According to Mark Franklin, “As the vexing questions of political science can be regarded as puzzles, the particular topic of voter turnout could be called the ‘grand enchilada’ of puzzles of political science…. [A]lmost everything about voter turnout is puzzling, from the question of why anyone bothers to vote at all to the question of why certain variables appear to explain voter turnout in some circumstances but not in others.” He makes this bold but true statement in the preface (p. xi) of his comparative study of turnout in more than 20 established democracies since World War II. Voter turnout is one of the more frequently studied topics in political science, but the results of all these scholarly efforts remain rather poor and unsatisfactory. We still know distressingly little about why some people vote and others do not, why turnout is much higher in some countries than in others, and why in so many countries there seems to be a steady and irrevocable decline in turnout in national elections.

“Me too,” Mark Franklin must have thought. With the assistance of a handful of colleagues he attacked the challenge of solving the turnout puzzle. And it may be stated immediately that he has to a considerable extent succeeded. He has managed to put many of the pieces of the turnout puzzle in the right place. That is no small achievement.

For some decades now, the study of turnout has been dominated by the rational choice approach. As others have done earlier, Franklin shows that this particular perspective is incomplete. The rational choice approach—“A Theory on the Calculus of Voting” by William H. Riker and Peter C. Ordeshook (American Political Science Review 62 [1968]: 25–42) seems to represent this school of thought—should be amended and complemented.

Franklin does so by suggesting that the political context of elections, the social contexts of the individual voter, and the socialization of voters are of crucial importance. He acknowledges the simple fact that “people get set in their ways. The longer some pattern of behavior has been pursued, the harder it is to change” (p. 21). This general rule can be applied to elections and voting behavior as well. As a consequence, in the study of turnout, special attention should be paid to new cohorts of voters. What do they experience in their first elections? At what age are they eligible to vote and how important are elections for them at that stage of their lives? Is there much at stake in these elections, are the elections competitive and is there a high degree of “executive responsiveness,” and can people as a result of this easily be mobilized when they are eligible to vote for the very first time? If their second and third elections have the same excitement and stakes, the cohort will for the rest of their electoral lives have a high turnout. “In the end there is no escaping the fact that both rationality and socialization must play a role in turnout” the author states (p. 25). Via his line of reasoning that is reminiscent of the analysis of value orientations and priorities as the driving force of the Silent Revolution once proclaimed by Ronald Inglehart, we can understand contemporary turnout and trends in turnout if we know what happened in the past: “[T]hose whose first opportunity to vote comes at a low-turnout election will retain a profile of lower turnout in subsequent elections, even elections in which yet newer cohorts vote at a higher rate; so the past leaves a ‘footprint’ in subsequent elections that reflects the low turnout of an earlier period” (p. 43). And while the voter in the stereotypical rational choice approach is an atomized individual with no good reason to vote, for the socially connected voter, the benefits of voting, not exclusively in terms of the outcome of the election, and the costs of nonvoting may be relatively high. In the real world with high uncertainty and competitive elections—that is, the result is close and/or the outcome of the election may lead to a major policy change—this may result in high turnout among the cohort of new voters in particular.

In the perspective advocated by Franklin, the focus is not so much on the characteristics of individual voters, as is often the case in the explanation of turnout, but primarily on the character of elections: “[O]ur model implies that turnout will be predictable, in the case of any specific election, on the basis of the character of that election, not the character of the individuals voting in that election” (p. 58). Turnout can best be understood when we know the character of elections and the influence this has on new cohorts of voters.

This basic idea and some of its implications are tested in various ways on three different levels of analysis and make use of different models and data sets. Special attention is paid to some of the oldest democracies in the world, the United States and Switzerland, and the “problems” these two countries have with regard to turnout. Franklin shows that an interpretation in which executive responsiveness—that is, “the extent to which the political complexion of the executive is responsive to the choices made at the time of an election” (p. 96)—plays (via short-term effects as well as cumulative effects) a vital role is plausible and is supported by the data. Also in the analysis of turnout change in 22 countries in the postwar period, this aspect is of utmost importance: “Turnout change is not brought about by changes in the character of society or of its members…. Turnout declines, if it does, because elections change their character” (p. 147). A more exploratory case study of turnout in Germany at the individual level only supports this finding.

In the concluding chapter, Franklin sums up the three most important lessons of his analysis: There is nothing inevitable about declining voter turnout, as it has occurred partly as a reaction to political reasons; turnout decline is “in no way due to any decline in civic virtue or increase in political disaffection” (p. 215); and as is often the case, the future is in the hands of the young, because they are the ones who react to new conditions and the specific circumstances when they enter the electorate. Yes, this may sound a bit obvious. But it is not—Franklin only makes it seem obvious through the lucid description of his interesting theoretical notions and a thorough but transparent data analysis. Of course, the turnout puzzle is not solved completely, but it has to be admitted that Franklin has gone a long way.