IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cfe/wpcefa/2008_11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

VotersÂ’ dissatisfaction, abstention and entropy: analysis in European countries

Author

Listed:
  • Andreia Teixeira Marques Dionísio

    (University of Évora, Department of Management, CEFAGE-UÉ)

  • Paulo Jorge Silveira Ferreira

    (University of Évora, CEFAGE-UÉ)

Abstract

This paper intends to explore the utilization of entropy through politics and election results, an area just slightly explored. It generalizes the interpretation of entropy, considering it a measure of dissatisfaction and disillusion of populations in relation to politics. Some phenomena like the increase of abstention in a country, consequence of the dissatisfaction of population and of their alienation in relation to politics could be detected and analysed. This discontentment could result, for example, in the appearance of new political parties, with more division of votes and increasing entropy (result of the discontentment and uncertainty by electors). Absolute majorities, while imply less dispersion of votes, are synonym of more confidence in a given party, making a reduction of entropy.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreia Teixeira Marques Dionísio & Paulo Jorge Silveira Ferreira, 2008. "VotersÂ’ dissatisfaction, abstention and entropy: analysis in European countries," CEFAGE-UE Working Papers 2008_11, University of Evora, CEFAGE-UE (Portugal).
    • Handle: RePEc:cfe:wpcefa:2008_11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://api.cefage.uevora.pt/assets/d12dc5a6-1abc-4489-9367-3657ddec0a2e
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feddersen, Timothy J. & Pesendorfer, Wolfgang, 1999. "Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse Preferences," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 381-398, June.
    2. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    3. Thomas Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1983. "A strategic calculus of voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 7-53, January.
    4. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    5. Ferejohn, John A. & Fiorina, Morris P., 1974. "The Paradox of Not Voting: A Decision Theoretic Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 525-536, June.
    6. Stanley, H.E. & Amaral, L.A.N. & Gabaix, X. & Gopikrishnan, P. & Plerou, V., 2001. "Similarities and differences between physics and economics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 299(1), pages 1-15.
    7. Paldam, Martin & Skott, Peter, 1995. "A Rational-Voter Explanation of the Cost of Ruling," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 83(1-2), pages 159-172, April.
    8. Timothy J. Fedderson & Wolfgang Pesendorfer, 1996. "Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse Preferences," Discussion Papers 1195, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. C. Schinckus, 2012. "Methodological comment on Econophysics review I and II: statistical econophysics and agent-based econophysics," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(8), pages 1189-1192, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    2. Cameron Guage & Feng Fu, 2021. "Asymmetric Partisan Voter Turnout Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 738-758, December.
    3. Sobbrio, Francesco & Navarra, Pietro, 2010. "Electoral participation and communicative voting in Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 185-207, June.
    4. Timothy J. Feddersen, 2004. "Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 99-112, Winter.
    5. Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Tukiainen, Janne, 2019. "Are voters rational?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 230-242.
    6. Dittmann, Ingolf & Kübler, Dorothea & Maug, Ernst & Mechtenberg, Lydia, 2014. "Why votes have value: Instrumental voting with overconfidence and overestimation of others' errors," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 17-38.
    7. Michael Wallerstein, 2004. "Behavioral Economics and Political Economy," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 30, pages 37-48.
    8. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    9. Ming Li & Dipjyoti Majumdar, 2010. "A Psychologically Based Model of Voter Turnout," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(5), pages 979-1002, October.
    10. Alastair Smith & Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Tom LaGatta, 2017. "Group incentives and rational voting1," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 299-326, April.
    11. François Facchini & Louis Jaeck, 2019. "Ideology and the rationality of non-voting," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(3), pages 265-286, August.
    12. Antonio Merlo & Thomas R. Palfrey, 2018. "External validation of voter turnout models by concealed parameter recovery," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 297-314, July.
    13. repec:ehu:ikerla:6417 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. John Duffy & Sourav Bhattacharya & Sun-Tak Kim, 2012. "Compulsory versus Voluntary Voting: An Experimental Study," Working Paper 492, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Aug 2013.
    15. Valentino Larcinese, 2007. "Does political knowledge increase turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British general election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 387-411, June.
    16. Aranson Peter H., 1990. "Rational Ignorance In Politics, Economics And Law," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 25-42, January.
    17. Valentino Larcinese, 2009. "Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence From Britain," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 237-276, April.
    18. Christopher Blattman, 2008. "From Violence to Voting: War and political participation in Uganda," Working Papers 138, Center for Global Development.
    19. Panu Pelkonen, 2012. "Length of compulsory education and voter turnout—evidence from a staged reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 51-75, January.
    20. John Conley & Myrna H. Wooders & Ali Toossi, 2001. "Evolution & Voting: How Nature Makes us Public Spirited," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 28(24), pages 1.
    21. Meirowitz, Adam & Shotts, Kenneth W., 2009. "Pivots versus signals in elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 744-771, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entropy; Electoral Results; Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction of Population.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C19 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Other
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cfe:wpcefa:2008_11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Angela Pacheco (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfevopt.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.