ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of political-institutional variables on the decision to vote across four regions. Specifically, four contextual predictors, namely disproportionality, the closeness of the election, concurrent elections, and compulsory voting, are put to the empirical test across the different regions. The results across the different regions reveal the impact of the institutional factors on vote choice generally tends to vary. The effect of compulsory voting on political behaviour stands out. To be precise, voters in new democracies (Latin America) are more likely to turn out where these elections are mandatory and enforced with sanction than where they are not. With regards to the other variables, I find that closeness of elections tends to be an influential determinant of the decision to vote in the new democracies of sub-Saharan Africa but not for the other regions. In sum, this chapter concludes that while the political-institutional context is essential for vote choice, it is far from decisive.
