Die soziale Norm der Wahlbeteiligung

This article assesses the determinants of the subjective voting norm with the European Social Survey 2002/3 for 21 European democracies. The empirical procedure tests various combinations of four theoretical perspectives: (1) social integration, i.e., the extent and quality to which an individual is integrated into given social contexts, (2) social trust, i.e., the general willingness to cooperate with other individuals, (3) the support of the social system to which the norm belongs, and (4) the perception of the degree of compliance and the quality of a social norm in an individual’s context. The best explanation is offered by the model which combines social integration, the support of the social system and the perception of the degree of compliance and quality of the norm. We also examine additional causal paths of indicators of social integration through system support on the individual voting norm. The paper contributes to an improvement on existing literature through its more complex causal modelling and the placing of individual attitudes in context.