IMPLICATIONS OF EDUCATION ON VOTER TURNOUT IN ROMANIA

Authors

  • EMIL-ANDREI TOESCU

Keywords:

elections, electoral systems, education, civic culture, Romania

Abstract

From an electoral point of view, the year 2024 will represent a first for Romania, being the moment when, for the first time, all four types of elections (local, parliamentary, presidential and europarliamentary) will be organized during the same year. In this sense, I believe that a real debate about the benefits of a considerable voter turnout is needed in society more than ever.

            In the opinion of many, voting represents the most democratic tool for participation in public life, a high turnout at the polls being most often correlated by the general public with an increased level of education of the citizens. But is this really the reality? In this article, I propose to create an inventory of the main electoral moments in post 1989 Romania in order to observe the trends in attendance at the voting booths over the past 30 years. Then, in the second part of the article, I will correlate this data with the indicators that suggest the level of education of the citizens in order to understand if the hypothesis that a higher level of education can be understood by a higher turnout at the polls can be validated.

Author Biography

EMIL-ANDREI TOESCU

PhD Candidate Emil-Andrei Toescu, Department of Political Sciences, International Relations and European Studies, Faculty of Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences, University „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” of Iași.

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Published

30-12-2022