Local autonomy and national–local turnout gap: Higher stakes, higher turnout?

This paper offers a cross-national comparison of the aggregate turnout rates in local elections across 21 European countries between 1990 and 2014. The study confirms that the aggregate turnout in local elections is almost always lower than the turnout in the preceding parliamentary election; yet, the national–local turnout gap varies considerably across European countries. The level of local autonomy, i.e. the amount of power and discretion available at the local level turned out to be only a weak explanation of this participation gap. The Local Autonomy Index (LAI) had a positive effect on the local voter turnout, which is in line with the ‘less at stake’ argument of the second-order elections theory, yet the magnitude of this effect is rather small. The synchronization of electoral cycles plays a much more significant role in explaining the aggregate local voter turnout.