The Meanings of Voting for Citizens : A Scientific Challenge, a Portrait, and Implications

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. On Election Day, citizens typically place a mark beside a party or candidate on a ballot paper.The possibility to cast this mark has been a historic conquest and today, voting is among the most frequent political acts for citizens.But what does that mark mean to them? The Meanings of Voting for Citizens explores the diverse conceptualizations of voting among citizens in 13 countries across Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania.The empirical evidence presented in this book is based on nearly a million words about voting from over 25,000 people using an open-ended survey and both qualitative and quantitative methods.The book's innovative approach includes conceptual, theoretical, and empirical advancements, providing a comprehensive understanding of what voting means to citiz