"Inequality in people's vote participation boosts the challenges to democracy originating from trends of falling turnout. Tuorto's engaging book offers a thoroughly theoretical and empirical exploration of the causes and consequences of falling turnout among unprivileged segments of society, whose abandonment of the polling booth has widened with the inception of the Great Recession. A must-read for the political behaviour community and for all concerned about the prospects of representative democracy."

• Professor Paolo Bellucci, University of Siena, Italy

  This volume investigates the reasons behind contemporary participatory inequality, the form and dimensions it assumes in relation to the institutional constraints that regulate access to the electoral arena and socio-cultural transformations which have altered both the class structures and the territorial basis of voting. At the same time, it analyses the effects that the intensification of these processesrisk to produce, if uncontrolled, on the stability of the democratic system and on the individual life of voters, deprived of institutional representation and left with the alternatives of protest (channelled by existing parties or elements outside the party system) or detachment from politics.

  Dario Tuorto is Associate Professor in Sociology at the Department of Education, University of Bologna, Italy.

  Autorentext

  Dario Tuorto is Associate Professor in Sociology at the Department of Education, University of Bologna, Italy. His main research interests are social and political inequalities, populism, party activism, electoral and political participation, with a focus on age and gender differences. He is a member of Italian National Election Studies. He published two books on turnout and several articles in international journals such as Party Politics, Political Geography, Social Politics, Contemporary Italian Politics. He is one of the founders of the Institute Cattaneo-Prospex archive on turnout (based on a large sample of 100 sections of Italian voters).

Klappentext

This volume investigates the reasons behind voter turnout inequalities in contemporary Europe. It looks at the socioeconomic factors that can inhibit electoral participation at the individual level, and how these factors interact with the institutional constraints regulating access to the electoral arena, and considering the changes affecting the class system and occupational opportunities. The volume also reflects on the long-term effects of the 2008 Great Recession on the stability of democracy and the individual lives of voters, who are often deprived of institutional representation and left with the choice between anti-system protest and disengagement from politics.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. Introduction. - Chapter 2. Voter turnout and imperfect inclusivity: a democratic problem. - Chapter 3. Turnout and socio-economic inequality at the individual level. - Chapter 4. The institutional determinants of turnout inequalities. - Chapter 5. Voting in times of crisis. From opting out to regaining a voice