The main objective and purpose of this research paper is to see if there is a correlation between political homogeneity/heterogeneity and increasing voter turnout. We will be examining four local elections in Sweden using different types of statistical analyses. According to some theories, voter turnout is expected to increase with either a high degree of political homogeneity, or with a high degree of political heterogeneity. Previous studies shows both of these theories to explain higher voting turnout. They have almost exclusively been applied when studying elections on national level in countries using a majority electoral system. This has led us in an attempt to find out what impact political homogeneity/heterogeneity has on voter turnout in local municipal elections in Sweden. In this paper we use official statistics from Kolada and Statistics Sweden, containing information regarding the municipal elections between 2002-2014. We have gathered data including all 290 Swedish municipals. The data contains information about demographic and socioeconomic factors, as well as results from local elections. Our study shows evidence of higher voter turnout in municipals characterized by a higher degree of political homogeneity. The results shows no indication of a general pattern or correlation between a higher degree of political heterogeneity and higher voter turnout.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:oru-67629 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Settergren, Benjamin, Ulfgren, Carljohan |
| Publisher | Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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