Compulsory Voting: A Factor That Impacts Populist Parties' Results At The European Parliament Elections?

Details

Supervisors

Baudewyns, Pierre

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences politiques, orientation générale

Abstract

This Master thesis aims to contribute to the explanation of populist parties’ electoral success in the European parliament. It starts with the observation that compulsory voting is one feature that distinguishes certain countries in Europe. The literature helped to draw three hypotheses. The first hypothesis deals with the causal link that could exist between compulsory voting and far-right populist parties’ scores. The testing of this hypothesis reveals that no conclusions can be made as results were not statistically significant. The second hypothesis deals with the potential positive effect compulsory voting can have on far-left populist parties. The results reveal that the two variables are in fact negatively correlated. In the same way, the third hypothesis tries to see if compulsory voting has a positive effect on populist parties’ score in general, without positioning them on the left-right political spectrum. The results of this last hypothesis reveal that a negative relationship exists between the two variables. Consequently, compulsory voting is a factor that impacts the scores of populist parties.