The Inequality Turnout Nexus: New Evidence from Presidential Elections

The article adds to the burgeoning literature examining the macro-level influence of income inequalities and electoral turnout by evaluating the relationship between the two variables across a global sample of 161 presidential elections from 1990 to 2010. Controlling for compulsory voting, semi-presidentialism, federalism, regime type, development, population size, and the closeness of the election, we find that dispersions in income neither directly nor indirectly influence macro-level electoral participation in presidential political systems. Rather, the variable's impact on electoral turnout is statistically insignificant and empirically nonsubstantial. In this sense, our article rejects both the power and the conflict theories' predictions on the supposed relationship between the two concepts at the macro-level.