2026/01/01 by Markus Klein
Social Sciences · #Public Administration and Political Analysis #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Law and Political Science
paper · doi:10.5771/0340-1758-2026-2-272
Voter turnout in local elections in Germany’s territorial states has declined significantly since the 1980s. Research mainly attributes this downward trend to the general decrease in political participation and to the horizontal and vertical expansion of local voting rights to population groups with comparatively low participation rates. It is contested, however, whether the municipal democratization reforms of the 1990s also reduced citizens’ willingness to vote. To address this question empirically, a dataset was compiled that includes all 162 statewide local elections conducted between 1949 and 2025 in the 13 German territorial states (i.e. excluding the three city states). The statistical analysis is based on multivariate multilevel models. Both the introduction of direct mayoral elections and the adoption of open-list systems noticeably reduce turnout in local elections. The article also highlights that local elections held concurrently with elections at higher levels only partially reflect the institutional incentive structures at the local level. [ZParl, vol. 57 (2026), no. 2, pp. 272 – 297]