Abstract
Even though theories of democracy place emphasis on universal suffrage, little attempt has been made to measure the degree of suffrage in a broad range of countries. This article uses qualitative descriptions of suffrage to develop quantitative measures of suffrage for most countries of the world. We present annual suffrage measures from 1950 to 2000, provide basic descriptive statistics, and document trends in suffrage across the world. We also compare our measure of suffrage to two other measures available for 1968 and 1985.
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Additional information
Pamela Paxton is assistant professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. She has intersecting interests in political sociology, stratification, and methodology. Current projects include an investigation into the political consequences of prejudice against immigrants and research on the ideological determinants of women’s national legislative participation. Some of her recent articles have appeared in theAmerican Sociological Review, theAmerican Journal of Sociology, andStructural Equation Modeling.
Kenneth A. Bollen is director of the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science and Immerwahr Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). He has won the Lazarsfeld Award for Methodological Contributions. Bollen is the author ofStructural Equation Models with Latent Variables (John Wiley) and coeditor (with J. S. Long) ofTesting Structural Equation Models (Sage). Recent articles have appeared inSociological Methods & Research, Annual Review of Sociology, Annual Review of Psychology, Population Studies, andStructural Equation Modeling.
Deborah M. Lee is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at The Ohio State University. Her research interests include quantitative research methods and religion.
HyoJoung Kim is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Washington, Seattle. His current work focuses on modeling ideational diffusion in the context of resistance and theorizing the rational-emotional dynamics in social movements. Other work examines suicides as a form of collective action, exit and voice dynamics in East Germany and North Korea, and the democracy effects of economic development using time-series analysis.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Mershon Center at The Ohio State University, the National Science Foundation (SES-8908361 & SES-9121564), and the University of North Carolina Arts and Science Foundation. Please address all correspondence to Pamela Paxton, Department of Sociology, 300 Bricker Hall, 190 North Oval Mall, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1353 or email her at paxton.36@osu.edu.
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Paxton, P., Bollen, K.A., Lee, D.M. et al. A half-century of suffrage: New data and a comparative analysis. St Comp Int Dev 38, 93–122 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686324
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686324