Voters Relations With Politics Essay Example

Introduction

Voting is one of the ways citizens in particular country exercise their democratic power. Much interest has been raised concerning the number of voters participating in a specific election. Over the past few years, there have been changes in the voters' turnout in elections, for many countries. Such situations are evident in many parts of the world where there have even shown a continuous decline in the number of voters. However, in some places, voters turn out to increase due to dynamic changes in population, persuasion by the leaders. Europe countries are the most interested ones when it comes to masters of voting and participating in political rallies. Most people in the world today are voting on matters regarding candidates and not party centrality. Before, even discussion the cause of the scenario and conducting several types of research, it is essential to look at the behavior of people in a particular country regarding matters of politics.

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For instance, the percentage of voter's in2013 reached 71% in Europe and 58. 3 % in the United States in previous years. Numbers of voters increased in from a record of 40.09 % in the United States in 2010 and recorded 58.2 in the year 2012 for Europe. Though it is an increase, the difference in percentage is said to be caused by shifted from partisanship to societal issues. Perhaps, people are forgetting their traditional way of voting and are considering something else. In 1979 98 countries in Europe recorded 69.6 % in turnout levels. But in 2004, where nine states voted for European Parliamentary election only 47.9 % of voters turnout as an average to the nine nations. Much research has indicated several causes of turn out In different countries regarding the system of voting, nature of the state, and nature of government in those countries.

Factors influencing changes in voters' turnout

Partisanship and polarity of the party

There has risen a degree of need to measure the partisanship in Europe accounting to researches conducted by researchers. According to Dalton, and Russelj, comparative study of electoral systems are used to measure the closeness of a party affiliated to the party, and that it has realized meaningful data in the past (2005). However, that model of data collection has not been used in Europe in any of the countries. In Europe, there are those countries which practice democratic as opposed to the European Union. In some European countries partisanship in determining the number of voter turnout exceeds the ideology of capability and political behavior. In the society where there is a large number of party affiliated to the party the leader who passes may not be eligible and may fail to deliver. According to researchers, areas where party polarization is caused by partisanship like Europe countries, there have shown a decline in voters turnout.

Partisanship is a thing of the past and voters are swayed by the multitude to vote in a leader from their party hoping to get underdevelopment fixed but to their surprise leaders repeat the same trend. Citizens tend to turn away from voting because they realize they need more; they want developments, education, reduce unemployment, eliminate poverty, and end political divisions (Ezrow, Tavits & Homola, 2014). A country like the United States of America also recodes lower voter turnout percentages but most people in the United States, United States citizen is not clustered on partisanship but the rationale of choice and the strategic incentives. In that manner, a citizen can tell a leader who will deliver and the one who will drag the country's economy backward. However, when two parties have almost equal capacity in winning the voter's turnout increases respectively. Multi-party exists in some countries of Europe, where ideological differences have less impact on partisanship. For instance, in a conducted research the degree of the partisanship in Sweden is higher than that in the Netherlands where the number of voters is still not higher percentages like in Holland.

The pattern of party Government

The researchers have engaged other degree of finding out the turnout percentage of voters in a country where many variables are considered. For instance, in Europe party, some countries like Germany have their government parties' poses competition that determines their popularity and political accountability (Gray & Caul, 2000). They are considered central of institutions because they interconnect between various elements that include voters, decision making, and interest groups. However, they compromise the influence of social groups. In Europe countries like those could always discourage many people from voting since the party elites in power choose the next leader from their parties. Countries like Germany parties related to voting votes in a bloc; therefore, one can only imagine aspects of democracy in virtual form.

Any actions meant to change the earlier form of the party pattern are a threat to democracy. Democracy supports the political participation, without citizen participating in the public involvement then democracy lacks both significance and legitimacy. American civic life is almost impoverished as the `people turn away from politics that is the trend that caused electoral process decline and participation.

The Nature party System

The federal political parties in Europe have gone through different phases as the partisan politics dominates the more significant portion in the society. In the earlier postwar period partisan divided subtly and divided into several major parties. That has been the main reason for the decline in voters' turnout since some did not want to get affiliated in any group. Some of its significant parties include the Christian Democratic Union, Free Democrats, Christian Social Union, Greens, and Social Democratic Party. All the parties represent a different portion of voters but not as equal as partisan state observed before.

Further, the parties led to disparity as some were affiliated to one group. For instance, the Christian democratic union is religiously defined and then rising issues in normal society. Democratic nature of countries like Denmark only causes disparity where multiparty emerged reducing voters associated in a particular party.

Some studied shoes that voter turnout rates may also have been impacted by the women enfranchisement and lowering voting ages. According to Jackman, countries that are multiparty in their system have fewer numbers of turnout voters. In the era that most of the European countries exercised partisanship the government and political parties realized more numbers of voter turnout. Demobilization of voters in industrial democracy is one of the ways to finish the density of union and cause division. The major parties that emerged in Europe discouraged many voters from participating in an election. According to Putnam, shows that citizens involved in politics and parliaments in Europe just because politics went for them and formed a union since the union is dead group mobilization also ends (2000), in turn, reducing the number of turn over voters per election.

Group Differences

In many countries of Europe, there existed different groups affiliated on one corner and have common thinking. One of the essential divisions that led to political difference is the existence of many religious groups. Religion brought the culture of cleavage and institutionalizing of groups; 80 % of Britain citizens are Christians and therefore aligning the group in politics meant a lot to the future of the electoral and political system (Blais, 2006). Countries like franc, Portugal, New Zealand, Finland, Spain, and Greece have their political system religious dominated.

The other differences that occurred were the traditional social group declines and led to the rise of modern politics. Among new era group division there was environmental preservation, gender issues, and multiculturalism are the elements of traditional societal groups. The contemporary group included the intellect, non-religious, and the middle class. The new group questioned the system differently and wished to have a system that delivers to the citizen rather than

References List

Ezrow, L., Tavits, M. and Homola, J., 2014. Voter polarization, the strength of partisanship, and support for extremist parties. Comparative Political Studies, 47(11), pp.1558-1583.Putnam, R. D. (1995) Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital, Journal of Democracy 6(1) : 65-78.

Dalton, RussellJ. 2005.Citizen Politics. Washington, DC: CQ Press. (Chapter 8 & Chapter 9)

Gray, M. and Caul, M. (2000) 'Declining Voter Turnout in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997: The Effects of Declining Group Mobilization.' Comparative Political Studies33(9): 1091-1122

Blais, A. (2006). 'What Affects Voter Turnout?' Annual Review of Political Science9: 111- 25.

Ezrow, L, Tavits, M. and Homola, J. (2014). 'Voter Polarization, Strength of Partisanship, and Support for Extremist Parties.' Comparative Political Studies47(11): 1558-83