Theory of Civic Engagement on Voter’s Turnout
Involvement of citizen towards improving prevailing situation in the country is considered important. Generally, criteria of involving citizen in decision making existed even during ancient periods. Hence, it is likely influence of civic engagement theory as an attitude where an individual or group of citizens in the country intervenes to rectify prevailing situation. Due to such view, it is imperative and making sense that this theory aligned on civic engagement and tries to educate citizen to transform necessary pressure in order to smoothen valuable direction.
Moreover, a question of voter’s turnout is traditionally well thought out as a free decision left for an individual to decide on what he/she feels is the best. The word “best” is used here for individual voter to evaluate whether to participate in voting or not. For that matter, the theory assumes that voting turnout does not need any force.
Since conventional theory of voter’s turnout is a free issue, then, thus why turnout is fluctuating either increasing or decreasing. For instance, Almond and Verba (1963) noted that voter turnout in USA decreased from 74% in 1968 to 65% in 2008. As a result, Putnam (2000) asserted that civic engagement is in great decline and that this will have grave consequences for the health of democracy.
However, it is possible that turnout is changing and could be due to feelings that voters are either dissatisfied on return from voting or satisfied. This means satisfaction could be captured through various techniques including engaging democracy. Well, this evidence show that democracy plays significant role on knowing what voters need. That is why several social theorists including Hobbes (1651) and Locke (1690) noted an idea of democracy in the seventeenth century (17th). But more established by Rousseau (1762) that democracy builds human freedom and desired development. He further pointed that; it was a key pillar on political issues including voting. Yes, such argument suggests how voters turnout correlates with democracy. However, democracy is not the sole prerequisite condition influencing voters turn out. There are other factors described in the next sub-section.