Labor Market Risk, Electoral Institutions, and Abstention: Is Electoral Participation under

Transcription

1 Labor Market Risk, Electoral Institutions, and Abstention: Is Electoral Participation under Proportionality Less Equal? Abstract: This article provides a comparative perspective on the relationship between labor market risk and individual abstention probabilities. While it is often suggested that proportional electoral systems (PR) are more representative, we argue that proportionality amplifies inequalities in participation along the lines of labor market divides. This is for two reasons. First, a robust pattern of alienation among high risk voters discounts the positive effects of PR on turnout. Second, political parties mobilization efforts focus on voters who are easiest to mobilize. Hence, the larger number of parties under PR primarily leads to additional mobilization among voters with low labor market risk. In line with this argumentation, we find that proportional systems lower aggregated abstention rates are a result of additional mobilization among low risk voters. Majoritarian systems, on the other hand, have higher abstention rates in the aggregate, yet abstention probabilities are much more equally distributed across the electorate. These findings have important implications for our view of the representativeness of proportional systems. Moreover, the results suggest that we have to re-think some of the standard arguments on electoral abstention in majoritarian countries. Dominik Schraff Department of Political Science University of St. Gallen Rosenbergstrasse 51, 9000 St. Gallen dominik.schraff@unisg.ch 1

2 Introduction How do labor market risks affect electoral abstention? In the recent decades, political science generated a rich literature on the potential effects of labor market risks on political orientations and behaviors (e.g., Burgoon and Dekker 2010; Emmenegger 2009; Iversen and Soskice 2001; Lindvall and Rueda 2013; Marx 2014a; Rueda 2005; Schwander and Häusermann 2013). This research provides valuable insights on how labor market risks determine redistributive preferences, party preferences, and electoral choice. Yet, a minority of the contributions systematically investigates the link between labor market risks and electoral abstention. Generally, this is an important shortcoming in times of parallel increases of labor market divides and inequalities in electoral participation (Armingeon and Schädel 2015; Emmenegger et al. 2012). This article argues that labor market risk is a particularly strong predictor of individual abstention probabilities in proportional electoral systems. While proportionality (PR) is associated with higher aggregated levels of turnout, this additional mobilization comes at the cost of leaving behind a strongly disadvantaged group of voters. We argue that this pattern is due to two factors. First, labor market risk creates a strong pattern of political alienation among high risk voters, which discounts the positive effects of PR for this group of voters. Second, parties target their mobilization efforts on voters with low levels of labor market risk. Hence, the larger number of parties under PR primarily leads to additional mobilization among voters with low labor market risk. Our argument stands in contrast to recent theories that use differences in cognitive skills to explain unequal participation under PR. Our findings show that previous versions of the cognitive skill argument are of limited use as they focus on how electoral institutions affect the incentive structure of voters with high labor market risk. Rather, our analyses reveal that electoral institutions primarily affect the behavior of low risk groups. The article, therefore, contributes to the large literature on inequalities in electoral participation and more specifically to research on how electoral institutions condition the effects of labor market risk on electoral abstention. Previous literature on labor market risks and political behavior indicates that 2

3 disadvantaged voters are more likely to abstain from elections (Emmenegger, Marx, and Schraff 2015; Lindvall and Rueda 2013). Also, class-based research on political behavior shows that socio-economic stratifications along the lines of labor market divides are a strong determinant of voting behavior (e.g., Jansen, Evans, and Graaf 2013; Oesch 2006). Yet, it remains under-investigated how far this relationship is conditioned by contextual factors, such as characteristics of the political systems. Research on inequality in electoral abstention applies this comparative perspective on characteristics of the political systems, yet it is only loosely connected to the labor market risk literature. Focusing on income as determinant of turnout, it has been shown that political participation is determined by socio-economic divides (Anderson and Beramendi 2008). Here, it has been argued that these socioeconomic divides in political participation even gained momentum in the past decades (Armingeon and Schädel 2015). Moreover, mainly focusing on education as determinant of turnout, it has been shown that the degree of inequality in participation does depend on contextual factors, such as the proportionality of the electoral system (Fisher et al. 2008; Gallego 2010; Pardos-Prado, Galais, and Muñoz 2014; Perea 2002). Yet, so far it remains unclear how these insights relate to research on labor market risks and electoral abstention. Using data from wave six of the European Social Survey, we show that the effect of labor market risk on electoral abstention is strongest in proportional electoral systems. While PR systems are able to absorb more voters into electoral participation, this process comes at the cost of leaving a strongly disadvantaged group of voters out of political participation. Disproportional systems, on the other hand, produce higher levels of electoral abstention which, however, are much less informed by labor market divides. We argue that this is due to a robust pattern of political alienation among high risk voters and differences in party mobilization between proportional and majoritarian countries. We substantiate this argument with evidence from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems dataset. Our findings raise questions about the representative quality of PR systems, as well as it requires future research to re-think risk-based explanations of electoral abstention in majoritarian electoral systems. 3

4 Labor market risk, party-voter congruence, and electoral institutions Labor market risk encompasses a variety of different adverse labor market experiences, such as unemployment, insecure employment, or low-wage work. Our broad working definition of labor market risk overlaps strongly with other concepts such as labor market disadvantage, outsiderness or personal economic insecurity. Regarding micro-processes, it seems likely that different forms of labor market risks have different effects on political behavior. However, we expect that labor market risks generally cluster, which enables us to stratify voters along a high/low labor market risk dimension. Previous research has accumulated a number of arguments on how and why labor market risks depress voters propensity to turnout. We can summarize some of the most prominent arguments with a simple model of abstention as shown in Figure 1 (Krosnick, Visser, and Harder 2010). Here, electoral abstention is presented as a function of voters ability and motivation to turnout, as well as a difficulty term referring to external constraints imposed on voters. Difficulty refers to factors outside the minds of voters, such as characteristics of the electoral system, distance to polling stations, or the behavior of politicians and parties. The main question, for our purpose, is on how labor market risks can impact or interact with these factors. It is clear that labor market risk can only have direct effects on voters motivation and ability to turn out. Additionally, labor market risk could interact with external factors contained in the difficulty term (e.g., different risk groups react differently to characteristics of the electoral system). Recent research shows that labor market risk is associated with political alienation as it depresses trust into politics, the government or the political system in general (Emmenegger, Marx, and Schraff 2015; Marx 2014a). Such measures of political efficacy and alienation have been shown to be strong predictors of political participation (Clarke and Acock 1989; Levi and Stoker 2000), suggesting that labor market risks are associated with a decreased motivation to vote. Moreover, it has been argued 4

5 that labor market risks decrease the motivation to turn out as disadvantaged workers feel relatively deprived, blaming (at least partly) politics for their adverse stance (Marx 2014b). Further, it is argued that labor market risk impacts voters perceived or actual abilities to participate politically. With regard to perceived competencies, the so-called spill-over model of political participation suggests that frustrating job experiences lower workers self-esteem, which in turn impacts voters believes about the own political competence (Pateman 1970). Furthermore, labor market risk can reduce voters actual abilities to participate. Based on the prominent resource model of political participation, turnout is a function of individuals endowments with time, money, and civic skills (Verba, Scholzman, and Brady 1995). High labor market risk and the stress accompanying it can reduce the time and cognitive resources a person is willing or able to invest into politics. Moreover, higher labor market risk can align with less material resources, which is shown to be a strong predictor of political participation (Anderson and Beramendi 2008). Figure 1: A model of electoral abstention Source: Own illustration. Oriented at the model proposed by Krosnick, Visser, and Harder (2010). As a consequence of labor market risks potential to depress political participation, comparative political economists emphasized the threat of a political under-representation of high risk groups (Rueda 2005). Here, it has been argued that high risk groups become marginalized politically, since political parties are too far away from disadvantaged voters preferred policy positions (Emmenegger, Marx, and Schraff 2015). This suggests that one major source of abstention under labor market risk is 5

6 decreased party-voter congruence among disadvantaged voters. Accordingly, under high labor market risks, voters might be less able to align their preference with their vote. Party-voter congruence is understood as the absolute difference between a voters ideological position and the position of the party she has voted for. As this difference is based on voters own positioning in the political space, it is highly informed by perceptions. This could substantially strengthen the effect of labor market risks on party-voter congruence. Many of the alienation-, deprivation-, and efficacybased explanations of labor market risk s influence on abstention expect changes in voters perceptions of politics. These perceptions of disenchantment due to labor market risk could very well materialize in estimates of party-voter congruence. A decrease in party-voter congruence under labor market risk could also have more exogenous sources. Political alienation due to labor market risks and the resulting disenchantment from mainstream parties might lead voters to vote for protest parties on the extreme left or right of the political spectrum, even though the individual preferences are much more centrist. Also, the disenchantment of disadvantaged voters from mainstream parties might require these voters to more strongly engage in strategic voting. Indeed, an analysis of party-voter congruence across labor market risk groups reveals that high-risk voters are much less able and/or willing to align their preference with their vote. 1 It seems reasonable that difficulties in the alignment of voters own preferences with their vote makes electoral abstention a more attractive option. Yet, whether and to which degree such a pattern of disenchantment informs individual abstention probabilities will most likely depend on contextual factors. If we agree that reduced motivation and ability among disadvantaged voters makes them more detached from political parties, we still are left with the difficulty term as a potential moderator (see Figure 1). If we want to 1 Figure A3 in the Appendix provides empirical evidence on this. Here, we estimated standard proximity models of voting for different labor market risk groups over four countries (DE, NL, FR, NOR). The Figure shows that voters ability and/or willingness to align their vote with their preferences decreases significantly under higher levels of labor market risk. 6

7 explain individual abstention probabilities, it is very likely that this disenchantment potential is amplified or mitigated by different external factors, such as characteristics of the electoral system. A joined consideration of labor markets risks and difficulty factors opens a new research agenda in the investigation of voting behavior, and provides a multiplicity of interesting contextual factors for empirical analyses. In this article, we focus on a very prominent and strong predictor of turnout, contained in the difficulty term namely the proportionality of the electoral system. It is well established that proportional electoral systems have substantially higher turnout rates than majoritarian systems (Blais and Carty 1990; Blais and Dobrzynska 1998). Moreover, it has been shown that economically less well-off voters are (potentially) better represented in proportional systems (Bernauer, Giger, and Rosset 2013). This suggests that there might be strong interdependencies between labor market risk, the proportionality of the electoral system, and electoral abstention. Previous research highlights that proportionality increases turnout on the national level for three main reasons. (1) PR more adequately reflects individual vote choices in the parliament, therefore increasing the efficacy of voters. This should be especially relevant for marginalized groups of voters (e.g., high labor market risk groups). (2) PR s multi-member districts make it more likely that elections are competitive, and (3) PR increases the number of parties available, increasing mobilization and making voting more attractive (Blais and Carty 1990). In line with this, representation studies show that PR systems more adequately represent economically less well-off voters (Bernauer, Giger, and Rosset 2013). We can express these arguments in terms of the model presented in Figure 1. Accordingly, PR should increase voters motivation to vote due to higher efficacy and increased electoral competitiveness. Also, PR decreases difficulty by offering a greater number and a broader range of parties that try to mobilize voters. Difficulty could also decrease through the rather direct translation of votes into seats under PR, as disproportionality often requires voters to engage in complex patterns of strategic voting (e.g., disproportionality requiring a socialist to vote conservative as to prevent a majority for a right-wing candidate). We therefore forward the following hypothesis: 7

8 H1a: By increasing motivation and decreasing difficulty to vote, PR mitigates some of the adverse effects of labor market risk on electoral abstention. However, it stands to question whether proportionality really succeeds in mobilizing voter groups suffering from high labor market risk. As highlighted above, labor market risk is associated with strong negative effects on factors of motivations and abilities to vote. It might well be that alienation is so fundamental that labor market risk increases abstention, no matter whether the electoral system is proportional or majoritarian. Yet, if this would be true, where do the higher participation rates in proportional systems come from? We argue that additional mobilization under PR mainly comes from increased participation among the well-off, low risk voters. While we agree with Bernauer, Giger, and Rosset (2013) on the point that PR systems cover a broader range of preferences in the electorate, we want to highlight that this does not necessarily result in additional mobilization among all risk groups. This is for two reasons. First, high labor market risk is associated with lower ability to vote. Hence, while PR might increase all voters motivation to vote, this increase is discounted by the low perceived or actually ability among high risk voters. Second, parties mobilization efforts are not targeted towards the whole electorate equally. Research on electoral mobilization commonly assumes that parties consider the relative costs and benefits of mobilizing voters (Cox 1999). Accordingly, political parties try to mobilize voters for which costs are minimal and the benefits are maximal. As a result, parties mobilization efforts should be highest among voters who are most likely to turn out (Karp, Banducci, and Bowler 2008). In our framework, the voters with the lowest cost to mobilize and the highest propensity to turn out are of course voters with low labor market risk. As a consequence, PR should merely increase the number of parties competing for the low risk voter groups. PR s higher participation rates, therefore, would be a result of disproportional increases in mobilization among the low risk voters. We can rephrase this argument more explicitly in light of the model presented in Figure 1. Recall, that abstention is assumed to be a function of the product of motivation, ability and difficulty. The 8

9 multiplication of these three factors implies that each factor is a necessary condition (e.g., zero motivation results in abstention, no matter how high motivation or how small difficulty). If we assume that PR leads to an increase in voters motivation to vote and in a decrease of difficulty to vote (see H1a), abstention should decrease. Yet, two reasons suggest that this mechanism does not work similarly across the whole electorate. First, voters need a certain level of actual and perceived ability to vote. As we argued above, high labor market risk is associated with lower ability, discounting the positive effects of PR for high risk voters. Second, decreased difficulty might not impact voters equally as party mobilization efforts are focused on low risk voters. Previous research on the equality of political participation presented first evidence pointing in this direction (Fisher et al. 2008; Gallego 2010; Pardos-Prado, Galais, and Muñoz 2014; Perea 2002). This literature is largely concerned with the effects of educational differences on turnout. While we admit that there is a substantial overlap between education and labor market risk, we want to highlight that the two concepts are still distinct. For example, two voters can very well have the same education level, but different levels of labor market risk. We therefore move beyond this literature by employing a broader conception of inequality, which does not only include educational differences, but all kind of differences in economic insecurity. In our analysis, we will be able to show that this extension matters by estimating the effects of labor market risk on abstention, holding constant respondents level of education. Focusing on the role of education for turnout, Gallego (2010) argues that inequality in participation increases as the number of parties in a political system growths. This is explained by poorly educated voters being scared off from the more complex nature of PR systems. Hence, it is argued that less educated voters turn out more frequently under a low effective number of parties. As we will show below, Gallego s (2010) argument disregards the fact that turnout rates among less educated voters are still lower in majoritarian systems. We therefore think it is misleading to suggest that turnout rates among voters with high labor market risk increase under majoritarian electoral rules. 9

10 Generally, Gallego assumes that PR increases difficulty to vote on a cognitive dimension, while we argue that PR can decreases difficulty on a spatial dimension. Gallego assumes that, from the perspective of voters, PR systems are more complex than majoritarian systems. To us, it is not that clear which electoral system is more complex than the other. On basis of the number of parties competing, majoritarian systems might indeed be less complex compared to the more diverse party landscape under PR (small vs. large choice-set). Yet, with regard to the disproportional translation of votes into seats, majoritarian systems appear to be more complex. Compared to that, the rather direct translation from votes to seats under PR seems less demanding to capture cognitively. Hence, we believe that there is limited merit in classifying PR and majoritarian systems as more or less complex. 2 Rather, we suggest that the difficulty of making a vote choice decreases if there are more parties covering a wider range of the policy space. Here, difficulty is understood as voters ability to find a suitable party fitting to their policy preferences. Abstention therefore is not primarily a response to overwhelming complexity, but a lack of proximate parties in the policy space. Closely following Gallego, Pardos-Prado et al. (2014) suggest that the increased complexity of PR systems amplifies educational divides in participation. This general argument fits with ours as it proposes that inequality in participation increases under proportionality. However, their theoretical mechanism also rests on cognitive skills, suggesting that less educated (high risk) voters are discouraged by the more complex PR systems. Again, we think that this argument is problematic as it proposes that high risk voters turn out less frequently under PR as compared to majoritarian systems. We rather suggest that there is not much of a difference for high risk voters under PR or majoritarian electoral rules. As parties mobilization strategies focus on low risk voters, the electoral system mainly affects these voters turnout rates. This leads to our alternative hypothesis H1b: 2 This is also for pragmatic reasons, since as we show below high labor market risk groups are less responsive to differences in the electoral system. Hence, if we would want to focus on the role of cognitive skills, we rather should find arguments on how voters with high cognitive skills are motivated by PR systems. 10

11 H1b: Due to lower ability among high risk voters and biased mobilization efforts of parties, PR increases the effect of labor market risk on electoral abstention. In summary, our theoretical discussion suggests that due to political alienation there is a general pattern of decreasing party voter-congruence under increasing levels of labor market risk. As a consequence, voters have very different baseline probabilities of turning our, depending on their level of labor market risk. In a second step, we posed the question on whether electoral proportionality mitigates or amplifies this potential for alienation along the lines of labor market divides. We proposed two competing hypothesis suggesting that proportionality either decreases or increases inequality in electoral abstention. Our main argument centers on political parties mobilization efforts. As these efforts are tuned towards low risk voters, the higher number of parties under PR leads to increased mobilization of these well-off voters. Data Given the argumentation presented above, our empirical analysis proceeds as follows. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we investigate how the proportionality of electoral systems conditions the effect of labor market risks on individual abstention probabilities. Moreover, to validate some of the major assumptions of our argumentation, we use the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data to investigate party-voter congruence along the line of labor market risks as well as to present differences in party mobilization across risk groups and electoral systems. We measure labor market risk based on an occupational class scheme developed by Oesch (2006). This scheme applies differences in work logics and skills to group workers. Especially on more aggregated levels, this scheme is closely related to the classical Erikson-Goldthorpe classification (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992), and has found wide application in political science (e.g., Kitschelt and Rehm 2014; Schwander and Häusermann 2013). Oesch (2006) provides class schemes for different levels of aggregation. We chose the most aggregated scheme distinguishing five classes. This high level of 11

12 aggregation makes the class scheme a crude, but internationally more comparable proxy for labor market risk. Moreover, we opt for this highly aggregated class scheme to ensure that enough cases remain in each class. Oesch s five-class scheme distinguishes between (1) small business owners, (2) higher-grade service class (HGSC), (3) lower-grade service class (LGSC), (4) skilled workers (SW), and (5) unskilled workers (UW). Four of these five classes can easily be scaled along the lines of labor market risk; with increasing risk levels if we move from HGSC, to LGSC, to SW, and UW. We provide some validation analysis for this claim in the Appendix. 3 We omit small business owners as we cannot clearly scale them along the lines of labor market risk. Generally, the political behavior of this group of workers remains ambiguous. To test hypotheses H1a and H1b, we investigate a cross-level interaction between voters level of labor market risk and the proportionality of the electoral system. For this, we use data of wave 6 (2012) of the European Social Survey (ESS). We measure electoral abstention on basis of an item asking respondents whether they turned out in the last national election. Our resulting abstention dummy is 1 if a respondent did not vote and zero if she turned out. Note that we set respondents to missing who report to be ineligible to vote. To investigate the effects of macro-level factors, we merge institutional and economic data from Eurostat and the Comparative Political Data Set (CPDS) provided by Armingeon et al. (2015). From Eurostat we merge data on social expenditure as a share of GDP, as higher social expenditure could mitigate the effect of labor market divides on electoral abstention. From the CPDS we derive the Gini index, as overall inequality has been shown to affect turnout rates (Solt 2010). The ESS data allows us further to apply standard controls such as gender, age, and education. We also include a measure of 3 Indeed, we can see that a number of objective as well as perceived risk measures are systematically related to an ordinal representation of the four labor market risk groups. See Table A1 in the Appendix for ordinal logistic regression results on this relationship. Also, see Figure A1 in the Appendix for a cross-national investigation of the hierarchical structuring of the four classes along the education level. 12

13 migrant background that captures whether a respondents father or mother have been born outside the country of residence. To capture proportionality of the electoral system, we take the index of relative disproportionality provided in the CPDS dataset. It is based on the measures of the effective number of parties proposed by Laasko and Taagepera (1979). The index defines disproportionality as the difference between the effective number of parties on the votes level and the effective number of parties on the seats level, scaled over the effective number of parties on the votes level. 4 We reverse to coding of the index to receive a measure of proportionality. We prefer the relative proportionality measure as it is rather intuitive in meaning. From the perspective of the voter, a crucial task of proportionality is to directly translate electoral choices into seats. As robustness test, we also use the well-known Gallagher (1991) index of disproportionality. The substantial findings remain the same. All continuous variables used in the analyses are standardized. Analysis Labor Market Risk, Electoral Proportionality, and Abstention We now are going to investigate whether and how the effects of labor market risks are moderated by the proportionality of the electoral system. Figure 3 provides a first description of the patterns in the ESS data. On the y-axis, we plotted the explained variance in electoral abstention probabilities, using the four occupational risk groups as sole predictors in 24 single-country regressions of abstention. We see that there is a strong variation in the explanatory power of our risk groups. While the explained variance in the Netherlands or Germany is relatively high, it approaches zero in Ireland or Slovakia. The fitted line in Figure 3 shows that there is a moderate correlation between proportionality and the explanatory power of risk groups. In line with H1b, we see that the explained variance on average 4 Index of relative disproportionality as defined by Armingeon et al. (2015): (effpar ele effpar leg ) effpar ele 13

14 is highest among more proportional electoral system. Figure A4 in the Appendix replicates this analysis for education as predictor of abstention. The pattern is very similar in that the explanatory power of education is on average greatest among proportional electoral systems (cf., Gallego 2010; Pardos- Prado et al. 2014). Figure 2: Correlation between explained variance in abstention and electoral proportionality, using risk groups as predictors Note: Figure 2 presents the correlation between the proportionality of an electoral system and the explanatory power of the labor market risk groups within each country. It is based on 24 linear probability models, estimating the effect of labor market risk on electoral abstention for each country separatly. In a next step, we will test this relationship in a more formal way. Given our hierarchical data structure, we use a multilevel logit model with varying intercepts and level-two predictors, defined as: (1) Pr(y i = 1) = logit 1 (α j[i] + βx i ), for i = 1,, n α j = γ 0 α + γ α U j + η j α, for j = 1,, J, where α j is a country specific intercept, X i is a matrix of level-one predictors and U j is a matrix of leveltwo predictors. We estimate this multilevel model with a Maximum Likelihood as well as with a Bayesian approach. The Bayesian estimation strategy is particularly useful as it allows us to include a greater number of controls. Also, the Bayesian models help us to strengthen confidence in our 14

15 estimates of level-two predictors, as these have been shown to be less reliable under frequentist estimation (Bryan and Jenkins 2015). Figure 3 plots the coefficients for a baseline model without controls, but with random intercepts for each country. 5 It presents Maximum Likelihood estimates on the left panel and Bayesian estimates on the right. 6 The coefficient plots in Figure 3 show that there is a significant interaction between voters level of labor market risk and the proportionality of the electoral system. The interactions between risk groups and proportionality have to be interpreted relative to the reference category HGSC. The positive interaction terms suggest that abstention probabilities among the riskier classes increase with higher levels of proportionality. This effect becomes stronger the riskier the occupational group. Figure 3 therefore confirms that labor market risk most strongly informs individual abstention probabilities in more proportional electoral system. This finding is robust over the two estimation strategies. Figure 3: Multilevel logit estimates of electoral abstention 5 Figure A2 in the Appendix plots the intercepts. Here, we see strong heterogeneity in abstention rates across the countries in our sample. 6 The Bayesian models are estimated with the MCMCpack using R. We use uninformative priors. For the baseline model (without controls), we use a burn-in of 5,000 and 20,000 iterations. This leads to a mean acceptance rate of 0.255, which is close to the optimal rate of 0.23 (Gelman, Roberts, and Gilks 1996). For the extended model we set a burn-in of 1,000 and 6,000 iterations to receive a mean acceptance rate of MCMC diagnostics confirm that the chains converged satisfactorily. 15

16 Figure 4: Multilevel logit estimates of electoral abstention, extended model Figure 4 replicates the Bayesian estimation with additional level-one and level-two controls. 7 The main insight of this extended model is that our core findings remain robust, namely the interactions between risk groups and PR. On level-one, we control for gender, age, education and migrant background. The coefficients on the first two lines show that if the electoral system is highly proportional, abstention probabilities among unskilled workers are similar to abstention probabilities of voters with migrant background. This highlights that the size of the political marginalization of unskilled workers is similar to the underrepresentation of voters with migrant background and underlines the prominent argument on underrepresentation of labor market outsiders (Rueda 2005). Yet, an important qualification is that this marginalization along labor market divides seems to matter primarily in PR systems. On level two, we control for overall inequality by including the Gini coefficient. Also, we control for social expenditure to capture countries efforts in reducing economic inequality. In line with previous 7 Table A2 in the Appendix provides some MLE models, subsequently testing the effects of small bundles of control variables. 16

17 research, we see that overall inequality increases electoral abstention (Solt 2010). Also, we see that social expenditure is associated with lower abstention rates. As our estimations of electoral abstention employ a nonlinear model, we now are going to present predicted probabilities for a more substantial and intuitive interpretation of the findings, particularly for the interaction terms. The predicted probabilities are based on the Maximum Likelihood results presented in Figure 2. 8 Figure 4 presents predicted probabilities of electoral abstention for our four risk groups, plotted over different levels of proportionality. Here, we see that proportionality is associated with a strong reduction in abstention among the higher-grade and lower-grade service classes. Yet, the slopes become flatter if we move to skilled and unskilled workers. This indicates that proportionality mainly seems to absorb the less risky groups into participation. 8 The choice of the estimation method does not affect the results. We present predicted probabilities for the baseline model (without controls), as some controls overlap with our labor market risk measure (e.g., education). While the general pattern holds in the extended model, the controls drain information from our labor market risk measure that should be part of a broader conception of labor market risk. 17

18 Figure 5: Predicted probabilities of abstention over different levels of proportionality and risk groups This becomes even clearer if we plot the predicted probabilities of abstention for two extreme scenarios namely maximal proportionality versus maximal disproportionality. 9 One could think of this as a stylized comparison of, for example, the Netherlands and France. Figure 5 presents the high proportionality case on the left side and the maximal majoritarian scenario on the right. Under proportionality, we see that the abstention rates for all four groups are lower than on the right side. As the overall mass covered by the bars under proportionality is smaller than in the majoritarian case, aggregate abstention should be lower. Yet, under proportionality we have significant differences in abstention rates between the risk groups. While predicted abstention approaches levels of below 10 per cent for the HGSC under full proportionality, unskilled workers are still on a relatively high level of around 25 per cent. These 9 Maximal and minimal refers to the empirical boundaries of our proportionality measure. 18

19 differences lie well outside the estimated confidence bands. Contrarily, differences between risk groups disappear in the majoritarian scenario. The plot on the right side of Figure 5 shows that predicted abstention rates are similarly high for every risk group. Figure 6: Predicted probabilities of abstention for highly proportional and highly majoritarian systems This empirical pattern confirms H1b, suggesting that proportionality mainly makes the well-off voters turn out more. These results stand in contrast to the argument by Gallego (2010), which proposes that less educated people turn out more frequently under majoritarian electoral rules as these are less complex and easier to understand. This argument misses the fact that abstention rates of the high risk voters are still higher in the majoritarian scenario. Related to that, Figure 5 also shows that high risk voters are not scared away from the complexity of PR systems (Pardos-Prado, Galais, and Muñoz 2014). Abstention rates of high risk voters are still lower under PR than under majoritarian electoral rules. The underlying empirical pattern is therefore better explained by the biased absorption capacity of proportional electoral systems. The higher number of parties and the broader range of preferences they cover under PR leads to a boost in mobilization among voters with low labor market risk. This is because parties focus their mobilization efforts on voters with the lowest cost and highest expected benefit of mobilization (Karp, Banducci, and Bowler 2008). Put differently, PR merely means that more parties compete for similar target groups the less alienated, better educated voters with low labor market risk. 19

20 However, Figure 4 also shows that there still is a significant interaction between education and PR. The negative coefficient indicates that education reduces abstention probabilities under increasing levels of proportionality. This pattern could also be explained by parties mobilization strategies. For parties, highly educated respondents provide, on average, lower costs and higher benefits of mobilizations. Yet, on basis of our empirical results, we cannot (and do not want) to rule out explanations based on cognitive skills. It could be precisely these cognitive skills that make highly educated voters attractive to mobilization efforts. Our critique of the cognitive skill argument goes as far as that we doubt the current versions presented in the theoretical discussion. These arguments suggested that the electoral system affects incentives of the high risk/lowly educated voters (e.g., PR s complexity scares them off). Yet, our results indicate that most of the change in participation due to the nature of the electoral systems happens among the low risk/highly educated voters. Cognitive skill arguments therefore should focus on how a high level of education interacts with differences in electoral rules. Validating the Mechanism Party Mobilization Across Electoral Systems Our argument so far has been less clear on why participation is more equal in majoritarian systems. Put differently, what could explain the more equal distribution of abstention rates in majoritarian systems? Implicitly, our argumentation suggested that mobilization in majoritarian systems is distributed more equally across the electorate. In the remaining part, we want to substantiate this reasoning a bit more. A number of points suggest more inclusive mobilization in majoritarian system. The lower number of political parties in majoritarian systems might makes parties catch-all parties that cross-cut labor market divides. Indeed, as Evans and Graaf (2013) show, the supply of party positions is crucial in determining the degree of class-based voting. The smaller number of parties in majoritarian systems might force each party to offer broader platforms as to reach as many voters as possible. These centrist and more general party positions, together with the more discouraging voting system (e.g., more 20

21 resilient to change due to majority voting), invite abstention from all risk groups. Faced with this threat of abstention from all groups, parties in majoritarian systems might have stronger incentives to mobilize on a broader scale. Indeed, recent research shows that parties have stronger incentives for a broad mobilization of voters in majoritarian systems (Rainey 2015). To be even more explicit, this argument on differences between electoral systems in party mobilization is based on two assumptions: (1) We assumed that parties have stronger incentives to mobilize in disproportional systems, and (2) we assumed that particularly in proportional systems, parties more strongly mobilize among voters with a low level of labor market risk. This second point is a result of the larger number of parties under PR. The first assumption is supported by recent research on electoral mobilization. Accordingly, it has been shown that mobilization is stronger in disproportional systems. This is explained by the fact that mobilizing a few more voters is much more beneficial under disproportional electoral rules than in a proportional setting. In disproportional districts, strong parties have an incentive to mobilize to protect their prize and weak parties have an incentive to win the entire prize by mobilizing slightly more voters. In proportional districts, swings of a few votes can only result in parties winning and losing a small fraction of the prize. Because of this dynamic, disproportional rules give parties a stronger incentive to mobilize than proportional rules (Rainey 2015, p. 89). Our second core assumption aligns with standard assumption on parties mobilization incentives, claiming that parties generally try to target voters with the highest benefit and the lowest cost of mobilization (Karp, Banducci, and Bowler 2008). Hence, we should observe that parties more frequently try to mobilize low risk voters. A higher number of parties under PR should amplify this pattern. A joined consideration of these two assumptions suggests that mobilization efforts should be more intense and equally distributed in disproportional systems. On the other hand, mobilization efforts should be weaker under PR and more concentrated on voters with low levels of labor market risk. 21

22 Using Module 2 of the Comparative Studies of Electoral Systems (CSES) allows us to investigate the plausibility of our argument empirically. The CSES is a cross-nationally comparable database of election studies. Module 2 includes a question on whether voters have been contacted directly by parties during an election campaign. This item has been used previously to measure mobilization (Rainey 2015). Also, the CSES data allows us to distinguish between single-member district plurality systems (SMDP) and PR systems based on d Hondt. Most importantly, the CSES provides ISCO two-digit codes for a number of countries. 10 We therefore can compare mobilization over risk groups for proportional and disproportional electoral systems. Figure 6 presents the average levels of contact frequency for our four risk groups and across electoral systems. The graph is based on election studies from three SMDP countries (UK 2005, the US 2004, and New Zealand 2002) and three d Hondt countries (Portugal 2005, the Netherlands 2002, and Finland 2003). In line with Rainey (2015), we see that average contact frequency in disproportional SMDP systems is higher than in proportional d Hondt systems. Also, we see that mobilization efforts generally decrease under higher levels of labor market risk. Yet, this decrease is much weaker in SMDP compared to proportional systems. Under d Hondt, we see a much stronger divide along the lines of labor market risk. Especially the two working classes report a much lower level of mobilization efforts under PR. This empirical pattern aligns with our assumptions on the causal mechanism. 10 Yet, the occupational classification is only possible for a limited number of countries and in a less comprehensive way as the ESS data allows. Hence, the CSES data does not allow us to replicate our multilevel logit regressions. 22

23 Figure 7: Average level of mobilization across electoral systems and risk groups Conclusion How is labor market risk related to individual abstention probabilities? This article has argued that there is a robust pattern of political alienation associated with labor market risk. Based on this pattern, electoral systems produce different levels of inequality in electoral participation. While proportional systems decrease overall, national abstention rates, they produce more inequality in participation as additional participation is achieved by mainly absorbing voters with low labor market risks. Majoritarian systems, on the other hand, have higher, but more equally distributed abstention rates. This means that proportional representation cannot cross-cut the robust pattern of political alienation associated with labor market risk. Also majoritarian systems cannot tackle this issue, as abstention rates of the high-risk groups are still higher than in proportional systems. Rather, what we find is that majoritarian electoral rules substantially decrease the motivation to vote among the low risk voters. This empirical pattern does not fit previous arguments on cognitive skills (Gallego 2010; Pardos-Prado, Galais, and Muñoz 2014). Accordingly, high risk voters do not turnout more frequently under majoritarian electoral rules, nor do they turnout less frequently under the more complex PR systems. 23

24 In fact, there is not that much change in electoral mobilization of high risk voters across electoral systems. Most change is observable among the well-off, low risk voters. We argued that this can be explained by two factors. First, parties cost-benefit calculations lead to increased inequality in mobilization under higher levels of proportionality. Accordingly, parties focus their mobilization efforts on voters who are most likely to turn out. PR therefore mainly increases the number of parties competing for voters with low labor market risk. Second, labor market risk is associated with lower perceived and actual abilities to vote. This robust pattern of alienation among high risk voters discounts the motivating effect of proportional representation. These findings have important consequences for our views on representational outcomes of electoral institutions. So far, PR systems often enjoyed a reputation of creating more equal and inclusive patterns of participation (e.g., Bernauer, Giger, and Rosset 2013; Blais and Dobrzynska 1998). While we can confirm conventional wisdom in that PR decreases aggregate abstention rates, our findings show that this is only possible through a biased mobilization of low-risk groups. Hence, additional mobilization under PR comes at the cost of more inequality in participation. This inequality goes beyond educational divides in that it captures a variety of labor market risks fueling political alienation. In times of rising labor market divides (Patrick Emmenegger et al. 2012), this points to an increasingly relevant weak-spot of PR systems legitimacy. Moreover, our empirical results show that standard predictors of individual electoral abstention probabilities, such as education or labor market risk, have weak explanatory power in majoritarian electoral systems. This requires future research to re-think explanations of electoral abstention in these systems. References Anderson, Christopher J., and P. Beramendi Income, Inequality, and Electoral Participation. In Democracy, Inequality, and Representation: A Comparative Perspective, eds. P. Beramendi and 24

25 Christopher J. Anderson. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, Armingeon, Klaus et al Comparative Political Data Set Bern. Armingeon, Klaus, and Lisa Schädel Social Inequality in Political Participation: The Dark Sides of Individualisation. West European Politics 38(1): Bernauer, Julian, Nathalie Giger, and Jan Rosset Mind the Gap: Do Proportional Electoral Systems Foster a More Equal Representation of Women and Men, Poor and Rich? International Political Science Review. Blais, André, and R. K. Carty Does Proportional Representation Foster Voter Turnout? European Journal of Political Research 18(2): Blais, André, and Agnieszka Dobrzynska Turnout in Electoral Democracies. European Journal of Political Research 33(2): Bryan, Mark L., and Stephen Jenkins Multilevel Modelling of Country Effects: A Cautionary Tale. European Sociological Review 32(1): Burgoon, B., and F. Dekker Flexible Employment, Economic Insecurity and Social Policy Preferences in Europe. Journal of European Social Policy 20(2): Clarke, HD, and AC Acock National Elections and Political Attitudes: The Case of Political Efficacy. British Journal of Political Science 19(4): Cox, Gary W Electoral Rules and the Calculus of Mobilization. Legislative Studies Quarterly 24(3): Emmenegger, P., P. Marx, and D. Schraff Labour Market Disadvantage, Political Orientations and Voting: How Adverse Labour Market Experiences Translate into Electoral Behaviour. Socio- Economic Review 13(2): Emmenegger, Patrick Specificity versus Replaceability: The Relationship between Skills and 25

26 Preferences for Job Security Regulations. Socio-Economic Review 7(3): Emmenegger, Patrick, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier, and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser How We Grow Unequal. In The Age of Dualization: The Changing Face of Inequality in Deindustrializing Societies, eds. Patrick Emmenegger, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier, and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser. New York: Oxford University Press, Erikson, Robert, and John H. Goldthorpe The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, Geoffrey, and Nan Dirk De Graaf Political Choice Matters. Explaining the Strength of Class and Religious Cleavages in Cross-National Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fisher, Stephen D., Laurence Lessard-Phillips, Sara B. Hobolt, and John Curtice Disengaging Voters: Do Plurality Systems Discourage the Less Knowledgeable from Voting? Electoral Studies 27(1): Gallagher, Michael Proportionality, Disproportionality and Electoral Systems. Electoral Studies 10(1): Gallego, Aina Understanding Unequal Turnout: Education and Voting in Comparative Perspective. Electoral Studies 29(2): Gelman, Andrew, G Roberts, and Wr Gilks Efficient Metropolis Jumping Rules. In Bayesian Statistics, eds. J. M. Bernardo, J. O. Berger, A. P. Dawid, and A. F. M. Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Iversen, T, and David Soskice An Asset Theory of Social Policy Preferences. American Political Science Review 95(4): Jansen, Giedo, Geoffrey Evans, and Nan Dirk De Graaf Class Voting and Left-Right Party Positions: A Comparative Study of 15 Western Democracies, Social Science Research 42(2):