5 Individual resources, social integration and political involvement as explanations of

electoral abstention: multivariate analysis 120

6 Individual incentives to participation: cross>national comparison 123
7 Summary 128

C hapter IV
Institutions , Parties and E lections
T he S ystemic D eterminants of Electoral A bstention

1 Introduction 131
2 Exploratory analysis of abstention rates in Western Europe 134
2.1 Cross-national variation 134
2.2 Time variation 137

3 Institutional incentives 140

3.1 Direct legal incentives: compulsory voting and voting facilities 140
3.2 Electoral systems: strategic incentives and expression of preferences 144
3.3 Institutional incentives: multivariate analysis 147

4 Party system embeddedness 148

4.1 Cultural differentiation 150
4.1.1 Religious segmentation 150
4.1.2 Ethno-linguistic fragmentation 153
4.1.3 Multivariate analysis of cultural differentiation 154
4.2 Organisational encapsulation 155
4.3 Party system embeddedness: multivariate analysis 157

5 Decisiveness of the election 159

5.1 Institutional decisiveness 159
5.2 Political decisiveness 162
5.2.1 Clearness o f the government-opposition division 163
5.2.2 Distinctiveness of political options 165
5.2.3 Expectations of change 167

6 The systemic determinants of abstention: multivariate analysis 169

7 Summary 170