Spreading Disillusionment in Germany

      Last week Germany held its parliamentary elections.  According to our Johnson reading  between 1958 and 1976 West Germany's average voter turnout was 84%.  However, between 1998 and 2009 voter turnout dropped almost 12% to 70.8%.  This year it is expected to drop another 5%.   Johnson said that one of, if not the, strongest explanations for why people vote is the "social pressure hypothesis" which "states that individuals vote in order to avoid the social pressures that their friends, family, {and} neighbors...would place upon them if they did not."  Germany is facing a situation in which this very social pressure is rapidly declining.  According to a pollster in Germany, "There has been a change in mood among the public...you no longer have to be ashamed to be a non-voter." According to his poll only 7% of non-voters "had to deal with criticism from friends and relatives, while 57% indicated that friends and family don't care whether they vote or not."  The very groups that Johnson mentioned who should be pressuring their fellow citizens to vote no longer care, and even fewer of those that care are saying anything.       

     There are also tinges of Downs and a side comment by Johnson in this article.  Among economists, intellectuals, and journalists the race to the center to capture that median voter has left much to be desired from the parties.  They want to debate "big issues" while all they see from the parties is "kids' stuff election campaigns," "un-philosphical politics," and "a single 'mega-party.'''  Not only do they know that their vote is unlikely to determine the outcome of the election, they feel that even if their vote was to be the deciding vote it wouldn't really matter which party won.  The author tells us that if these just people took the time to read the party platforms they would see that there were real differences in the parties, but as Johnson says, its not worth their time. They are rationally ignorant.      

     The marginal benefit of voting is declining as voters increasingly see few differences between the two parties.   Voters don't care who wins because they don't see the differences effecting them.  At the same time, the net marginal cost of voting is increasing as the societal pressure to vote decreases. There is a net increase in the marginal cost of voting because the societal pressure costs of not voting no longer offset the tangible cost of voting.  Therefore, we are seeing the marginal benefits of voting declining as the marginal costs rise which, as expected, results in fewer people voting.