摘要
This paper assesses electoral participation and studies the determinants of such participation, focusing on presidential elections in Cote d＇Ivoire. We use a dataset on elections in Africa and a survey financed by the European Commission and conducted by the Ivorian Center of Social and Economic Research （CIRES） in 2005. We find a decline in voter turnout since 1990 for both presidential and parliamentary elections. We also find that the probability of voting varies across ethnic groups and significantly increases with education levels, interest in politics, satisfaction with democracy and satisfaction with government but decreases with insecurity during elections. Moreover, we show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between age and the probability of voting. This probability is higher for men than women and for workers and retirees compared to unemployed, but it is low for students. Concerning the vote choice, we find that relative to the ＂program and party＂ criterion, the probability of choosing the candidate on the basis of his individual characteristics decreases with age, insecurity, satisfaction with democracy while it increases with satisfaction with government and with secondary, university or Koran education level.
