• Corpus ID: 10665132

Endogenous Institutions: The Origins of Compulsory Voting Laws

@inproceedings{Meguid2007EndogenousIT,
  title={Endogenous Institutions: The Origins of Compulsory Voting Laws},
  author={Bonnie M. Meguid and Gretchen Helmke},
  year={2007}
}

• Bonnie M. Meguid, Gretchen Helmke
• Published 30 August 2007
• Economics, Political Science

Between 1862 and 1998, 20 democracies adopted compulsory voting laws, the majority in Western Europe and Latin America. Although there is a broad literature on the effects of compulsory voting on voter turnout, far less is known about when and why compulsory voting has been adopted. Using an original cross-national dataset on compulsory voting laws combined with in-depth historical analyses of out-of-sample cases, we find evidence that strategic considerations – whether parties believe they will benefit or be harmed electorally under compulsory voting rules – shape the decisions to adopt such laws. More generally, our paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature on the adoption of electoral systems by examining the degree to which electoral institutions are the result of party strategy and, thus, are endogenous to party competition.