Journal Articles

From Open to Secret Ballot: Vote Buying and Modernization

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The secret ballot is one of the cornerstones of democracy. We contend that the historical process of modernization caused the switch from open to secret ballot with the underlying mechanism being that income growth, urbanization, and rising education standards undermined vote markets. We undertake event history studies of ballot reform in Western Europe and the U.S. states during the 19th and 20th centuries to establish that modernization was systematically related to ballot reform. We study electoral turnout before and after ballot reform among the U.S. states and British parliamentary constituencies to substantiate the hypothesis that modernization reduced the volume of trade in the vote market.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Comparative Political Studies

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications., 2017

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

00104140

Classification

NONE

Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 50, Issue 5, April 2017; pp. 555–593

Subject(s)

Democratization
Electoral turnout
secret ballot

Specific Detail Info

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