Political apathy


In political science, political apathy is a lack of interest or apathy towards politics. This includes voter apathy, information apathy and lack of interest in elections, political events, public meetings, and voting.
Voter apathy is a lack of interest among voters in the elections of representative democracies. Political apathy or lack of interest is often cited as a cause of low turnout among eligible voters in jurisdictions where voting is optional, and the donkey vote where voting is compulsory. This phenomenon occurs to some extent across all countries or entities where citizens are able to vote. Political apathy has led to increased concerns regarding representative democracies because election results do not encompass the entire population who are eligible to vote.

Political alienation

Political apathy is sometimes considered distinct from political alienation, "the sense that voters feel like the political system does not work for them and any attempt to influence it will be a fruitless exercise." Political alienation is adversely related to political efficacy, the voter's trust in their ability to influence politics. The most common electoral consequences of political alienation are abstention and protest voting.

Causes

One cause of political apathy is due to lack of education. According to a study by CIRCLE director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, nearly 20% of American youth do not feel they know enough to vote. Notably, the study found that many young people have glaring misconceptions about the voting process; for instance, several individuals in the study believed having relatively minor offenses on their criminal record, such as driving under the influence, restricted their ability to vote. This 20% figure is especially significant when juxtaposed with the 20% total youth turnout in the 2018 United States elections.
Sometimes, alienated voters feel compelled to vote, but feel "estranged or disaffected from the system or somehow left out of the political process." They feel that they are underrepresented or not represented at all by those running for office; their best interest or concerns are not regarded.
Political alienation falls into two broad categories: political incapability and political discontentment. In the first instance, alienation is forced upon the individual by their environment, whereas in the second case it is voluntarily chosen by them.
There are at least five expressions of political alienation:
  1. Political powerlessness. An individual's feeling that they cannot affect the actions of the government.
  2. Political meaninglessness. An individual's perception that political decisions are unclear and unpredictable.
  3. Political normlessness. An individual's perception that norms or rules intended to govern political relations are broken down, and that departures from prescribed behavior are common.
  4. Political isolation. An individual's rejection of political norms and goals that are widely held and shared by other members of a society.
  5. Political disappointment. An individual's disinterest to a political decision or participation because of the ruling class bad behaviors, such as, leaders having scandals by doing shameful things.
Political alienation overlaps with anti-politics, and there are likely causal relationships between the two concepts. Alienation differs from anti-political sentiment in that the latter tends to focus on negative assessments of politicians and political elites, whereas alienation may encompasses dissatisfaction with other elements of a political system, such as the electoral system, party system, or the idea of democratic society.
Another cause of political apathy is voter fatigue, when elections are held too frequently. In political science voter fatigue is defined as, "the apathy that the electorate can experience under certain circumstances, one of which could be that they are required to vote too often." One of the possible causes for voter fatigue is the barrage of political messages through social media. A large amount of exposure to political messages year-round can cause fatigue that turns potential voters away from the voting process.
Additional causes of political apathy include:
  • being uncomfortable with the possible choices and the lesser of two evils principle in two-party systems
  • wasted votes, where a voter does not receive representation in the final election outcome.
  • strategic voting, where the electoral system incentivizes voting for a less preferred option to prevent an undesirable outcome.
  • political corruption, where government officials or their network use politics for illegitimate private gain.
  • Political misinformation or disinformation in part contributed by political spin and social media platforms.
  • being unable to vote due to legal or logistical barriers
  • being overwhelmed by personal issues
  • encountering registration problems.

    Background

The psychological factors that influence voter behavior are a voter's perceptions of politics, that is, how the voter sees the parties, the candidates, and the issues in an election.
The farther down the ballot an office is, the fewer the number of votes that will be cast for it. This is called ballot fatigue. The expression suggests that many voters exhaust their patience or knowledge as they work their way down the ballot.
Prominent Founding Fathers writing in The Federalist Papers believed it was "essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people," and felt that a bond between the people and the representatives was "particularly essential." They wrote "frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured." In 2009, however, few Americans were familiar with leaders of Congress.
In the 19th century there was a substantially large amount of voter turnout with numerous years with over 80% participation. This was due to several factors. One, political machines gave voters an incredible incentive to vote with favors of work, wealth, and political power ; however, political machines lost much of their power with the increased ability to vote and with more exposure on corrupt policies.
Numerous reports suggest voter apathy is widespread and growing. The percentage of Americans eligible to vote who did, in fact, vote was 63% in 1960, but has been falling since.
Vanderbilt professor Dana D. Nelson in Bad for Democracy argues that all citizens seem to do, politically, is vote for president every four years, and not much else; they've abandoned politics. Apathy was lower in the 2008 election, which featured a competitive election for president. Voter turnout in 2008 was the highest since 1968.
On the other hand, Hunter College professor Jamie Chandler claims that political apathy, or a lack of interest in the political system, is overstated in regards to socioeconomic factors. Wealth and educational attainment correlate most strongly with voter participation.
Political apathy is often found among younger voters, the poor, and minority groups. The Centre for Innovation, Research and Competence in the Learning Economy breaks down youths into different groups, Broadly Engaged, Political Specialists and Only Voted, with the rest clustered into Civically Alienated, Politically Marginalized and Engaged Non-Voters. In 2010, only 21% of youths eligible to vote in the United States between ages 18–21 voted or were politically active.

Regional political apathy

Canada

Canada's voter turnout has remained relatively high compared to other developed democracies. In 2019, the share of the voting-age population registered to vote is around 93 percent. In the 2019 federal election, 77 percent of eligible voters reported that they had cast a ballot. However, one study highlights that the primary reason individuals abstained from voting in 2019 is due to a lack of interest in politics, at 35 percent, followed by 22 percent of non-voters who indicated that they were busy. The majority of non-voters were younger voters aged 18 to 24. Furthermore, Canadians who were citizens by birth reported lower voter turnout than naturalized citizens or immigrants in Canada; this may be due to the fact that individuals from foreign countries are more appreciative of the democratic process. Overall, voter turnout has remained steady within the past decade.

European Union

Member-states in the European Union are able to vote in two ways. Voters are allowed to vote in elections within their own countries as well as in elections concerning the European Union through the European Parliament. Political apathy is seen in the European Union through elections within each country and within the European Parliament.
European Parliament elections are when individuals in EU member-states vote for matters concerning the entirety of the European Union through electing a representative from their country into the European Parliament. It is noted that turnout is frequently lower in such elections compared to national elections. Political apathy is speculated because individuals within the European Parliament often perceive such elections to hold low salience context. In such cases, individuals believe that there are less personal stakes attached to elections in the European Parliament. As such, such attitudes further imply that voters perceive such elections to be less important than national elections.
Another line of reasoning suggests that individuals may be dissatisfied with party positions within the European Parliament, especially regarding the subject of European integration. Research shows that the larger the distance between voters and their national party choices in the European Union, the more likely that they will abstain from voting in the European Parliament election. Hence, political apathy is a phenomenon that heavily impacts the turnout of European Parliament elections. However, in recent years, it is observed that increased politicization within the European Union has led to increased voter turnout. In 2019, 50.66 percent of EU members voted in the European Parliament election, increasing from 42.61 in 2014. Speculated reasons for this increase are pertaining to Brexit, the Migrant Crisis, climate change policy, and rising concern over anti-EU sentiment.