Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

Angelika Vetter and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

1.

The Research Question

Ever since the new millenium, questions of democratic quality and public administration efficiency have been at the very heart of France and Germanys public agendas. In addressing these questions, both countries local authorities constitute important actors although to different degrees (see Hoffmann-Martinot/Wollmann 2006; Kersting/Vetter 2003; Pierre 1990; Hesse/Sharpe 1991; Stoker 1991; Sharpe 1970). Our focus in this chapter is on Citizen Participation, a major dimension of the democratic quality of local government1. Not only is Citizen Participation seen as a democratic value in itself, but it is also an essential element in increasing the quality of local democracy by relating political decisions to citizens preferences. In order to achieve such responsiveness, citizens active participation in the local decisionmaking processes is crucial. In Germany, many new ideas are currently being tried out in order to increase Citizen Participation in local politics (referendums, round tables, future conferences ). The same holds true for France, although to a far lesser extent (see Vetter 2006 for Germany; Hoffmann-Martinot 2006 for France). When comparing different ways of local Citizen Participation, however, voting for the local councils and mayors still emerges as citizens most commonly used way of being politically active at the local level. Therefore, in this chapter, we focus on local electoral participation. Do we find any differences or similarities in local electoral turnout between France and Germany, and if so, how can they be explained? Comparing the two countries with regard to local turnout follows an appealing research design: their local government and local politics both differ in many respects (see Chapter **** in this book). They stem from different traditions: Napoleonic for one and Germanic for the other; they are rooted in different central-local relationships; they differ in terms of local authority size, in their local electoral systems, as well as in the power wielded by the mayors and local councils (see, e.g. Vetter 2007; Loughlin 2001; Hesse/Sharpe 1991). In line with these differences, we expected local turnout to differ substantially as well. However, the first, and certainly the biggest surprise came right at the beginning of our analyses: local turnout in both France and Germany turned out to be similar (see Section 2 of this chapter). Therefore, the question now became: why is local turnout in France and Germany so similar, even though their local elections are held in quite different contexts?

By local we refer to both countries municipal level, including different-sized villages and towns, but excluding regional, departmental or inter-municipal structures.

Angelika Vetter and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

Traditionally, when explaining electoral turnout, the focus is on individual characteristics affecting the likelihood of individuals being politically active: resources (e.g. socio-economic status), political socialisation (political interest and norms), and integration into mobilising networks (see van Deth 2003; Verba et al. 1995; Brady et al. 1995; Verba et al. 1978). However, in this chapter we do not deal with such individual characteristics. Instead, we examine the contextual differences of local elections in the two countries and their relationship with local turnout. From past research we know that such macro-characteristics as the prevailing social structure, the political institutional context, and aspects related to electoral campaigns the number and strength of political parties, issues, candidates, or the degree of political competition also affect turnout probability (see Fig. 1). In the following sections we look more closely at five such contextual differences which might affect local turnout in France and in Germany: 1) geo-political fragmentation, i.e. the size of local units; 2) the importance of the institutions involved; 3) the political salience of sub-national elections with regard to national politics; 4) the voting systems applied, and 5) differences in the discretion of local government and politics.2 These five factors are generally used to explain differences in turnout. In this chapter, however, the challenge is to explain why local turnout in France and Germany does not differ as much as we might expect even though the elections take place in quite different socio-structural, institutional, and political settings. Figure 1: Explanatory Factors Affecting Turnout Individual characteristics (micro); e.g. individual resources, values and norms, social networks Institutional context (macro), e.g. the voting system or the importance of the institution concerned Socio-structural context (macro), e.g. the size of the community Political context (macro), e.g. the political salience of the election
Source: Own Figure.

Level of Turnout

For more details about the theoretical relationships, see the following sections.

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

Examining many variables in a comparison involving only two countries (very small N), does not allow for highly sophisticated empirical hypothesis testing. Accordingly, we use statistical techniques to explain differences in local turnout only when controlling for municipal size effects; the other explanatory factors are dealt with descriptively in our two-N case study, using results from the existing literature. Before dealing with the explanation of local electoral behaviour in France and Germany, Section 2 will give a detailed description of local turnout in both countries. We look at aggregated data of local turnout at the national (and states) levels, as well as at two large samples of towns and villages from both countries which give a more detailed picture of the phenomenon at hand.

2.

Local Turnout in France and Germany

Starting with the descriptive part of our analyses, we first consider data collected for two large samples - 4,431 municipalities in Germany and 6,784 in France - between 1999 and 2002 (see Tab. 1).3 The local elections analysed for Germany were held between January 1999 and March 2002, with the local elections for six out of eleven states being held on the same day as the European Parliament elections (June 13th, 1999). In the other states, the local elections were held on different days and in different years. Average local turnout in Germany measured from our municipal samples was 65.5 per cent (West Germany 66.1 per cent; East Germany 63.5 per cent). With 36.7 per cent, turnout was lowest in the city of Burg in Saxony-Anhalt and highest in Trockenborn-Wolfersdorf (Thuringia), with 98.1 per cent. The figures show strong variations in mean turnout between the German states, with local turnout scoring lowest in Saxony-Anhalt (50 per cent) and highest in RhinelandPalatinate (72 per cent); all this supports our assumption that contextual factors affect turnout. Municipal council elections are held throughout France on the same day. Local electoral data for France refers to the first ballot of the municipal election in March 2001. Average local turnout here was 74.4 per cent, about 9 percentage points higher than in Germany. Similarly, a regression analysis including a French/German dum-

The 4,431 municipalities in Germany belong to 80 German metropolitan regions (for the definition of this term see Walter-Rogg 2005). The municipalities are located in eleven different states. The three city-states - Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen - were excluded from the sample because of their different status as both state and city. Municipalities from Schleswig-Holstein had to be excluded as there is no data available. Data is also lacking for Brandenburg, as here local and national elections were held the same day in 1998, thereby strongly distorting local turnout. The German municipal sample covers 36 per cent of all 12,428 German municipalities in 2004. The data were delivered by the states statistical offices. Local turnout refers to the percentage of voters/all eligible voters in a municipality. We would like to thank the DFG Foundation for their financial contribution to the work involved in collecting the German data used in this chapter. Electoral data for France comes from 6,784 communes belonging to the 42 French metropolitan regions with over 200,000 inhabitants (only Lomme, a suburb of Lille is missing, as Lomme was merged with Lille in 2000; for more details on the French data, see Hoffmann-Martinot 2005). Turnout for municipal elections is measured by the percentage of voters/registered citizens.

Angelika Vetter and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

my variable, shows a mean difference in local turnout between French and German municipalities of 8.9 percentage points. Table 1: Local turnout in France and Germany 1999-2002
Local electoral turnout State Lower Saxony Northrhine-W. Hesse Rhineland-P.* Baden-Wuertt. Bavaria Saarland* Mecklenbg.-W.* Saxony* Saxony-Anhalt* Thuringia* Germany West Germany East Germany France Elections held on 09.09.2001 12.09.1999 18.03.2001 13.06.1999 24.01.1999 03.03.2002 13.06.1999 13.06.1999 13.06.1999 13.06.1999 13.06.1999 11.03.2001 Mean 63.4 59.9 56.7 72.0 58.8 70.0 64.5 59.3 60.5 50.0 71.4 66.1 63.5 65.5 74.4 N 456 301 238 1,133 576 706 52 140 225 309 295 3,462 969 4,431 6,784 Std. Dev. 7.6 6.2 6.3 8.2 6.4 7.8 8.3 9.7 7.1 10.2 10.3 9.5 10.9 9.7 9.8 Min. 39.5 44.2 40.0 43.7 37.2 47.7 46.7 37.8 42.2 36.7 44.5 37.2 36.7 36.7 41.0 Max. 85.4 75.8 77.3 94.3 79.3 89.9 81.2 84.9 81.3 89.9 98.1 94.3 98.1 98.1 100.0

* Local elections were held on the same day as elections for the European Parliament. Sources: Own data, collected from the States Statistical Offices in Germany and the French Ministry of Internal Affairs. Note: Eta for comparison France/Germany = 0.41; Eta = 0.7.

When studying changes in local turnout since the beginning of the 1950s, we used aggregated electoral data from the French Ministry of Internal Affairs and the German States Statistical Offices (see Fig. 2). From the early 1950s until the 1980s, average local turnout rates in both countries varied between 75 and 80 per cent and remained rather stable. Since the end of the 1980s, however, local turnout in both countries has declined. In Germany, turnout rates are about 52 per cent in West Germany and 46 per cent in East Germany. Summarising these results, German local electoral participation dropped in 20 years by about 20 percentage points. Turnout rates in East Germany are generally lower than in West Germany, but the trend holds for both parts of the country. The figures for France display a similar picture. Mean local turnout had ranged between 75 and 80 per cent since 1947, before it entered a phase of regular diminution: from 78.4 per cent in 1983, it decreased to 72.8 per cent in 1989, then to 69.4 per cent in 1995, and only 62.2 per cent in 2001. In 2007, about 65 per cent of French registered voters cast their ballots in the local elections, which were interpreted by the media as an election against the President of

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy. With about 15 percentage points, the decline in France was reasonably comparable to that in Germany.4 Figure 2: Local electoral turnout in France and Germany 1950-2007
90 80 Municipal Turnout 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 47-52 53-58 59-64 65-70 71-76 77-82 83-88 89-94 95-00 01-06 Years Municipales West-Germany East-Germany 07-

Sources: Own data, collected from the States Statistical Offices in Germany and the French Ministry of Internal Affairs. Note: Local turnout figures for Germany are average values calculated from several local elections in the different states that took place in one parliamentary term. The number of elections per parliamentary term varies between 4 and 15. For more details on the different local elections in Germany, see the Appendix.

This declining trend in local turnout fits into a common picture, usually attributed to modernisation processes in Western societies (Steinbrecher et al. 2007). In most countries, traditional cleavages have lost their mobilising capacity and no longer stimulate people any more to cast their votes. In turn, social group norms for example, the duty to vote, or feelings of party identification began to erode. Such other modernisation processes as secularisation, individualisation, and increasing societal mobility, have also negatively affected voters desire to go to the polls. In light of these theories, declining, or at least unstable turnout, is a consequence of social change within a society (Steinbrecher et al. 2007: 5). According to official statistical data, local electoral participation in France today is about 8 percentage points higher than in West Germany, and about 16 percentage points higher than in East Germany. This result runs counter to our initial assumption: we expected local turnout in Germany to be higher than in France, as local government in Germany is said to have a long tradition of local selfgovernment, while the opposite holds for France (see Hesse/Sharpe 1991; Page 1991; Vetter 2007: 94ff.). At first glance, reality proves this assumption to be inva4

Table 1, which gives the data for a sample of French and German municipalities, shows higher turnout rates than the data in Figure 2. This effect is mainly due to the fact that the turnout rates are calculated differently. In Table 1, average turnout rates are calculated from turnout levels per municipality. In Figure 2, average turnout rates are calculated for Germany by the number of actual voters to the number of all eligible voters and for France by the number of actual voters to all registered voters.

Angelika Vetter and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

lid. On closer examination, however, a second problem emerges: the official turnout figures are based on different measurements, themselves affected by different mechanisms of voter registration. In Germany, turnout is measured by the number of actual voters to all eligible voters. In France, turnout is measured by the number of actual voters to all registered voters, and registration is not automatic as it is in Germany. There is no official information available about the number of non-registered citizens in France. Estimations by one of the authors, based on different surveys, indicate about ten per cent of non-registered citizens in local as well as in national elections. With the number of registered voters in France being definitely lower than the number of all eligible voters, turnout in France is artificially increased when compared turnout in Germany. A re-estimation of the French results now leads to a 10 per cent reduction in the overall local turnout figures for France! And there is a second effect distorting the comparison of local turnout figures between France and Germany. Estimations show that of all automatically registered voters in Germany between two to five per cent are either double-listed, have died but are still listed or are wrongly counted as eligible voters for other reasons (see Kleinhenz 1995: 73 ff.). These citizens artificially increase the number of eligible voters and, hence, the denominator in the German way of calculating turnout. Consequently, official data for local turnout in Germany is lower than it should be, given the real number of all eligible voters. Once these points are taken into account and the turnout figures compared, there is scarcely any real difference between the two countries. Previous results showing local turnout in France as higher than that of Germany now become invalid, leading us to reformulate our research question. Why is there hardly any difference in local turnout between France and Germany, even though their local elections are held in quite different socio-structural, institutional, and political contexts?

3.

Explaining the similarities in local turnout between France and Germany

There are two possible answers to the above question, the first being that contextual differences between the two countries do not affect local turnout. However, as past research shows, context does matter, so such an answer is unconvincing. We therefore assume that local turnout context effects are to be found behind a more complex pattern, and that mobilising and de-mobilising effects are simultaneously at work. Figure 3 shows five factors that we assume to be at work when voters in France and Germany are mobilised/demobilised to cast their ballots in local elections. Whereas the first three factors should lead to higher local turnout in France, the last two should theoretically lead to higher local turnout in Germany.5 In sum, their effects could counterbalance each other, leading to the phenomenon of similarity shown above.

We will explain our assumptions in greater detail in the following sections.

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany Figure 3: Hypotheses on Turnout Effects from different Contexts
Size of Municipality Importance of the Institution Political Salience of Local Council Elections Applied Voting Systems Local Discretion
Source: Own Figure.

France + + + -

Germany + +

3.1 Municipal size and local turnout Research on the relationship between the size of a community and citizen participation is extensive.6 In a prominent publication on the topic, Dahl and Tufte (1974: 13ff.) summarise ambivalent assumptions about the influence of community size on political involvement. On the one hand, they expect participation in smaller units to be strong, because
(s)maller democracies provide more opportunity for citizens to participate effectively in decisions ... smaller democracies are likely to be more nearly homogeneous with respect to beliefs, values, and goals ... smaller democracies make it easier for a citizen to perceive a relation between his own self-interest or understanding of the good and a public or general interest, the interests of others, or general conceptions of the good ... smaller democracies make possible greater speed and accuracy of communication among all members of the system ... smaller democracies provide more opportunities for all citizens to gain knowledge needed for decisions by direct observation and experience.

But, on the other hand, participation and involvement might also be stronger in larger political communities, with the interest in and the understanding of politics being perhaps more developed than in smaller democracies, as
(l)arger democracies provide opportunities for citizens to participate, at least by voting in elections, in the decisions of a political system large enough to control all or most of the major aspects of their situation that can be controlled ... larger democracies provide more opportunity for divergence of views on individual, group, and general interests and goals ... larger democracies reduce the likelihood that a single interest of one segment of the members will dominate the whole system ... larger democracies provide greater opportunities for individuals to develop skills, hence to develop skills needed for rational solutions to problems.

Nevertheless, the question as to why size is related to turnout has still not been answered satisfactorily. There are several competing theories, such as rational choice explanations and modernization hypotheses.

Angelika Vetter and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

While Dahl and Tufte do not find any clear-cut relationship between size and electoral participation (1974: 61f.), many other authors do report a negative relationship, with participation in smaller municipalities being stronger than in bigger cities. This mobilising effect in smaller communities is often explained by a stronger homogeneity, a higher capacity for social and political integration, a closer relationship between the voters and their elected representatives, and a greater reduction of participation barriers. (see Verba et al. 1978; Blais/Carty 1990; Rallings/Thrasher 1997; Blais/Dobrzynska 1998; Oliver 2000, 2001; Frandsen 2002). In Germany, the local level is made up of either county-subordinated or countyfree municipalities. After reunification in 1990, the number of municipalities in the whole of Germany was about 16,070. In 2003, only 13,157 of them remained, following territorial reforms in East Germany.7 But East and West Germany still show enormous discrepancies in the number and size of their municipalities: on average, whilst an East German municipality has 2,700 inhabitants, a West German one has 8,100.8 France, compared to Germany, is a far more fragmented nation. An international comparison based on indicators measuring the geo-political fragmentation of metropolitan areas shows that, with its 36,570 communes (January 2006)9, France is even more fragmented than either Switzerland or the US (HoffmannMartinot/Sellers 2005). Some 58 per cent of all French municipalities count fewer than 500 inhabitants, and the average demographic size of a French municipality 1,640 inhabitants is even smaller than in East Germany. If, as past research has shown, size is negatively related to turnout, local turnout in France should consequently be much higher than in Germany, given the differences in municipal fragmentation between the two countries.

8 9

The number of municipalities in East Germany has been reduced by more than 38 per cent (from 7,564 in 1990 to 4,642 in 2003), while the number of municipalities in West Germany remains almost the same. In West Germany, amalgamation took place in the early 1970s, when the number of municipalities was reduced by more than 60 per cent (see Council of Europe 1995: 16). These average numbers mask large variations between the different West German states. This number increases to 36,784 if we also take into account French overseas territories.

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany Figure 4: Municipal Size and Local Turnout in France and Germany
Local turnout

Germany

France

80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 40
< 5,000 5,00010,000 10,00025,000 25,00050,000 50,000100,000 100,000250,000 > 250,000

Size of Municipality

France N = 5,778 N = 481 N = 317 N = 130 N = 42 N = 29 N=7 Germany N = 2,844 N = 623 N = 621 N = 228 N = 76 N = 50 N = 24 Sources: Own data, collected from the States Statistical Offices in Germany and the French Ministry of Internal Affairs.

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Angelika Vetter and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot

Figure 4 clearly shows a negative size effect on local turnout for both countries as expected: the larger a municipality, the lower its local turnout. Although these negative effects are similar in France and in Germany, the effects of size on turnout are not linear. The decrease in turnout is most obvious for municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, but this is far less true for larger municipalities. In order to estimate size effect strength, we performed a regression analysis with a transformed size variable. By using the natural logarithm of size (ln) we adjusted our estimation model to the non-linearity of the relationship. Table 2: Municipal Size and Local Turnout in France and Germany
Local Turnout 74.4*** -8.9 (-.42)*** .17*** 10,944 Local Turnout 103.9*** -4.5 (-.21)*** -4.3 (-.64)*** .54*** 10,944

France/Germany Size (ln) R N

Sources: Own data, collected from the States Statistical Offices in Germany and the French Ministry of Internal Affairs. Pooled analyses for France and Germany are weighted to a sample size of 5,500 cases each. In brackets: beta-coefficients.

The strong effect of municipal size on local turnout now becomes obvious, with the difference in geo-political fragmentation of the two countries explaining about half of the variance in local turnout (see Tab. 2). In the first regression model, only a country dummy variable is included, showing a mean difference in local turnout between France and Germany of 8.9 percentage points. This difference is as we have shown mainly due to differences in the measurement of turnout. When we include the logged size variable, the standardised coefficients show that size is a really important factor in explaining turnout. From this we conclude that given the French/German differences in geo-political fragmentation, and the strong, negative size effect in both countries, municipal fragmentation is a factor that should definitely result in local turnout being higher in France than in Germany.

3.2. The importance of the institution According to the existing literature, another mobilising factor involved in casting a ballot in an election is the importance of the institution (e.g. Reif/Schmitt 1980; Reif 1984). The importance of the institution, related to its power to affect political decisions, is reflected by voters calculating how much there is at stake when their ballot has to be cast. Referring to European Parliament elections for example, Franklin (2002: 153) states: An election that does not decide the disposition of executive power can be expected to prove less important (and therefore less likely to motivate voter turnout) If executive power is at stake, then we would expect that more people will turn out. Looking at French and German local council elections from this point of view, we argue that French local council elections should be of much greater importance to French voters than German local council elections to German

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

11

voters; in France there is much more at stake when citizens vote for their local councils, as local council elections are equally mayoral elections. The institutional differences between France and Germany are explained in greater detail below. The internal organisation and power distribution of French local authorities display two main characteristics. Firstly, communes, departments, and regions share a uniform statute. This means that, unlike what happens in most Western countries, the same organisational model is enforced throughout the whole territory, with only a few special cases being excluded (overseas departments and territories; Corsica, Alsace and Moselle; Paris, Lyon and Marseille). Secondly, and of primary importance, most competences lie with the relevant executive, i.e. the mayor (commune). The mayors power has very few institutional limits. In most municipalities evidence persistently shows that the mayor, far from being a peer, becomes the boss of his colleagues. He makes his supporters dependent from him far more than he depends from them. Power inside the municipal polity polarises around him (Thoenig 2006: 48). The all-powerful role of the mayor and, since the decentralisation laws, that of the presidents of general and regional councils, echoes the influential position at national level of the President of the Republic. There is no real separation of powers, as the mayor wears at least three hats: executive of the municipality (head of its administration); chairperson of the local assembly; and representative of the state for the functions exercised by the commune on behalf of the state. The political regime of French local authorities can readily be compared to that of a typically presidential one, even though it is still up to the municipal assembly to choose the new mayor. Local council elections in France should, therefore, be of high salience to voters as they are both council and mayoral elections. In Germany, on the contrary, local council elections offer less salience for voters. Before reunification, there were four different forms of local government system. In some, the councils were given the power to select both mayors and chief executive officers, while in others the mayors were directly elected by the citizens, and the councils were far less powerful (Gunlicks 1986: 73ff.; Knemeyer 1999). In Bavaria and Baden-Wrttemberg (South German Council form) the council was weakest: the mayor was directly elected for eight years and the council members had no control over the local executive. The mayor, who was also head of both the council and the administration, became the most powerful actor in the local political arena. Local council elections in such cases obviously had less salience for the voters as they did not involve any selection or control of the mayoral position. In Rhineland-Palatinate, in the Saarland, and in parts of Schleswig-Holstein (Strong Mayor form) council members appointed the formally strong mayor for a term of ten years. Not only did he chair council committees and meetings and control the agenda, but he was also the chief administrative officer, as well as the legal and ceremonial head of town. Local council elections here, similarly to those in France, were also mayoral elections, with a much higher salience than in Bavaria and BadenWrttemberg. In Hesse and, in part, in Schleswig-Holstein (Magistrat form) the council was a strong collective body in its own right. Headed by a chairperson not the mayor elected from its own members, this chairperson set the agenda, chaired council meetings and served as the legal and ceremonial head of the municipality. The council also elected a collegial organ the Magistrat, consisting of the mayor

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and several deputies as its executive organ, responsible for routine administration. Theoretically, local council elections here should have had even more salience than under the Strong Mayor form. Finally, in Northrhine-Westfalia and Lower Saxony (North German Council form) the council was most powerful vis--vis the executive. First, the council elected the mayor as the chairman of the council and the ceremonial head of town. Second, the chief administration officer was also elected by the councillors. Local council elections in this institutional setting therefore should have had most salience. In the 1990s, all state governments in East and West Germany implemented far reaching institutional reforms for local government (Vetter 2006, 2009a). Today, the mayors, directly elected in all states, all chair both the local councils and the local administration. Local councils have, accordingly, lost their power. Consequently, ever since the beginning of the 1990s, local council elections are expected to be of less importance to voters as they are no longer of any relevance for the composition of the local executive office, i.e. the mayor, whose position has been strengthened throughout the length and breadth of Germany. Put in a nutshell, not only do local council elections in France play an important role as regards the selection of local council members, but voters also decide about their local executives (mayors), who are even more powerful than the strongest mayors in Germany. French voters casting their ballots in local elections obviously have much more at stake than is the case for German voters. Theoretically, this higher salience of French local council elections should as shown in 3.1 for municipal size result in local turnout in France being higher than in Germany.

3.3 The political salience of local elections for national politics A third factor that should promote higher local turnout in France than in Germany is the political salience of local elections within the national political context. All local elections in France are held on the same day, and these local elections are interpreted by many political actors and the media as representing a mid-term contest for the presidents party. With such intense national media reporting and party involvement, mobilisation in local elections in France should, therefore, be stronger than in Germany. In Germany, only a certain number of states hold their local elections on the same day (when they coincide with elections for the European Parliament: see Table 1). In general, however, there is no horizontal simultaneity of local elections: they are organised by each state on different days and in different years. What is more, local elections in Germany are of no consequence for the distribution of power at either state or national level. The situation is different, however, in the case of state elections, whose outcome may alter the majority status of the political parties (coalitions) in the second national chamber, the Bundesrat. This lack of simultaneity, and the absence of a local chamber at the national level, lead first, to inexistent/low media coverage of local elections on national TV channels which, in turn, implies a low mobilisation of voters. Second, national parties are less interested in local elections and only partly fulfill their mobilising function. On average, only 45.5 per cent of all local votes go to parties that are present at the national level (see Table 3). While

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

13

national parties in Northrhine-Westfalia and Saarland, for example receive, on average more than 90 per cent of all local votes, they only obtain about 25 per cent in Rhineland-Palatinat, and about 40 per cent in Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. As all other votes go to local parties (citizens lists), combinations of local lists, or to independent candidates, party mobilisation as well is quite low in most German local elections. Table 3: Votes for national parties, free lists, list combinations and independent candidates in German local elections Local votes for . in (%) Number of independmunicilist combinational ent candifree lists palities nations parties dates 45.0 47.9 7.0 1,110 40.0 45.6 14.2 0.1 2,058 81.8 17.0 0.2 426 78.7 20.9 0.5 1,023 90.2 9.6 0.1 396 24.6 17.9 0.0 57.5 2,306 93.4 6.6 0.0 52 44.1 45.0 10.2 421 43.3 43.6 13.0 873 60.5 39.4 518 37.9 41.0 21.1 1,121 39.2 56.3 2.5 1.5 998 45.5 35.5 2.9 16.1 11,302 46.8 30.0 4.0 19.2 7,371 43.1 45.7 0.7 10.4 3,931

State Baden-Wrttemberg Bavaria Hesse Lower Saxony Northrhine-Westf. Rhineland-P. Saarland Brandenburg Mecklenburg-W. Saxony Saxony-Anhalt Thuringia Total mean Mean West Germany Mean East Germany

Source: Reiser/Rademacher/Jaeck 2008.

The data available do not allow us to test our argument of a higher political salience of local elections in France empirically. But a close study of the differences in turnout between municipal and first-order elections (the French presidential election and the election for the German Bundestag) in both countries could support our assumption: from the 1950s until 1990, local turnout in Germany tended to be about ten percentage points lower than national turnout (see Figure 5). Since the beginning of the 1990s, however, this gap has constantly widened. Today, on average the turnout gap between federal and local elections in Germany is about 28 per cent. This turnout gap indicates that mobilisation in local elections today is far lower than in national elections, which might be caused by voters feeling local elections to be far less important than national elections.

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Figure 5: Local and national electoral participation in France and Germany

100

80

60

Germany
40

Mean municipal turnout Federal turnout

20

0 49- 53- 57- 61- 65- 69- 72- 76- 80- 83- 87- 90- 94- 98- 02- 0552 56 60 64 68 71 75 79 82 86 89 93 97 01 04

100

80

60

Presidential turnout

France
40

Municipal turnout

20

0 47-52 53-58 59-64 65-70 71-76 77-82 83-88 89-94 95-00 01-06 07-

Sources: For Germany: official electoral results from the States Statistical Election Offices; own calculation of averages; for France: Ministry of Internal Affairs. Note: Local turnout figures for Germany are average values calculated from several local elections in different states, all taking place in one parliamentary term. The number of elections per parliamentary term varies between 9 and 15. For more information, see the Appendix.

In France, the turnout gap between local and presidential elections is, on average, only 10 percentage points. The smaller mobilisation gap between French local and national elections compared to the equivalent German gap might well be due to a higher political salience of local elections. The local elections in France are held simultaneously and benefit from the stronger interest shown in them by both the national media and the national political parties which should, in turn, influence turnout positively.

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany 3.4 Local voting systems and their mobilising capacity

15

While in sections 3.1 to 3.3 we dealt with context factors that should promote higher local turnout in France than in Germany, we now turn to two aspects that should work the other way round the local electoral systems and local discretion thereby fostering higher turnout in Germany than in France. There is a wide range of literature dealing with the question of the effects of voting systems on electoral participation (e.g. Blais/Carty 1990; Powell 1992; Lijphart 1994; Blais/Dobrzynska 1998; Perea 2002; Van der Kolk 2007), with most of it investigating the effects of majority voting and proportional representation. The general conclusion is that PR systems do have a higher capacity to mobilise voters into going to the polls. Local elections in France and in Germany strongly differ with regard to the particular voting system applied which, in turn, should positively affect German, rather than French, local electoral mobilisation. In Germany, although local voting systems vary from state to state, they are all proportional in nature. Additionally, they offer citizens different possibilities of preference vote and ticket splitting (kumulieren and panaschieren). During the reforms in the 1990s, most local voting systems were modified in order to give citizens more say about which candidates they wanted to have a seat in the local councils. Today, closed lists for local elections exist only in Northrhine-Westfalia and in Saarland. In all other states, the citizens have at least three votes to be cumulated and split between different lists. In some states, even, citizens have as many votes as there are seats in the local council (up to 60 votes). Nevertheless, even the closed list systems in Germany are strongly proportional in character. In the French local presidential regime, on the contrary, the executive power is based on a sufficiently large majority of municipal councilors, whose formation is favoured by the use of a majoritarian electoral system with two ballots. Majority rule, suppressed under the 4th Republic in communes of over 9,000 inhabitants, was gradually reintroduced by ordinances in 1959 and by laws in 1964 and 1976. This legislation prevented lists with less than 12.5 per cent of votes being present for the second ballot. On 19 November 1982, Parliament adopted a law establishing a mixed system for the larger municipalities. Since the municipal elections of 1983, while the majority system with two ballots and open lists has been maintained in communes of fewer than 3,500 inhabitants (93 per cent of all French communes), the electoral rules have then been modified in the bigger communes, where the lists of candidates are fixed. At the first ballot, the list with an absolute majority of votes obtains half of the seats, the other seats being distributed according to the PR rule between all the lists, including the majoritarian one, but excluding those with less than 5 per cent of the votes (mechanism of the highest average). If no list obtains the absolute majority, a second ballot is held for those lists having received at least 10 per cent of the votes. The list with an absolute or relative majority of votes then obtains half the seats, the rest being distributed as previously indicated. Usually described as a mixed system, the French local voting system has, nevertheless, a rather strong majoritarian component, due to the use of the highest average device and the 10 per cent barrier. In fact, the winning list can rely on a solid majority in the council: more than three-quarters of the seats if it is already successful at the first

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ballot, and more than two-thirds when it is elected at the second ballot with just one third of the votes. From these differences in the different local voting systems applied in Germany and France, and from the effects of the voting systems on turnout reported in the literature we conclude that, in Germany, local turnout should be higher than in France, thereby counterbalancing the effects of geo-political fragmentation, the importance of the institution, and the political salience of the local council elections.

3.5 Local discretion and local turnout Finally, we relate local turnout to the discretion of local government and local politics in both countries. Why do we do this? Already in 1835 Tocqueville (1985: 59) argued that local autonomy was the main reason for the Americans attachment to their townships and their participation in local politics: The inhabitant of New England is attached to his township not so much because he was born there but as because he sees in that township a free and strong corporation that he is part of and that is worth his trouble to seek to direct. In 1965 Almond and Verba compared the political culture of five nations and concluded that differences in feelings of local political competence arise from different degrees in the countries local autonomy (p. 145). Similarly Dahl and Tufte (1974: 13ff.), as well as Vetter (2007), found that the more political decisions citizen can control theoretically (i.e. the higher the degree of local discretion), the higher their interest and, hence, the likelihood of their participating in local politics. If we are to relate local turnout in France and Germany to these findings, we have to look at the degree of local discretion exercised in each country. By local discretion we refer to the ability of actors within local government to make decisions about the type and level of services it delivers within the formal statutory and administrative framework for local service delivery, and about how that service is provided and financed. (Page/Goldsmith 1987: 5). Once again we find remarkable differences between the two countries. Until the beginning of the 1990s, numerous studies on local government in Europe attributed a low degree of discretion to French local government, while local government in Germany was said to enjoy a high degree of autonomy/discretion (e.g. Hesse/Sharpe 1991; Page 1991): The French local government system stems from a Napoleonic tradition, enjoying only a limited functional role within the national political system, but a far stronger political role. Traditionally, its local governments depended on the central authority exercising formal supervision via a prefect and allowing only limited autonomy. In the early 1980s, this situation began to change. There was, at first, a remarkable shift of competences from central state agencies to local authorities in 1982. This movement towards a stronger decentralisation within the one and indivisible nation was strengthened, in 2003, by a second wave of reform. However, because of the still highly fragmented system of local government in France, and its low administrative capacity, both decentralisation incentives were mainly directed towards the regions and the departments, while municipalities and villages have been left more or less to one side (see Hoffmann-Martinot 2003; Borraz 2004; Wollmann 2008). It is still the

Local Electoral Participation in France and Germany

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strong representation of local politicians in the national political arena10, and not an increase in municipal discretion that helps to safeguard local politics from being neglected by Paris. Local government in Germany, on the contrary, is said to belong to a group of local government systems with a long tradition of self-government like the local governments of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Local government (in these countries, A.V/V.HM) enjoys both a strong constitutional status and relatively high degree of policy-making autonomy and financial independence. It also seems to have absorbed a larger share of personal, client-oriented welfare state functions (Hesse/Sharpe 1991: 607). During the past two decades financial constraints and political decisions, especially with regard to social policy, have narrowed the scope of action for German local governments (Vetter 2009b). Nevertheless, we still expect the tradition of strong local selfgovernment in Germany to be present in the political culture and citizens minds, thereby fostering higher German local turnout than municipal turnout in France.

4.

Summary

France and Germany although both are at the very heart of Europe differ in many respects. Therefore, when comparing local turnout in these two countries, we also expected local turnout to vary strongly as well. On closer examination, however, we encountered a big surprise: local turnout in both countries scarcely differs, despite the rather different geo-political, institutional, and political contexts in which their citizens participate at the local level. Although official turnout data shows a turnout gap between the two countries of about 10 percentage points (with local turnout in France being higher than in Germany), this gap is mainly due to different registration procedures and different ways of defining (measuring) the turnout rate. In Germany, turnout is measured as the percentage of actual voters to all eligible voters, with registration being automatic. In France, turnout is measured as the percentage of actual voters to all registered voters, with voter registration not being automatic. Adjusted for this difference, local turnout in both countries turns out be more or less the same. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to explain not the difference but the unexpected phenomenon of similarity in local turnout in both countries. While most literature on voting behaviour refers to individual characteristics for explanation, we have chosen to focus on the socio-structural, institutional, and political contexts and their effects on local turnout, as both countries vary greatly with regard to these aspects. By comparing just two cases we did not intend to test existing hypotheses used when explaining turnout levels in both counties. We tried, instead, to use the existing knowledge on context effects to delve deeper and enhance our understanding of the similarity phenomenon. One first possible answer to our question might have been that the different local election contexts in France and Germany do not affect turnout. The existing literature, however, confirms that contexts do shape individual behaviour. We therefore concluded that there must be different effects at work counterbalancing each
10

This representation is strengthened by thecumul de mandats of the mayors exercising both a local and a national mandate.

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other and finally resulting in similar behaviour at the aggregate level. We concentrated on five such contextual differences considered in the literature to affect turnout. The data collected for more than 11,000 municipalities and villages in both countries allowed us to show, firstly, that the difference in geo-political fragmentation should result in a major difference in aggregated local turnout between the two countries. Local turnout is always higher in smaller rather than larger municipalities, with the strongest effects in local communities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants. As France is far more fragmented than Germany, the geo-political structure of both countries should definitely account for higher local turnout in France than in Germany. Secondly, we expected French local council elections to have a higher institutional importance for voters than for Germans voting in their local elections. Local council elections in France are simultaneously both council and mayoral elections, which should result in a stronger mobilisation of voters casting their local ballots. Thirdly, we attributed far stronger political salience for national politics to local elections in France: they are held on the same day; they are considered as a referendum on national government; and, as the media attention they are accorded is much stronger than in Germany, this should result in citizens being more highly mobilised to vote. But there are also two other institutional aspects, that should work the other way round, thereby counterbalancing the effects just described. Firstly, there are the local voting systems, which differ strongly. Whereas a majoritarian system is applied in France, the local voting systems in Germany all follow the PR-rule, which should increase turnout there. We then went on to describe the traditionally strong differences in local discretion between France and Germany which, again, should account for higher local turnout in Germany. The rather unexpected phenomenon of similar local turnout in two countries as different as France and Germany leads us to conclude that some of these effects are probably at work, counterbalancing each other, thereby leading to the result described. Looking close at local turnout in two countries as different as France and Germany and trying to explain the surprising phenomenon of similar behaviour in rather different contextual settings seemed of special importance to us. We have tried to provide a deeper understanding of local electoral behaviour, one which goes even beyond the two countries studied here. There is a current decline of local turnout in many other European countries as well (Van der Kolk 2009). The question of whether reforms of election contexts can foster turnout, is therefore a relevant question in other countries as well, especially when coping with the future of local democracy and the ongoing disentanglement between citizens and politics in a globalising world.

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Sharpe, Lawrence J. 1970: Theories and Values of Local Government, in Political Studies 18, pp. 153-174. Steinbrecher, Markus/Huber, Sandra/Rattinger, Hans 2007: Turnout in Germany. Citizen Participation in State, Federal, and European Elections since 1979. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Stoker, Gerry 1991: Introduction: Trends in European Local Government, in Batley, Richard/Stoker, Gerry (Eds.): Local Government in Europe. Trends and Developments, Houndmills, Macmillan, pp. 1-20. Thoenig, Jean-Claude 2006: Modernizing Sub-National Government in France: Institutional Creativity and Systemic Stability, in Hoffmann-Martinot, Vincent/Wollmann, Hellmut (Eds.): State and Local Government Reforms in France and Germany. Divergence and Convergence. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fr Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 39-58. Tocqueville, Alexis de 1985: ber die Demokratie in Amerika, ausg. und hrsgg. von J.P. Mayer, Stuttgart: Reclam (Original 1835, 1840). Van der Kolk, Henk 2009: Does Turnout Decline? Paper Presented at the 5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam, September 2009. Van der Kolk, Henk 2007: Local Electoral Systems in Western Europa, in Local Government Studies 33 (2), pp. 159-180. Van Deth, Jan 2003: Vergleichende politische Partizipationsforschung, in BergSchlosser, Dirk/Mller-Rommel, Ferdinand (Eds.): Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 4th Ed., Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp. 167-187. Verba, Sidney/Nie, Norman H./Kim, Jae-on 1978: Participation and Political Equality. A Seven-Nation Comparison, Cambridge u. a.: CUP. Verba, Sidney/Schlozman, Kay L./Brady, Henry E. 1995: Voice and Equality, Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. Vetter, Angelika 2006: Modernizing German Local Government: Bringing the People Back in?, in Hoffmann-Martinot, Vincent/Wollmann, Hellmut (Eds.) 2006: State and Local Government Reforms in France and Germany. VS Verlag fr Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 253-268. Vetter, Angelika 2007: Local Politics: A Resource for Democracy in Western Europe? Local Autonomy, Local Integrative Capacity, and Citizens Attitudes toward Politics. Lanham et al.: Lexington. Vetter, Angelika 2009a: Citizens versus Parties: Explaining Institutional Change in German Local Government 1989-2008, in Local Government Studies Vol. 35 (1), pp. 125-142. Vetter, Angelika 2009b: Changes in German local autonomy 1985-2005, in Goldsmith, Michael/Page, Edward (Eds.): Local autonomy in Europe (in print). Walter-Rogg, Melanie 2005: Metropolitan Areas and Political Impact in Germany, in Sellers, Jefferey/Hoffmann-Martinot, Vincent (Eds.): Metropolitanization and Political Change. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fr Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 87117. Wollmann, Hellmut 2008: Reformen dezentral-lokaler Organisationsstrukturen zwischen Territorialitt und Funktionalitt England, Schweden, Frankreich

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Appendix Table 1: Local and National Electoral Turnout Percentage in Germany by States, 1949-2006
Years Fed. Election West-Germany Bavaria Baden-Wrtt. Hesse Lower Saxony Northrhine-West. Rhineland-P. Schleswig-H. Saarland 49-52 78.5 81.9 67.7 76.8 78.7 76.0 79.3 76.5 53-56 86.0 79.9 69.2 78.0 77.2 76.9 79.6 74.5 87,. 57-60 87.8 79.2 68.9 80.1 77.4 79.7 76.1 79.1 61-64 87.7 66.3 79.3 74.8 76.2 81.4 71.2 81.8 65-68 86.8 77.5 66.2 76.9 77.0 68.7 81.8 69-71 86.7 65.6 68.6 76.2 72.3 72-75 91.1 76.1 67.3 81.4 82.7 86.4 81.1 79.2 83.9 76-79 90.7 78.3 78.9 91.4 69.9 78.4 78.3 81.3 80-82 88.6 62.6 76.3 76.2 73.8 83-86 89.1 74.7 61.8 75.8 72.1 65.8 76.3 68.7 78.6 87-89 84.3 61.4 78.0 65.6 77.2 79.1 90-93 77.8 75.0 71.3 68.3 69.4 94-97 79.0 67.3 66.7 66.0 64.5 81.7 74.1 70.5 73.9 98-01 82.2 53.0 52.9 56.2 55.0 62.9 62.8 59.3 77.9 50.5 53.8 49.6 58.1 57.7 57.4 58.0 02-04 79,1 63,2 52,0 54,5 57,6 54,4 56,3 46,0 44,9 46,1 42,1 50,6 51,6 56,3 45,9 0577,7 59,6 45,8 51,8 49,5 51,6 51,6 Diff. 87-06 -0,1 -15,4 -9,4 -32,2 -16,5 -11,1 -19,6 -19,9 -22,8 -13,7 -20,8 -24,0 -24,1 -21,7 -19,3 -18,4 -20,9

East-Germany Brandenburg 59.7 Mecklenburg-W. 65.7 Saxony 70.1 Saxony-Anhalt 66.2 Thuringia 72.3 Mean 76.7 77.9 77.2 75.9 74.7 70.7 79.8 77.4 72.2 71.7 72.3 68.7 69.9 76.7 77.9 77.2 75.9 74.7 70.7 79.8 77.4 72.2 71.7 72.3 71.0 70.6 Mean West 59.7 68.6 Mean East Source: Own data, collected from the States Statistical Offices. Note : - local elections were not held in this parliamentary term.