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Abstract
Studies on consolidated democracies have long concluded that there is a positive relationship between socioeconomic status and turnout. The strength of the empirical findings that linked electoral participation to socioeconomic variables elevated this correlation to a law-like principle and made it possible to assume that this electoral behavior would prevail in all democracies in the world. This dissertation analyzes the relationship between SES and turnout in the US and Mexico using aggregate data instead of the commonly used public opinion polls and proves that the socioeconomic model of turnout does not hold in the Mexican emerging democracy and that the intensity and direction of the SES model for the US depends heavily on the methodology used for the analysis.
In the case of Mexico, since the democratization process started circa 1991, marginalized and impoverished communities have become more dynamic in electoral terms than the more affluent municipalities of the country. The dissertation extensively analyzes the correlation---or lack of---between SES and turnout in Mexico using aggregate data at the municipality level. On the other hand, this work also explores the SES model of turnout for the US combining socioeconomic variables with electoral results at the county level since 1980---instead of relying on the commonly used public opinion polls. The results show that whenever elections are evaluated independently then the link between SES and turnout is positive and its intensity has augmented significantly throughout the years. Nonetheless if we examine elections all together with the use of cross-section time series, surprisingly, income becomes negatively related to turnout.
