Democratic Choice, Legitimacy and the Case Against Compulsory Voting

Annabelle Lever (1)

1 UNIGE - Université de Genève = University of Geneva

In the last issue of Public Policy Review Sarah Birch argued that Britain should make voting compulsory, and that the law should actively enforce legal duties to turnout at elections.1 She argues that ‘governments need to have democratic legitimacy to pull countries through difficult times’, and that low turnout threatens that legitimacy. Moreover, she claims, ‘economic stress exacerbates perceptions of social inequality’, and suggests that if alienated groups do not see Parliament as a means to improve their lot, they will turn to extra-parliamentary ways of doing so. [First paragraph]

Keywords: Democratic choice; Legitimacy; Compulsory voting

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Philosophy; Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science

Annabelle Lever. Democratic Choice, Legitimacy and the Case Against Compulsory Voting. Public Policy Research, 2009. ⟨hal-03570202⟩