Comparing Political Systems

This report examines the decline in voter interest and engagement in politics in European countries. It analyzes factors such as party membership decline, voter turnout, and changing voter behavior. The study concludes that while traditional party loyalties are diminishing, citizens are still engaged in other forms of political activism.

Comparing Political
Systems

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
"In many European countries citizens no longer vote according to their traditional party
loyalties and Europe’s mainstream parties register an ongoing decline in their membership
numbers. Do you agree that voters are becoming increasingly disinterested in politics?”.........3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Political system is basically set of the formal legal institutions which constitute the
government and a state and thus is the well-defined process for designing and making official
decisions of government. In short, political system is usually the system of government as well
as politics which have the coordinated principles, laws, procedures and rules relating to the
government of particular form. The main aim of this report is to study and critique that whether
voters have any interest in politics or not.
This report gives a brief overview of whether voters are becoming increasingly
disinterested in politics or not.
MAIN BODY
"In many European countries citizens no longer vote according to their traditional party loyalties
and Europe’s mainstream parties register an ongoing decline in their membership numbers.
Do you agree that voters are becoming increasingly disinterested in politics?”
It has been analysed from research that party membership has been decline in Europe since
at least 1960. The reason of this decline can be because of inclusion of new democracies from
Central and Eastern Europe (Magalhães, 2017). Also research has shown that there has been a
decrease in voter turnout in many regions of Europe, the reason can be because of
disillusionment, indifference or a sense of futility. This means that fewer citizens consider
elections the main instrument for legitimizing political parties’ control over political decision
making. It does not particularly mean that the interest of citizen has been decreased from
political parties, it’s just that they are not highly engaged in doing voting. There has been a
growth in other form of citizen activism like more number of people in Europe are engaged in
doing mass protest, occupy movements and making social media a platform to be politically
involved. There has been a shift of voters from traditional way of doing political activities into
new forms of democratic participation and representation. Thus, this aspect has put a severe
pressure on government and they are engaged in doing strategic planning so that they can change
mind of individuals. So it is the right time for governmental authorities to bring up sound
modifications in system (Pisano, 2017).
Voters turnout basically means the extent to which individuals who are eligible to vote, does
voting on day of election. In Europe it has been analysed that region has faced the highest voter’s
turnout between the period of 1940 to 1980. It has been interpreted that there are various reasons

for decline in voters like campaign expenditure. People are less likely to vote as the expenditure
related to campaigning is not up to the mark. Europe is not sufficiently engaged in making
people aware about voting aspects. The design of various types of voting arrangement can have
an impact on voter turnout (Kelbel, Van Ingelgom and Verhaegen, 2016). There are mainly 8
countries, six of which are in Europe, have reduced the utilization of e-voting system because of
security issues. Also higher rate of education system can increase voter’s turnout. The space of
European party is being changing. People of Europe are being shifting from main stream party to
non-main stream party. Reason for this can vary because of change in perception of people or it
can be because of elected party does not work according to expectation of them. It has also been
analysed that main stream parties in states like France and Europe follow a strategy related to
convergence because of which they are losing votes. Like for example the level of political
interest in individuals is also main factor for voter’s turnout. There has also been a rise in
unconventional political participation that involves individuals signing of other petitions, they
are engaged in providing assistance to boycotts and are also showing high amount of interest in
unworthy protests. This type of unconventional voting is seeing a growing pace in Europe. The
people of country are also being engaged in taking interest related to supporting new parties.
This has led to shift of individuals going from mainstream party to non-mainstream party. The
voters can only be included vote when government is engaged in taking wider actions. It has
been analysed that women are also engaged in doing high number of voting in New Zealand,
Russia and Tobago. Also there has been a high number of gender gap in voters turnout, there has
been a difference in males and females doing voting (Kentmen‐Cin, 2017).
The majority of people are nowadays becoming less interested in the political situation
and in politics and thus they do not show much concern regarding the political parties. In the
year 2015 of general election, it was reported that only around 66.1% of the population in France
turned up at polls. The 35% population who did not give vote were actually eligible for the
voting, but they did not vote. Although the voting have decreased in France from around 65% to
more than 32.67% in past few years but the interest of the people in politics have not diminished.
Interest in politics and voting are not be related with each other. The main reason behind loss of
interest of people in voting is their lack of interest (Sorace, 2018). Upon survey, it has been
found that majority of the population thinks that their single vote will not make any difference
and nothing will change even if they do not step out of their houses for voting. In the general

election of 1992, around 77.7% of the population voted but this number drastically declined with
the emergence of advanced technology and internet. Nowadays, majority of the people generally
gather the information via social media instead of reading the newspaper and this has eventually
reduced their interest in voting. Election as well as voting is believed to be highly complex
process which sometimes becomes difficult for people to understand (Whitaker, Hix and
Zapryanova, 2017). Many people generally do not have enough knowledge as well as do not
understand about government and election and this become the major reason behind declining
number of people going for voting. The British education system does not provide enough
knowledge and information on politics to the students due to which their knowledge about
politics remain low. Consequently, most of the students and people have little knowledge about
British legal and political system due to which they are more likely to avoid voting. This is one
the major reason of why the number has declined and according to the report of 2015, nearly
29% of the people have shown their interest in voting (Luther, 2017). Due to the lack of proper
knowledge and education in France people generally do not have much interest in voting and this
affects the political parties to a high extent.
The gender representation as well as the increasing gender inequality has become one of
the major issue in politics which has eventually resulted in disinterest of people in voting. It has
been found that most of the cases of gender inequality is found during voting and this has
created a negative image for politics within the minds of people. Gender gap is basically the
major difference between ratio of women as well as men who provides support to the given
candidate (Schäfer and Debus, 2018). According to the report of 2017, the general election
which took place in the year 2015 had around 36% of the seats reserved for women and while the
rest were for other parties. This gender inequality within electoral system has affected the voting
power of people in France and have reduced the number to more than 28.5%. This gender
inequality has eventually affected the voting ration in France and has become the major reason as
why people have now become disinterested in voting. Along with this, another reason to this
reduced number is the changing trend in the voter's behaviour. The behaviour of people and their
views towards the political system has changed in France and thus the negative perception has
dominated their minds due to various reason. One of the main reason is lack of the interest of
political parties towards the public. People generally have the perception that the political party

which is elected does not stand up to their promises and commitment and this is the main reason
people not going to polls for voting.
Nowadays, the awareness for voting has ultimately declined which has reduced the
concern among people for voting. The voters now does not pay much attention to the politics and
instead remain engaged in social media and other activities as they think it as the waste of time.
The focus of people have shifted to other activities instead of watching and listening to the
political parties and this sudden change in the behaviour of people has affected the voting in
France to high extent. Nowadays, people generally believes it as waste of time for stepping out to
vote and choosing one party over the other. It has been reported that in the general election of
2015, majority of the population were not interested to leave their work and come out for voting
which decreased the voting number to more than 1.1 million. This shift of people to other
activities has been reflected in voting numbers and thus have affected the political system badly
(Hobolt and et.al.,2018). Another reason as why the number has actually decreased is
participation as well as exclusion. The participation within the liberal democracies remain
limited to the voting. Social exclusion has become one of the major issue which has dominated
voting in France. As the population in France is from different cultural background thus social
exclusion has been one of the major cause behind declining interest of people in voting. People
generally thinks that due to having different culture and beliefs, they are exploited for voting the
particular party. Besides this, the physically handicapped people are not given an equal chance to
participate in the voting system. This has somewhat reduced the interest of people in France to
vote. According to the survey of 2016, around 67.4% believed that they are being exploited
during the general elections and voting due to belonging to different country and culture. Besides
this, most of the disabled and handicapped people believed that despite their bad health, they are
required to stand in the Que for giving vote which becomes difficult for them (Dinas and Riera,
2018). This social exclusion has affected the mind and hearts of people towards political system
and thus has reduced their interest and attention towards politics. People often show their
frustration and anger towards the political parties and electoral system through various means
like social media websites, through campaigning, protesting which means that they still have
interest in politics but their interest towards election has reduced. Thus, these are some of the
reasons which has eventually reduced the number of voters in France during election (Fiorino,
Pontarollo and Ricciuti, 2017).

CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarized that voters are now shifting from traditional
system to new democratic and political interest. Europe has seen a major voter’s turnout because
of various factors like there has not been a proper arrangement for individuals to vote. They have
also not been involved in doing better voting campaigning, so people are unaware about the fact
to vote. It has also been analyzed from report that individuals have shown decrease in interest in
politics because of change in their perception. It has also been interpreted that they are highly
engaged in doing other activist criticism like protesting through social media channels.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Magalhães, P. ed., 2017. Financial crisis, austerity, and electoral politics: European voter
responses to the global economic collapse 2009-2013. Routledge.
Kelbel, C., Van Ingelgom, V. and Verhaegen, S., 2016. Looking for the European voter: Split-
ticket voting in the Belgian Regional and European Elections of 2009 and 2014. Politics
and Governance. 4(1). pp.116-129.
Kentmen‐Cin, C., 2017. What about ambivalence and indifference? Rethinking the effects of
European attitudes on voter turnout in European parliament elections. JCMS: Journal of
Common Market Studies. 55(6). pp.1343-1359.
Sorace, M., 2018. The European Union democratic deficit: Substantive representation in the
European Parliament at the input stage. European Union Politics. 19(1). pp.3-24.
Luther, K.R., 2017. Electoral strategies and performance of Austrian right-wing populism, 1986-
2006. In The Changing Austrian Voter (pp. 104-122). Routledge.
Schäfer, C. and Debus, M., 2018. No participation without representation: Policy distances and
abstention in European Parliament elections. Journal of European Public
Policy.25(12).pp.1835-1854.
Hobolt, S.B and et.al.,2018. The crisis of legitimacy of European institutions. Europe’s Crises,
John Wiley and Sons, New Jersey, pp.243-268.
Fiorino, N., Pontarollo, N. and Ricciuti, R., 2017. Supra National, National and Regional
Dimensions of Voter Turnout in European Parliament Elections (No. JRC108755). Joint
Research Centre (Seville site).
Pisano, G.G., 2017. Multiple options noisy voter model: application to European elections.
Whitaker, R., Hix, S. and Zapryanova, G., 2017. Understanding members of the european
parliament: Four waves of the European parliament research group MEP
survey. European Union Political. 18(3). pp.491-506.
Dinas, E. and Riera, P., 2018. Do European Parliament elections impact national party system
fragmentation?. Comparative Political Studies.51(4).pp.447-476.

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