Climate and Electoral Turnout in France
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Climate and Electoral Turnout in France Christian Ben Lakhdara,b and Eric Duboisc a
ESSEC Doctoral Program, 1, Avenue Bernard Hirsch, BP 105, 95021 Cergy-Pontoise Cedex, France b MATISSE, University of Paris 1 Panthe´on-Sorbonne, Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, Boulevard de l’Hoˆpital, 75647 Paris Cedex 13, France. E-mail: [email protected] c LAEP, University of Paris 1 Panthe´on-Sorbonne, Maison des Sciences Economiques, 106-112, Boulevard de l’Hoˆpital, 75647 Paris Cedex 13, France. E-mail: [email protected]
It is commonly stated that the climate has an impact on electoral turnout. This article aims to test this proposition that has not been scientifically proved in the French case yet. Using the last five parliamentary elections’ turnout data and the corresponding climatic data on the voting day, our study shows that rain has a depressing effect on turnout, whereas sunshine and high temperatures incite people to vote. French Politics (2006) 4, 137–157. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200100 Keywords: climate; weather; vote; parliamentary election; turnout; France
According to the US Census Bureau, 0.6 per cent of the registered non-voters in the US elections of November 2000 stated that they failed to vote because of the ‘bad weather’.1 As in 2000, the number of the registered non-voters was 18.7 million;2 this means that, if the survey is unbiased, 112,200 persons failed to vote because of the climatic conditions. Due to the close result of this election, it goes without saying that each vote was crucial. In the same fashion, after the record level of abstention in the French presidential election of 2002, Le Figaro reported: ‘the weather was fine in the whole of France and that may have distracted voters of their electoral duty’.3 This kind of argument, which is widespread in the media, suffers, at least in France, from the lack of any strong scientific foundation. Paradoxically, it seems that no study exists on the link between political life and climate, whereas France is often pioneer in political science as well as in earth sciences. The literature in English is more fertile.4 A first axis of research focuses on the impact of climatic conditions on the course of particular political events. Some studies show how climatic conditions can disrupt, or even defer, a transfer of power ceremony or an Inauguration Day.5 This is not unimportant, especially if one considers that the cancellation of an investiture ceremony can, for example, delay the
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implementation of the newly elected President’s policy. Thus, every presidential election year, Weatherwise magazine publishes an article whose object is to describe the weather on Inauguration Day (see Ludlum, 1984 and Hughes, 1988, 1996). March 4th, the traditional date of the ceremony, was frequently the theatre of terrific climatic conditions. Thus, half of the investiture ceremonies between 1789 and 1933 took place during bad weather (
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