Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
  • Register
  • Login
  • Menu
  • Home
  • Current
  • Archives
  • Announcements
  • About
    • About the Journal
    • Submissions
    • Editorial Team
    • Privacy Statement
    • Contact
  • Register
  • Login

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series

Determinants of voter turnout in Nsukka Council of Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria
  • Home
  • /
  • Determinants of voter turnout in Nsukka Council of Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria
  1. Home /
  2. Archives /
  3. No. 45 (2019): September /
  4. Articles

Determinants of voter turnout in Nsukka Council of Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria

Authors

  • Cletus Famous Nwankwo Department of Geography, University of Nigeria https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0071-4903

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/bog-2019-0027

Keywords

voter turnout Voting, Nigeria, elections, democracy

Abstract

Voting is becoming of significance in Nigeria, as in many other countries in Africa. Although Nigerian electoral politics has attracted full attention from scholars, there is little research on the factors that determine voter turnout in the country at the local level, especially the South-East geopolitical zone (GPZ). This paper is a stepwise logistic regression analysis of the determinants of voting in Nsukka council in Enugu State, South-East GPZ of Nigeria. The results show that age (0.230), education (0.532), marital status (1.355), political trust (1.309) and partisanship (˗0.570) are significant predictors of voter turnout. The effect of age, education, marital status and political trust on voting is positive and statistically significant, but partisanship has a statistically significant negative relationship with voting (p<0.01). The paper highlights the importance of local level geographical differentials in the factors influencing voting in Nigeria. 

Author Biography

Cletus Famous Nwankwo, Department of Geography, University of Nigeria

Cletus Famous Nwankwo is a Lecturer in Political Geography at the Department of Geography, University of Nigeria. He holds an MA in Politics and International Relations from the University of Keele, United Kingdom. He researches the Nigerian electoral behaviour and critical geopolitics of the farmers-herders conflict in Nigeria.

References

Adams, J., & Merrill III, S. (2003). Voter turnout and candidate strategies in American elections. The Journal of Politics, 65(1), 161-189.

Aiyedogbon, G., & Omotola, J. S. (2012). Political participation and voter turnout in Nigeria's 2011 elections. Journal of African Elections, 11(1), 54-73.

Aldrich, J. H. (1993). Rational choice and turnout. American journal of political science, 246-278.

Amoateng, A. Y., Kalule-Sabiti, I., & Heaton, T. B. (2014). Gender and changing patterns of political participation in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from five waves of the Afrobarometer surveys. Gender and Behaviour, 12(3), 5897-5910.

Blais, A. (2000). To Vote or Not to Vote?: The Merits and Limits of Rational Choice Theory. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Bekoe, D. A., & Burchard, S. M. (2017). The contradictions of pre-election violence: the effects of violence on voter turnout in Sub-Saharan Africa. African Studies Review, 60(2), 73-92.

Card, D. (2001). Estimating the return to schooling: Progress on some persistent econometric problems. Econometrica, 69(5), 1127-1160.

Carreras, M., & Castañeda-Angarita, N. (2014). Who votes in Latin America? A test of three theoretical perspectives. Comparative Political Studies, 47(8), 1079-1104.

Carreras, M., & İrepoğlu, Y. (2013). Trust in elections, vote buying, and turnout in Latin America. Electoral Studies, 32(4), 609-619.

Chiamogu, A. P., & Chiamogu, U. P. (2018). Voter Turnout and the 2017 Gubernatorial Election in Anambra State: A Critical Analysis. A paper to be presented at the 31st Annual Conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) holding at the Akanu Ibiam International Conference Centre Abakaliki from 26 - 29th March 2018.

Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. Harper, New York.

Dalton, R. J. (2008). Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies, fifth ed. CQ Press, Washington, D.C.

Ezeibe, C. C., Nzeadibe, T. C., Ali, A. N., Udeogu, C. U., Nwankwo, C. F., & Ogbodo, C. (2017). Work on wheels: collective organising of motorcycle taxis in Nigerian cities. International Development Planning Review, 39(3), 249-273.

Fagunwa, T. C. (2015). Voter Apathy and Nigeria’s Electioneering Process: A Synopsis On The 2015 General Elections.

Franklin, M. N. (2004). Voter turnout and the dynamics of electoral competition in established democracies since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gallego, A. (2010). Understanding unequal turnout: Education and voting in comparative perspective. Electoral Studies, 29(2), 239-248.

Hooghe, M., & Marien, S. (2013). A comparative analysis of the relation between political trust and forms of political participation in Europe. European Societies, 15(1), 131-152.

Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. (2015). ENUGU STATE DIRECTORY OF POLLING UNITS. Revised January 2015. Available at: http://www.inecnigeria.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/PU_Directory_Revised_January_2015_Enugu.pdf [Accessed 12 September 2018].

Isaksson, A. S. (2014). Political participation in Africa: The role of individual resources. Electoral Studies, 34, 244-260.

Ishiyama, J., & Fox, K. (2006). What Affects the Strength of Partisan Identity in Sub‐Saharan Africa?. Politics & Policy, 34(4), 748-773.

Jung, D. J. (2017). Irrationalizing the rational choice model of voting: The moderating effects of partisanship on turnout decisions in Western and postcommunist democracies. Electoral Studies, 50, 26-38.

Klandermans, B., Van der Toorn, J., & Van Stekelenburg, J. (2008). Embeddedness and identity: How immigrants turn grievances into action. American Sociological Review, 73(6), 992-1012.

Kuenzi, M., & Lambright, G. M. (2007). Voter turnout in Africa's multiparty regimes. Comparative Political Studies, 40(6), 665-690.

Kuenzi, M., & Lambright, G. M. (2011). Who votes in Africa? An examination of electoral participation in 10 African countries. Party Politics, 17(6), 767-799.

Larreguy, H., & Marshall, J. (2017). The effect of education on civic and political engagement in nonconsolidated democracies: Evidence from Nigeria. Review of Economics and Statistics, 99(3), 387-401.

Leighley, J. E., & Nagler, J. (1992). Socioeconomic class bias in turnout, 1964–1988: The voters remain the same. American Political Science Review, 86(3), 725-736.

Lewis‐Beck, M. S., Nadeau, R., & Elias, A. (2008). Economics, party, and the vote: Causality issues and panel data. American Journal of Political Science, 52(1), 84-95.

Lijphart, A. (1997). Unequal participation: Democracy's unresolved dilemma presidential address, American Political Science Association, 1996. American political science review, 91(1), 1-14.

Madu, I. A. (2006). Spatial inequality in Nigeria: the imperative of geographic perspectives in the development process. Journal of Social and Economic Development, 8(2), 105.

Madu, I. A. (2010). The structure and pattern of rurality in Nigeria. GeoJournal, 75(2), 175-184.

Mac-Ikemenjima, D. (2017). Violence and youth voter turnout in sub-Saharan Africa. Contemporary Social Science, 12(3-4), 215-226.

Moeller, J., De Vreese, C., Esser, F., & Kunz, R. (2014). Pathway to political participation: The influence of online and offline news media on internal efficacy and turnout of first-time voters. American Behavioral Scientist, 58(5), 689-700.

Nwankwo, C. F., & Okafor, U. P. (2017). Voting in Nigeria: Determinants of Turnout in the 2015 Presidential Election. Statistics, Politics and Policy, 8(2), 249-260.

Nwankwo, C. F., Okafor, P. U., & Asuoha, G. C. (2017). Principal Component Analysis of Factors Determining Voter Abstention in South Eastern Nigeria. Journal of Pan African Studies, 10(3), 249-273.

Nwankwo, C. F. (2018). Vote Buying in the 2018 Governorship Election in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Open Political Science, 1(1), 93-97.

Pollock III, P. H. (2015). The Essentials of Political Analysis. Washington, DC: Cq Press.

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Resnick, D., & Casale, D. (2011). The political participation of Africa's youth: Turnout, partisanship, and protest (No. 2011, 56). Working paper//World Institute for Development Economics Research.

Singh, S. (2011). Contradictory calculi: Differences in individuals’ turnout decisions across electoral systems. Political Research Quarterly, 64(3), 646-655.

Verba, S. and Nie, N.H., 1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York, Harper and Row.

Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Harvard University Press.

Wolfinger, R. E. & Rosenstone, S. J. (1980). Who Votes? New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series

Downloads

  • PDF

Published

2019-09-01

How to Cite

1.
NWANKWO, Cletus Famous. Determinants of voter turnout in Nsukka Council of Enugu State, South Eastern Nigeria. Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series [online]. 1 September 2019, T. 45, nr 45, s. 109–124. [accessed 31.3.2023]. DOI 10.2478/bog-2019-0027.
  • PN-ISO 690 (Polish)
  • ACM
  • ACS
  • APA
  • ABNT
  • Chicago
  • Harvard
  • IEEE
  • MLA
  • Turabian
  • Vancouver
Download Citation
  • Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS)
  • BibTeX

Issue

No. 45 (2019): September

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2019 Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Title, logo and layout of journal Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series are reserved trademarks of Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series.

Stats

Number of views and downloads: 325
Number of citations: 1

Search

Search

Browse

  • Browse Author Index
  • Issue archive

User

User

Current Issue

  • Atom logo
  • RSS2 logo
  • RSS1 logo

Information

  • For Readers
  • For Authors
  • For Librarians

Newsletter

Subscribe Unsubscribe

Tags

Search using one of provided tags:

voter turnout Voting, Nigeria, elections, democracy
Up

Akademicka Platforma Czasopism

Najlepsze czasopisma naukowe i akademickie w jednym miejscu

apcz.umk.pl

Partners

  • Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie
  • Akademickie Towarzystwo Andragogiczne
  • Fundacja Copernicus na rzecz Rozwoju Badań Naukowych
  • Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla Polskiej Akademii Nauk
  • Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
  • Karmelitański Instytut Duchowości w Krakowie
  • Państwowa Akademia Nauk Stosowanych w Krośnie
  • Państwowa Akademia Nauk Stosowanych we Włocławku
  • Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa im. Stanisława Pigonia w Krośnie
  • Polskie Towarzystwo Ekonomiczne
  • Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze
  • Towarzystwo Miłośników Torunia
  • Towarzystwo Naukowe w Toruniu
  • Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
  • Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika
  • Uniwersytet w Białymstoku
  • Uniwersytet Warszawski
  • Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna - Książnica Kopernikańska
  • Wyższe Seminarium Duchowne w Pelplinie / Wydawnictwo Diecezjalne „Bernardinum" w Pelplinie

© 2021- Nicolaus Copernicus University Accessibility statement Shop