C hapter II

M ethodology

1 Introduction 55
2 M e th o d o lo g ic a l a p p ro a c h e s to th e s tu d y o f ele cto ral a b s te n tio n 56
2 .1 Aggregate analysis: advantages and problems 57
2.2 Individual level analysis: assets and problems of survey analysis 59
2.3 Cross-level analysis 61

3 R e s e a rc h d e s ig n , tech n iq u es o f a n a ly sis a n d d a ta so u rc e s 63
3.1 Research design 63
3.2 Techniques of analysis 65
3.3 Data sources 72
3.3.1 Individual-level data sources 72
3.3.2 System-level data sources 75

4 V a ria b le o p e ra tio n a lisa tio n a n d m e a s u r e m e n t 75

4.1 Individual variables 78
4.1.1 Resources 78
4.1.2 Social integration 80
4.1.3 Political involvement 80
4 .1.4 Index o f individual incentives 82
4.2 Systemic variables 84
4.2.1 Institutional incentives 84
4.2.2 Party system embeddedness 86
4.2.3 Decisiveness of election 87
4.3 M easurement problems in the analysis o f abstention 89

C hapter III
R esources , S ocial I ntegration and Political Involvement
Individual D eterminants of Electoral A bstention

1 Introduction 93
2 Individual resources and electoral abstention 95
2.1 Age 96
2.2 Education 100
2.3 Income 102
2.4 Multivariate analysis of resources 104

3 Social integration and abstention ]07

3.1 Church attendance 109
3.2 Marital status 1 jq
3.4 M ultivariate analysis of social integration 111
4 Political involvement and electoral abstention 112
4.1 Interest in politics j 53
4.2 Politicisation I ¡5
4.4 Multivariate analysis of political involvement 119