Conscription and Political Participation: How Conscription Policies Affect Voter Turnout

Abstract

This article reports the results of an empirical research design testing the relationship between a state’s use of conscription and the public’s level of political participation. Although few previous studies have investigated conscription’s influence on political levels in times of war, none have yet to analyze conscription’s impact on political participation during peacetime. We, therefore, study the relationship between voter turnout and military conscription using a global sample with the expectation that citizens in states that practice conscription will be more politically engaged during times of no conflict. We perform logistic regression models on a global sample (1982–2008) and find that those states that do practice conscription see their citizens participate in the electoral process at a higher level.