Non-voting in Catalonia

Abstract

This paper aims to present a brief approach to non-voting in Catalonia. Its development will be half way between a case study and a wider reflection on the issue. That is to say that although focusing discussions and examples on the features of Catalan nonvoting, many of the subjects arosen and some of the hypotheses laid seek to have a much more general validity. The paper is structured in three sections: in the first one we will try to give a general diagnose of the subject by analysing Catalan non-voting from a comparative perspective, looking at differentiated behaviours depending on the election level and on responses to the political context. We will emphasize the unfinished character of the explanations of each of these phenomena. In the second section we will summarize some of the most basic evidences on the subject that have been pointed out by electoral geography and sociology in Catalonia, which will help us to define some of the necessary explanatory elements. Finally, the last section will contain some hypotheses and reflections. We shall present there the main components that we think should conform an explanatory model of non-voting, and will briefly discuss this behaviour's rationality and its political importance.