IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03273681.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How does COVID-19 affect electoral participation? evidence from the French municipal elections

Author

Listed:
  • Abdul Noury
  • Abel François

    (LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Olivier Gergaud
  • Alexandre Garel

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on electoral participation. We study the French municipal elections that took place at the very beginning of the ongoing pandemic and held in over 9,000 municipalities on March 15, 2020. In addition to the simple note that turnout rates decreased to a historically low level, we establish a robust relationship between the depressed turnout rate and the disease. Using various estimation strategies and employing a large number of potential confounding factors, we find that the participation rate decreases with city proximity to COVID-19 clusters. Furthermore, the proximity has conditioned impacts according to the proportion of elderly –who are the most threatened– within the city. Cities with higher population density, where the risk of infection is higher, and cities where only one list ran at the election, which dramatically reduces competitiveness, experienced differentiated effects of distance.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdul Noury & Abel François & Olivier Gergaud & Alexandre Garel, 2021. "How does COVID-19 affect electoral participation? evidence from the French municipal elections," Post-Print hal-03273681, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03273681
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2015. "Mobilization, cost of voting and turnout: a natural randomized experiment with double elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 183-199, January.
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    3. 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.
    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. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753, January.
    6. R. Tollison & T. Willett, 1973. "Some simple economics of voting and not voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 59-71, September.
    7. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2018. "Place of registration and place of residence: the non-linear detrimental impact of transportation cost on electoral participation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 405-440, September.
    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. Bordignon, Massimo & Franzoni, Federico & Gamalerio, Matteo, 2024. "Is Populism reversible? Evidence from Italian local elections during the pandemic," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Picchio, Matteo & Santolini, Raffaella, 2022. "The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on voter turnout," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    3. Leromain, Elsa & Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague, 2022. "Voting under threat: Evidence from the 2020 French local elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 529-555, July.
    5. Leininger, Arndt & Wagner, Aiko, 2021. "Wählen in der Pandemie: Herausforderungen und Konsequenzen," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 91-100.
    6. Massimo Bordignon & Federico Franzoni & Matteo Gamalerio, 2023. "Is Populism reversible? Evidence from Italian local elections during the pandemic," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def124, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).

    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. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Share," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-10, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    2. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2018. "Place of registration and place of residence: the non-linear detrimental impact of transportation cost on electoral participation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 405-440, September.
    3. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    4. Hortala-Vallve, Rafael & Esteve-Volart, Berta, 2011. "Voter turnout and electoral competition in a multidimensional policy space," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 376-384, June.
    5. Serge Blondel & Louis Lévy-garboua, 2011. "Can non-expected utility theories explain the paradox of not voting?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3158-3168.
    6. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2018. "Public choice and political science: a view from Europe," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 175(3), pages 245-257, June.
    7. Jean-Victor Alipour & Valentin Lindlacher, 2022. "No Surprises, Please: Voting Costs and Electoral Turnout," CESifo Working Paper Series 9759, CESifo.
    8. Dan Usher, 2014. "An alternative explanation of the chance of casting a pivotal vote," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(1), pages 105-138, February.
    9. Jeremy Clark & Abel François & Olivier Gergaud, 2020. "Electoral Turnout and Social Capital," Working Papers in Economics 20/13, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    10. Eli Noam, 1982. "Demand functions and the valuation of public goods," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 271-280, January.
    11. Frank, Bjorn & Pitlik, Hans & Wirth, Steffen, 2004. "Expert opinion leaders' impact on voter turnout: the case of the Internet Chess Match Kasparov vs. World," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 619-635, September.
    12. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2011. "Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 645-670, July.
    13. Louis Kaplow & Scott Duke Kominers, 2020. "On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout," NBER Working Papers 26913, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Knack, Stephen, 2000. "Deterring Voter Registration through Juror Selection Practices: Evidence from Survey Data," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 103(1-2), pages 49-62, April.
    15. Alois Stutzer & Lukas Kienast, 2005. "Demokratische Beteiligung und Staatsausgaben: Die Auswirkungen des Frauenstimmrechts," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 141(IV), pages 617-650, December.
    16. Lacombe, Donald J. & Coats, R. Morris & Shughart II, William F. & Karahan, Gökhan, 2016. "Corruption and Voter Turnout: A Spatial Econometric Approach," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 46(2), December.
    17. 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.
    18. Garey Durden & Patricia Gaynor, 1987. "The rational behavior theory of voting participation: Evidence from the 1970 and 1982 elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 231-242, January.
    19. François Facchini & Louis Jaeck, 2021. "Populism and the rational choice model: The case of the French National Front," Rationality and Society, , vol. 33(2), pages 196-228, May.
    20. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat‐Voting‐Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, August.

    More about this item

    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:hal:journl:hal-03273681. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.