The Meanings of Voting for Citizens : A Scientific Challenge, a Portrait, and Implications

Abstract

On Election Day, citizens typically place a mark beside a party or candidate on a ballot paper. The possibility to cast this mark has been a historic conquest and today, voting is among the most frequent political acts for citizens. But what does that mark mean to them? This book explores the diverse conceptualizations of voting among citizens in 13 countries across Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. The empirical evidence presented in this book is based on nearly a million words about voting from over 25,000 people using an open-ended survey and both qualitative and quantitative methods. The book’s innovative approach includes conceptual, theoretical, and empirical advancements, providing a comprehensive understanding of what voting means to citizens and how these meanings influence political engagement. This book challenges assumptions about universal views on democracy and reveals how meanings of voting vary among individuals and across both liberal democracies and electoral autocracies. It also examines the implications of these meanings for political behaviour and election reforms. The book is a critical reference for scholars of public opinion, behaviour, and democratization, as well as a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate courses in comparative political behaviour, empirical methods, and survey research. Practitioners working on election reforms will find it particularly relevant, offering insights into how citizens' meanings of voting impact the effectiveness of electoral reforms.