Participation and Turnout: Relating knowledge and tools to the practical questions facing democratic reformers

This paper is presented in the context of International IDEA’s mission to produce high-quality and policy-relevant comparative knowledge on democracy promotion made available to, owned and used by key actors at local, national, regional and international levels, addressing the links between the consolidation of democratic institutions and the conditions for strengthening democratic processes.

One practical element of this mission is a response to the demand for greater understanding by legislators, electoral management bodies, political commentators and stakeholders in reform debate of the deeper factors affecting electoral participation. A basic element of this is the assembly and dissemination of data relating to turnout worldwide in order that debate and analysis has a broad basis in fact, the principle which underlies the creation of the International IDEA voter turnout database and global turnout report (International IDEA 2002) and a regional followup for Western Europe (International IDEA 2004).