8 - How Tournaments Impact Decisions to Vote

Summary

Chapter 8 looks for evidence of tournaments in the decisions of voters in Japan to turn out and vote in Lower House elections, 1980–2014. Under a tournament, decisions to vote are expected to hinge on where in the ranking a given municipality is expected to end up. All else equal, it expects that voters will be systematically more likely to go to the polls when they live in municipalities that are projected to place highly. Moreover, among municipalities projected to place highly, projections of further increases in rank are expected to bring about an even larger impact on turnout. The chapter presents three sets of empirical tests of these two hypotheses. The first two look within electoral districts and examine how turnout varies as a function of where municipalities are expected to place in the ranking. The third set of tests leverage variation in competitiveness across electoral districts, which we know impacts turnout, and variation in competitiveness and ruralness, which we know impacts turnout in Japan. The tests reveal support for both hypotheses and shed new light on determinants of political participation across time and space.