I think that this is a great public forum topic: it relates to a current event that will educate students on some of the nuanc
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Lesson 4.2 Day 3
| 13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 117 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com THERE IS NO SPILLOVER FROM VOTING TO OTHER FORMS OF POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT. Krister Lundell – 2012. CIVIC PARTICIPATION AND POLITICAL TRUST THE IMPACT OF COMPULSORY VOTING Representation, 48:2, 221-234. How should these results be interpreted with regard to the ongoing debate on compulsory voting The analysis indicates that compulsory voting has a positive effect on political trust but there is no spillover effect from higher levels of electoral participation to civic participation. Beginning with the latter, we may turn to Annabelle Lever’s (2010) critique of obliging citizens to participate in elections. She argues that there are good reasons to treat mandatory voting with scepticism, and while people may sometimes be morally obliged to vote, democratic duties do not generally include a duty to vote —it is unjustified and inconsistent with democratic governing. The act of voting as well as the propensity to vote does not require any special virtue, insight or knowledge. There is research suggesting that compulsory voting has no noticeable impact on political knowledge or interest (Ballinger 2007; Engelen and Hooghe 2007). Also, in a compulsory voting system, it is unclear how we should interpret and what meaning we should give to those who only turnout to tick their names off an electoral register and leave the polling station without voting. The same applies to those who tick the first box on the ballot without reflecting over the alternatives (the dangers of such donkey voting has been discussed by e.g. Jakee and Sun 2006: 67 –70). What is more, compulsory voting is incompatible with the idea that voluntary political participation is a distinctive human good (Lever 2010: 910). In the light of this, the assumed spillover effect from compulsory electoral participation to participation involuntary organisations seems rather far-fetched. Download 2 Mb. Share with your friends:
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