Varieties of Capitalism, Education and Inequalities in Political Participation

Abstract

The positive association between education and voting participation is well-documented in the literature. What has not been studied so far is the variation of the micro-level effect of education across countries and whether the institutional set-up of the political economy might contribute to explaining this variation. The core claim of this chapter is that the degree of economic coordination influences the impact of education on participation on the micro level – on top of a host of alternative explanations. Relative to those with basic training, individuals with a vocational education are more likely to participate in elections in coordinated market economies compared to liberal market economies. We offer two explanations for this robust effect, centering on the impact of social networks and psychological effects. The empirical basis for this article is a multi-level analysis of survey data from the European Values Survey (2008).

Keywords: turnout, education, inequality, European Values Survey, institutions