuse to vote in point if voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach is more important. We examine the ANES data of ten U.S. presidential elections from 1972 to 2008. The nested logit model is used to estimate the corresponding coefficients of voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach and instrumental voting approach. The data supports our conjecture that voters with more extreme ideology are more likely to cast their votes.

This study has examined if there is a correlation between Offline Social Network and voting participation in the European Parliamentary elections. The study has been done through a qualitative method, doing five different deep interviews. The selection has been based upon the group of first generation immigrants coming from a non-EU European country. The study has showed indications that level of education, participation in associations and participation in social activities are affecting the Offline Social Network of a person. The different Offline Social Networks have shown upon different attitudes towards voting politically. It also showed upon different levels of knowledge about the European Union politics and the elections to the European Parliament. The study showed that the number of Offline Social Networks might not be what affects whether the respondents are voting or not, it shows to be rather connected to what kind of social networks. This have been connected to the field-theory of Bourdieu, which claims that a person´s habitus is affected by the volume of for example cultural and social capital which also seems to have an effect on what Offline Social Network that the individual is connected to. The way that a person appears in the social room is affected by the volume of capital and how the social room is letting the individual appear. This shows to affect whether someone votes or not.

"In an attempt to determine the effectiveness of the political leadership provided by members of an ethnic group, this thesis investigates the Mexican-American electorate in San Antonio and Laredo, Texas. Three variables were studied: the leaders, the followers, and the circumstances under which both operate...Data for this investigation were gathered through personal interviews and from voting records complied by the county clerks of Bexar and Webb Counties. "--leaf 1.