Turnout in Germany: Citizen Participation in State, Federal, and European Elections Since 1979

Voter turnout in Germany has been declining since the end of the 1980s. European and Landtag representative assembly elections are particularly affected by this development. The all-time low was a turnout of 43 percent in the European Parliament election in 2004. The causes for this dramatic decline are a regular topic in public debates. This book analyzes the participation of Germans in European, Bundestag (Parliament), and Landtag elections since 1979. With its broad research design, the book integrates the most important approaches of empirical electoral research. In the first part of the book, turnout is described within its geographic and social context by means of data from official statistics. However, individual attitudes and motives of the voters are even more important for the interpretation of declining turnout and are thus examined in the second part of the book. The weakening of social norms and political dissatisfaction has dramatic consequences for turnout and cannot be