S T U DY

Fewer than one in two Croatians go vote in national

U N EQ UA L DEMOCR ACI ES elections. Croatia has the forth lowest turnout in
Europe. This reports investigates who are the Croatian

WHO DOES
non-voters and what may be done to reach them.

(NOT) VOTE In line with general European trends, the Croatian

young, less educated, working class are likely to
abstain from voting. Croatian non-voters have low

IN CROATIA?
political interest but at the same time – in contrast to
other countries – are not disproportionally dissatisfied
with democracy.

Changing Croatian non-voter behaviour requires tack-

Bartul Vuksan-Ćusa and ling persistent structural problems. As one incremental
Michael Jennewein measure we recommend discussing to lower the voting
March 2024 age to 16. For parties, we advocate taking lessons
from election campaigns across Europe that specifically
targeted non-voters.
U N EQ UA L DEMOCR ACI ES

WHO DOES
(NOT) VOTE
IN CROATIA?
Content

INTRODUCTION  2

THE DECLINE IN DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION

AND SATISFACTION?  3

WHO DOES NOT VOTE?  4

The first group: The young  4

The second group: The less educated  4
The third group: The working class  4

HIGH ABSTENTION RATES ARE A PROBLEM

FOR DEMOCRACY  6

LOOKING AT CROATIA  7

Croatian turnout in comparison  7

Young people in the spotlight: An in-depth analysis  9
Who are the Croatian non-voters?  9

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS  13

Voting at 16  13
Potentials for campaigns targeting non-voters  13

Literature  15
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

INTRODUCTION

One central element of democracy is the promise to give

everyone an equal say about how to our societies are run.
In democracies, elections are the main means of finding out
what people have to say. In representative democracies,
we elect representatives that represent the diversity of all
members of society and their equally different interests.
These representatives have the task of forming majorities
on issues and how to resolve them – through deliberation
and compromise. They support and scrutinize governments
to implement these majority decisions. Governments thus
derive their legitimacy from winning the hearts and minds
of a majority of their citizens. This all sounds beautiful and
plausible. But: What if fewer and fewer people take part
in elections? If fewer and fewer people exercise their right
to decide who should lead the country? What happens to
our democracies and the functioning of this representative
system if one in every two or even more people abstain
from voting?

In this report – as part of the FES Unequal Democracies

series – we try to shed some light on these questions by
looking specifically at Croatia. Croatia is an interesting case
because it has one of the highest voting abstention rates
of European democracies. More than half of the Croatian
electorate does not vote: in the last parliamentary election
in 2020 the turnout was only 46.4%. This is a staggering
figure, especially when comparing it to other countries.
Only three European countries had a lower voter turnout
in their last election.

Voter turnout is therefore an issue that should be of par-

ticular concern to Croatian citizens and decision-makers.
The aim of this report is to present evidence on how voter
turnout has developed during Croatia’s democratic period,
who Croatian non-voters are, and what could be done to
improve the situation.

In particular, the report contains the following: First, we

present comparative data on voter turnout in general and
Croatia in particular, based on the Unequal Democracies
Comparative Data Set developed for this series (see Wenker
2024). Second, we introduce a novel data set consisting of
Croatian survey data since 2000, which allows us to map
who the Croatian non-voters are. Finally, we formulate gen-
eral recommendations about how to meet the challenge of
convincing non-voters to vote.

2
 The decline in democratic ­participation and satisfaction

THE DECLINE IN DEMOCRATIC

­PARTICIPATION AND SATISFACTION

Numerous studies have shown that across Western democ- believe that it is more likely to be a sign of deeply rooted dis-
racies election turnout has been declining steadily over the satisfaction with the democratic system in general and with
past decades (e. g. Blais et al. 2004; Ferrini 2013). This is a political parties, including their politicians and their associ-
general trend that applies to all Western democracies. Elec- ated institutions, in particular. Within the European Union,
tion turnout is lower everywhere than it was decades ago. less than half of citizens (47%) are very or fairly satisfied with
the way their democracies work in practice. The majority are
A few years ago, observers might have concluded that this not very or not at all satisfied. In Croatia, this figure is even
could simply be a sign of overall satisfaction with the way lower. Only 29% of Croatians are satisfied with the way their
societies are developing. Today, we have all the evidence to democracy works (Eurobarometer 2023).

Figure 1
The steady decline of voter turnout since 1970

First democratic
elections in former
Eastern bloc
20 First democratic
elections in
South-Western
Europe
Above average turnout

10

0
Below average turnout

−10

−20

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

The points represent individual elections – in each case deviations are shown in comparison with average turnout in the respective country across
the whole period. Red points thus correspond to elections with higher turnout than average, blue lower than average. Overall, it clearly shows a
constant decline in election turnout since 1970.

3
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

WHO DOES NOT VOTE?

But who are the people who do not vote? Is abstention people do naturally vote with less knowledge than that,
evenly spread across all social groups? The comparative such as out of habit, and for simpler reasons, like for the
reports of the Unequal Democracies series covering election party they always voted for. At the same time, as a recent
turnout data from 30 Western democracies going back until qualitative study from Germany has shown, motivations for
the 1970s have looked at this question (Elsässer et al. 2022; non-voting can range from forgetting to vote, being simply
Wenker 2024). And they find that there are three particular indifferent, associating stress with voting, to actually being
groups that drive abstention across Western democracies: angry with the political class. All these motivations are less
a) The young likely to occur the higher educated someone is (Hagemayr
b) The less educated et al. 2023).
c) The working class

THE THIRD GROUP: THE WORKING CLASS

THE FIRST GROUP: THE YOUNG
The third group that disproportionately does not (any
Young people turning their backs on democratic participa- longer) participate in elections is the working class. The
tion is not a new finding, as numerous studies have shown working class in this context is defined as unskilled or semi-
(Foa et al. 2020; Franc et al. 2018). Crucially, however, it is not skilled workers such as construction workers, bus drivers,
just that young people do not vote, they are also much more shop assistants, and to be distinguished from lower and
detached from other forms of participation in the democratic higher service workers whose jobs require some vocational
process. They are less likely to join political parties, they rarely training and/or university education. This working class
run for office and even more rarely hold office. And most effect of driving abstention is even more pronounced when
importantly, they feel that their interests are not adequately combined with particular age groups. Young people from
represented in politics (Bastedo 2015) and are more likely the working class sector are even less likely to vote than
to feel that democracy does not “deliver for them“ (Open their older counterparts (Figure 2).
Society Barometer 2023; Harring et al. 2023).
There are further possible reasons that drive abstention
This is not to say that many young people actually show a among the less educated and the working class. Firstly, there
high level of political interest, but only an outspoken minority is the role of knowledge, as mentioned above. In addition,
of young people are politically active – with large regional the decision to vote is also a function of someone’s percep-
disparities. For example, climate activism is driven by young tion of whether their vote actually matters. What does this
people, but limited to Western European countries such as mean? All voters make the implicit calculation of whether
Germany, and much less so in Eastern or South-Eastern Euro- it is worth the effort to vote. This calculation depends on
pean countries. their belief that the representatives they are voting for will
actually keep their promises and be able to implement them.
In this respect, recent research has shown that democratic
THE SECOND GROUP: THE LESS EDUCATED decision-making tends to be biased towards the prefer-
ences of the better educated and the upper social classes.
The second general predictor of voter turnout is education. These studies, which measure the responsiveness of the
The more educated someone is, the more likely they are to democratic system to specific preferences, have shown that
vote. This is in line with other research (Early et al. 2023; whenever the preferences of the upper and lower halves
Scervini & Segatti 2012). One of the key reasons for this of society diverge, many Western democracies (Elsässer et
finding is the role that knowledge plays in the decision to al. 2017; Gilens 2012) have adopted policies favoured by
vote or not to vote. This includes knowing how to actually the rich. In Germany, for example, social reforms such as
vote such as where to go or how to postal vote,, what par- restrictive unemployment benefits or raising the retirement
ties or candidates to vote for, reading and understanding age have been adopted despite an majority of the working
their manifestos as well as following their campaigns. Many class opposing these policies. At the same time, policies have

4
 Who does not vote?

Figure 2
The class effect across age groups

100% Higher-grade service class

Lower-grade service class

Small business-owners
90%
Skilled workers

Unskilled and semi-skilled

workers
Voter turnout

80%

70%

60%

50%

Below 30 30–44 45–60 Over 60

been implemented that mainly benefit the upper classes,

such as the reduction of capital taxes or the introduction of
tax deductions for stock market losses.

Furthermore, social norms may play an important role. As

Schäfer & Roßteutscher (2015) have shown, the decision
to go vote is also a function of what other people in one’s
social circle are doing. For instance, the norm for people
with a university degree is that they naturally go to vote
because it is something their peers are doing. Deviating
from this norm actually requires a justification to their peers.
Conversely, in groups and areas where voting is not wide-
spread, the burden of justifying why one deviates from the
norm falls on the person who goes to vote when most of
their peers do not.

One might say: Interesting results, but is this really a prob-

lem? All these people have the right to vote. If they choose
not to exercise it, so what? Is that problem for democracy?

5
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

HIGH ABSTENTION RATES ARE

A PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRACY

There are at least four reasons for why one should be con- And finally, persistent low election turnout may influence
cerned about high abstention rates. Firstly, if for instance, behaviour by parties. If many constituents do not vote any-
everyone participates equally in an election except a par- way, other political engagement such as joining political
ticular group their particular interests are likely to not be parties is usually low as well. And understaffed parties
adequately represented and accounted for in parliament. and districts are less likely to spur voter mobilisation in the
This collective abstention becomes specifically a problem future. Parties will make the calculation if the effort to reach
if those groups at the same time are disproportionally non-voters is worthwhile given their resource constraint. If
affected by social and economic grievances. If we look at this constraint becomes persistent one ends up at a continu-
our three groups from above one may see the relevance. ing cycle of low turnout and mobilisation. As a result, entire
The young are disproportionately affected by issues that populations might distance themselves from their political
concern their (long-term) future like climate change and class and processes which hurts democratic resilience over-
their general personal prospects, for instance, whether they all (Roßteutscher & Schäfer 2016).
can afford starting a family. Both the less educated and the
working class are disproportionately affected by the ongo-
ing economic and social transformation such as job loss
or dealing with high inflation given their limited financial
resources. If all those groups do not participate enough –
their interests in the matters that affect them are unlikely to
be at high priorities of their elected governments.

Secondly, one main purpose of elections is to evaluate the

performance of a government. If only certain groups sys-
tematically abstain from this evaluation governments are
no longer accountable for the effects of their politics that
particularly affect these constituents. If these groups have
much less influence in the political deliberation of decisions
in actual political processes they further distance themselves
from democracy and loose faith in its promise to deliver for
them. As a result, they are much less represented in politics,
see for instance the very low numbers of young or work-
ing-class politicians in parliament and government (Elsässer
et al. 2022). At the same time, institutions such as unions or
lobby groups that would represent and advocate for their
interests are likely to be relatively weaker than their upper
class counterparts (see e.g. Schnetzer 2021).

Thirdly, if many people abstain the potential to influence

the outcome of an election by controlling who participates
increases. While research is inconclusive on whether turnout
changes election results (Rosema 2007; Schäfer 2012) it is
likely that each social group may have particular preferences
often at odds with others. So, if one group does not partic-
ipate some preferences will be underrepresented in dem-
ocratic decision making. The working class, for instance, is
known to be more supportive of redistributive policies than
the upper service class.

6
 Looking at Croatia

LOOKING AT CROATIA

But what is the situation in Croatia? In this report we pres- in 2020, turnout was 46.4%. There are some blips, such as
ent two sets of data that allow us to shed some light on in 2000 and in 2015, but overall the trend is clear. In this
voter turnout in Croatia. First, we look at where Croatia respect, Croatia is fully in line with the general trend and –
stands in relation to other European democracies using when looking at the turnout figures in general – is among
the UD Comparative Data Set. Secondly, we present an the lowest in the EU and within democratic Europe. There
original analysis based on an exclusive primary data set are only three European democracies with lower voter turn-
that allows us to delve deeper into who the non-voters in out in recent elections: Romania (2020: 31.9%), Bulgaria
Croatia are. (2023: 40.6%) and Albania (2011: 46.3%).

When it comes to who took part in the election, we also

CROATIAN TURNOUT IN COMPARISON find a similar pattern to the general trend. Looking at the
most recent election in 2020, we find the effects that were
Like everywhere else, voter turnout in Croatia has been already introduced above: the age effect, the education
declining over time (Figure 3). In the most recent election effect, and the class effect.

Figure 3
The steady decline of turnout in Croatian national elections

100%

85%

80% 77%

76%
61%
69%
60%
62%
60% ?
54%
53%

40% 47%
6
?

20%

0%
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025

7
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

Figure 4
The social inequality of voting in Croatia

100

80 Over 60

60 45-60

30-44
40
Under 30
20

0
2007 2011 2016 2020

100

80

Higher-grade service class

60
Lower grade service class

40 Small business owners

Semi-skilled workers
20
Unskilled workers
0
2007 2011 2016 2020

100

80

60
Men
40
Women
20

0
2007 2011 2016 2020

100

80

High level of education

60
Medium level of education
40
Low level of education

20

0
2007 2011 2016 2020

8
 Looking at Croatia

YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE SPOTLIGHT: with reference to the period of their political socialization
AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS (Grasso, 2016). We have primarily relied on the generational
scheme proposed by Grasso (2014) and updated by Mit-
With this picture in mind, we conduct a more in-depth teregger (2024), with slight modifications due to the limited
country analysis of non-voters in Croatia. We choose to time frame of the data used. We have therefore classified
focus on young people in particular because previous stud- respondents into the following groups: World War II gen-
ies (Lamza-Posavec, 2004; Henjak, 2017; Raos, 2020; Vuk- eration (born between 1903 and 1945, covering both pre-
san-Ćusa and Šalaj, 2024; Henjak and Čular, forthcoming; and post-war generations), 60s and 70s generation (born
Širinić and Dolenec, forthcoming) have shown that young between 1946 and 1957), 80s generation (born between
people are indeed notorious abstainers (Smets and van der 1958 and 1968), 90s generation (born between 1969 and
Ham, 2013: 348). However, it is still unclear whether this 1981), and millennials (born after 1982). Finally, period
trend is the result of age effects, generational socialisation effects were operationalised by categorising each survey
effects or period effects. year as a separate category.

Firstly, the effects of age on political behaviour and atti- In addition to the age-period-cohort backbone of the
tudes can manifest as individual age effects (effects of one's report, the analysis includes other variables that speak to the
position in the life cycle), as well as cohort or generational non-voting framework outlined in the first part. Specifically,
effects (effects of common socialisation experiences among to account for the socioeconomic status of respondents, we
individuals) and period effects (effects of large-scale events have included indicators of education, employment, and
or the current context) (Neundorf and Niemi, 2014). If we wealth (measured as the number of assets an individual
apply the age-cohort-period framework to non-voting, this owns). Our model also includes measures of diffuse support
would imply that young people's abstention may be the for democracy (Norris, 1999), satisfaction with democracy
result of a lack of voting experience (as they have not yet (Grönlund and Setälä, 2007), and political interest (Prior,
had the chance to internalise the habit of voting) (s. Frank- 2010). Demographic controls for settlement size and gender
lin, 2004) or their increased focus on tasks and processes are also included as predictors. Overall, the model operates
related to the characteristic life transition at the time (Das- mainly within the widely used framework of the resource
sonneville, 2017: 139–140). model of political participation (Smets and van Ham, 2013),
which emphasises the importance of education, skills, time,
An alternative explanation is couched in a generational experience, and socio-economic conditions for showing up
hypothesis, which postulates that younger cohorts may vote on election day (see Verba and Nie, 1972).
less because, compared to older cohorts, they are character-
ised by socialisation in a significantly different political-his- The analysis is based on data from several Croatian election
torical and value context. From the perspective of the latter, studies (CroNES, s., Bovan, Širinić, and Raos, forthcoming),
younger generations are more inclined to post-materialism, which is managed by the Faculty of Political Science at
in which politics and the social norm of voting are not rel- the University of Zagreb. This report uses seven nationally
atively highly valued (Norris and Inglehart, 2019; Kostelka representative pre- and post-election surveys conducted
and Blais, 2021). From a socialisation imprinting perspec- between 2003 and 2020, with almost 6,000 respond-
tive, the participation repertoires of younger generations ents, covering a period of gradual decline in voter turnout
may reflect the depoliticisation of the context in which they in Croatia. The dependent variable is binary and indicates
come of age, leading to lower turnout (see Grasso et al., the self-reported vote in the last previously held election
2019). Finally, studies also need to consider period effects, (0-voter, 1-non-voter).1
as influential political and other events can mark specific
time intervals that may influence political attitudes and lev-
els of electoral participation. Depending on the nature and WHO ARE THE CROATIAN NON-VOTERS?
intensity of these events, they can significantly shape peo-
ple's political behaviour (s. Lisi et al., 2021). First, the results of the binary logistic regression show that
gender has no significant effect on voter turnout. Although
At the same time, it is essential to note that age, cohort, more tests need to be conducted in this regard (for exam-
and period are perfectly correlated (once we know two ple, on different types of elections, cf. Kostelka, Blais and
elements, we automatically know the third). Therefore, Gindengil, 2019), our results are consistent with the finding
restrictions on their variance must be applied to entangle that the gender gap in electoral participation is gradually
their separate effects. Accordingly, this report treats age, disappearing (Smets and van Ham, 2013). Similarly, although
cohort, and period as categorical variables (see van der Brug European rural and urban residents may differ in their level
and Rekker, 2021) to avoid their inherent collinearity. Age of political efficacy (García del Horno, Rico and Hernández,
is thus defined by life cycle categories, where respondents 2023), they do not differ when it comes to voting in Croatia.
are classified into four categories: adolescents (18–21 years
old), early adults (22–29 years old), middle adults (30–64
years old), or late adults (65+ years old) (see Lichtin, van der 1 This measure is not an unproblematic one, as individuals tend to
overestimate their electoral participation in surveys (see Karp and
Brug and Rekker, 2023). In addition, cohorts are defined Brockington, 2005). The same holds for the dataset employed in this
as political generations, where individuals are categorised study (s. Širinić and Dolenec, forthcoming).

9
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

Figure 5
Coefficient plot: Binary logistic regression model of non-voting in Croatia (2003-2020 period).

Demography
Female

Education | ref: Low education

Middle
High

Employment | ref: Employed

Retired
Unemployed
Homemaker
Student

Wealth | ref: 0 assets

1 asset
2 assets
3+ assets

Adolescence
Early adulthood
Late adulthood

Generations | ref: WW2 generation

60s&70s gen
80s gen
90s gen
Millennials

Interest & Democracy

Interest in politics
Support for democracy
Satisfaction with democracy

–1 –.5 0 .5 1 1.5

Model: N=5,924, R2=0.121, X2=858.08, p=0.0000. Note: Any effect whose confidence intervals (95%) do not overlap with the 0 line on the x-axis
is statistically significant. Although period was included as a factor in the model, it was not included in the graph because the first part of
the report already covered voter turnout over the years.

At the same time, however, there are some differences in Figure 6, the left panel shows that individuals with higher edu-
voter turnout across respondents’ education and employ- cation have a 24% probability of not voting, while for those
ment status. That is, as extensively documented elsewhere with less education, this probability increases by almost 10%.
(see Smets and van Ham, 2013), our results show that edu- At the same time, the right-hand panel shows that unem-
cation has a positive effect on voter turnout. However, as ployed people have a 35% probability of not voting, which is
expected, the differences between the less educated and 6% higher than for employed respondents. Taken together,
the respondents with a high-school education are less pro- these results show that the decline in voter turnout has obvi-
nounced (p=0.07) than the differences between the ones ous education and employment contours, as those with fewer
with a high-school education and the highly educated (indi- resources are the least likely to vote in Croatia. Therefore, we
viduals with a BA, MA, and PhD) (p=0.000). found support for the argument that participation is unequal
across social groups in Croatia (see Bovens and Wille, 2017:
Furthermore, compared to those who are employed, 70–71; Schäfer and Streeck, 2013: 13–15). This is further sup-
unemployed people are more likely to abstain from vot- ported by the finding that individuals with more assets (2 or
ing (p=0.001), although with the operationalisation used 3+) tend to vote more than those with no assets at their dis-
here we were not able to take into account the socio-eco- posal (see Figure 5) (Nadeau, Lewis-Beck and Foucault, 2019).
nomic position of an individual in more detail (see Henjak
and Vuksan-Ćusa, 2019). Moreover, respondents with other We now turn to age-related differences in non-voting. The
employment statuses do not differ significantly from those results in Figure 5 illustrate how both life cycle and genera-
who are employed. However, retired people are slightly tional theories apply in this respect in Croatia. Compared to
more likely to vote, although this coefficient is not statisti- respondents in middle adulthood (aged 30–64), both ado-
cally significant at the conventional level (p=0.07). lescents (aged 18–21) and early adults (aged 22–29) tend to
participate in elections at much lower rates. This difference
To provide a more concrete explanation of the results, we is most pronounced among adolescents, an issue we discuss
have included graphs showing the predicted probabilities of further in the final part of this report. As shown in Figure 7
non-voting for different education and employment groups. In (right-hand panel), adolescents have a probability of not vot-

10
 Looking at Croatia

Figure 6
Less educated and unemployed least likely to vote in Croatia
Predictive probability of non-voting by education and employment groups.

.5 .5
Probability of non-voting

Probability of non-voting
.4 .4

.3 .3

.2 .2

Low Middle High

ed

ed

ed

ed

er

t
en
ak
oy

oy

tir

oy

ud
em
Re
pl

pl

pl

St
Em

em

om
ne
lf-

H
U
Education Employment

Se
Note: Confidence intervals are estimated at 95%.

Figure 7
Adolescents vote the least
Predictive probability of not voting by cohort and life phases.

.6 .6
Probability of non-voting

Probability of non-voting

.5 .5

.4 .4

.3 .3

.2 .2
n

en

en

en

t.
ls

e
nc
ge

oo

oo
ia

ul
sg

sg

sg

nn

ad
ce

th

th
2

70

80

90
W

s
e

ul

ul
le

te
ill
s&
W

ad

ad
do

La
M
60

rly

e
dl
Ea

Generations Life-cycle
id
M

Note: Confidence intervals are estimated at 95%.

ing of almost 50%. This probability drops to 25% and 27% The differences between cohorts are less pronounced. Nev-
for respondents in middle and late adulthood, respectively. In ertheless, the 90s generations (p=0.007) and millennials
short and robust terms, the probability of voting in Croatia is (p=0.022) are less likely to vote than the WW2 genera-
almost twice as high for those over 30 as for those under 21. tion(s) (as this category includes both pre- and post-WW2
If the habitual theory of voting holds true (Dinas, 2012, also generations). Looking at the graph of predicted probabili-
see Blais and Daoust, 2020: 71–90) and adolescents continue ties (Figure 7, left-hand panel), it is noticeable that the 90s
to have low turnout rates as they age, a further decline in generation and the millennials vote less than the 60s/70s
voter turnout can be expected.2 and 80s generations. The two youngest generations are
estimated to have a 32% probability of not voting, while
the same probability drops to 25% and below for older
2 Still, salience and type of elections should be considered in this re- generations. Regarding these generational differences, one
gard (Franklin and Hobolt, 2011; Dinas et al., 2024). might conclude that younger generations in Croatia are

11
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

Figure 8
Voting increases with age
Predicted probabilities of not voting by year of birth

.5
Probability of non-voting

.4

.3

.2

.1

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Birthyear

Note: Confidence intervals are estimated at 95%. Model: N=5,924, R2=0.119, X2=842.93, p=0.0000..

more similar to Western Europeans than their post-commu- Finally, we turn to the remaining indicators: political inter-
nist counterparts (Linek and Petrúšek, 2016). Additionally, est, satisfaction with democracy, and diffuse support
the generational magnitudes of non-voting presented here for democracy. The results in Figure 5 again confirm the
are most comparable to the differences found between the well-established finding that strong political interest is
employed and the unemployed. In other words, genera- the most robust suppressor of the probability of not vot-
tional differences between younger and older generations ing. At the same time, support for democracy does not
in Croatia explain non-voting as much as unemployment, seem to affect voting probability. This shows that voters
at least when controlling for basic socio-demographics. and non-voters do not differ in their level of normative
support for democracy. This contrasts with findings from
We conclude the identification of age-related differences Germany about non-voters being less democratic (Koch,
by showing smoothed birth year effects on the probabil- Meléndez and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2021). Given that satis-
ity of not voting (Figure 8) (see Grasso et al., 2019). This faction with democracy reduces the probability of not vot-
was done by adding the birth year variable instead of the ing in our model (p=0.012), in Croatia it may be better to
political generation one in the model. The results provide think of non-voters as dissatisfied democrats rather than
further evidence that cohorts born in or after the 1980s non-democrats.
(i.e., Millennials, Gen Z) differ from cohorts born before the
1960s (i.e., Baby Boomers, Silent Generation, and Greatest
Generations) (Norris and Inglehart, 2019).3 Interestingly, and
in line with the findings of Inglehart and Norris, the oppo-
site trend was found in levels of authoritarianism among
birth cohorts in Croatia (Raos and Zakošek, forthcoming).

3 However, this is a relatively simple linear model. Models that of-

fer more flexibility (i.e., allowing for non-linearity, such as GAMs,
­s. Grasso, 2014) might produce more of a U-shaped graph, with
oldest groups being somewhat more inclined to non-voting (s.
Širinić and Dolenec, forthcoming).

12
 Conclusions and Recommendations

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Before formulating specific recommendations on how to age are less exposed to transitional processes and searches
counter abstention, let us recapitulate our findings: than they are at 18 years (see Franklin, 2004; Franklin, 2020;
– Voter turnout in Croatia is one of the lowest in Europe. Eichhorn and Bergh, 2021). Therefore, it is suggested that
– Abstention is higher among young people, as the gen- at 16, situational conditions that may discourage partici-
erations born in the 1980s and later are generally less pation are less likely, resulting in young people voting in
likely to vote. Moreover, abstention among 18–21 year their first election more often and possibly making it a
olds is exceptionally high. future habit. Although the jury is still out on the effects of
– Education and unemployment play a role: the less edu- lowering the voting age (Bergh and Eichhorn, 2020: 3–7;
cated and the unemployed are more likely to abstain. Rosenqvist, 2020), studies point out that there is not much
Wealth also matters, as people with more assets are evidence that it has been harmful where it has been imple-
also more likely to vote. mented (Eichhorn and Bergh 2020: 238; see also Eichhorn
– Voting in Croatia is also related to people’s interest in 2018; Wagner, Johan and Kritzinger 2012; Aichholzer and
politics. Nevertheless, non-voters are not found to be sig- Kritzinger, 2020; Franklin, 2020). Although evidence in this
nificantly less supportive of democracy in general. They regard is scarce, 15–19 year old adolescents and high school
are rather dissatisfied democrats than authoritarians. students seem to be more in favour of further lowering
the voting age in Croatia compared to those over 20 (Ilišin
The challenge of decreasing abstention is twofold. On 2017: 230–231). Recently, the first political impulses in this
the one hand, when abstention is as entrenched as it is in direction have started, mainly, but not exclusively, by the
Croatia, potential remedies need to address the structural progressive part of the opposition (Toma 2023).
issues, such as the deep institutional distrust in the political
system that underlies abstention (Bovan and Baketa 2022).
Any serious recommendation in this regard must consider POTENTIALS FOR CAMPAIGNS
this more complicated problem that cannot be solved with TARGETING NON-VOTERS
one measure. However, as dealing with institutional trust,
political efficiency, political interest and socio-economic When it comes to the actual electoral potential of non-vot-
structure is well beyond the scope of this report, we turn ers, most mainstream party strategists follow the logic that
to solutions that can have a relatively incremental effect. winning campaigns is a function of attracting voters from
Therefore, the first realm of recommendations elaborates other parties, but rarely how to reach new voters. This is
on concrete policy solutions, while the second focuses on understandable to some extent, for two reasons: Firstly,
campaigns and their reach toward non-voters. taking a voter away from a rival is not just a gain of one
vote, it is doubly efficient because the rival also loses one
vote. Adding a new previous non-voter, on the other hand,
VOTING AT 16 is only a net gain of plus 1 in the total number of votes
against the competitors. And secondly, targeting non-vot-
There are several institutional mechanisms that can increase ers requires parties and candidates to go out of their way,
youth voter turnout. One of them is compulsory voting such as tailoring messages and literally going to places to
(Wattenberg, 2015), but this suggestion has not gained talk to voters where no one has gone before. This, at least, is
prominence in the public debate in Croatia, even though one finding when we look at partially successful campaigns
its effects could be positive by bringing party programmes that have targeted non-voters in the recent past. For exam-
closer to the preferences of the median voter and reducing ple, in the 2017 UK election, Labour surprised the pollsters
polarisation (Oprea, Martin and Brennan 2024). However, with a total of 40% of the vote, just behind the Conserva-
the idea that has slowly found its way into academic dis- tives. The 9.6% increase in voter support was partly due to
course in Croatia is that of lowering the age threshold for reaching out to non-voters, research suggests (Dorey 2017).
voting (see Šalaj 2024). It is argued that if voting is habitual, The campaign specifically targeted voters with traditionally
in terms of higher voter turnout, it might be better to lower low turnout, particularly in university towns and cities with
the voting threshold to 16 years of age, as individuals at that large numbers of young voters, as well as grassroots and

13
 FES UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES – WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

civil society groups. One element of relatively successful

non-voter campaigns therefore seems to be that atypical
campaigns go out their way to reach non-voters. Contrary
to popular intuition, populist parties, both left and right,
are not necessarily better equipped to reach out to non-vot-
ers (Wenker 2024). The most likely reason for this is that
populist voters actually have similarly high expectations of
democracy’s performance as mainstream voters compared
to non-voters (Koch et al. 2023). Our finding that Croatian
non-voters are not specifically dissatisfied with democracy
is in fact contrary to comparable research from other coun-
tries (Koch et al. 2023). But this is good news, as the usual
argument that non-voters are notoriously hard to reach for
parties is therefore less valid for Croatia.

Another recent case to look at in this regard is the 2023

Polish general election. It was accompanied by the high-
est voter turnout in Poland’s democratic period: 74.5%. A
decisive factor was targeted campaigns involving civil soci-
ety organisations, but also social media activists and others
to reach young people (Brändle and Szelewa-Kropiwnicka
2024). While these campaigns may not be easy to repli-
cate in other countries, they demonstrate the importance
of building alliances with civil society organisations when
running a non-voter campaign. The unique advantage of
a non-voter campaign that specifically targets districts or
groups with traditionally high abstention rates is that you
have the element of being the only offer to these voters.
This is the lesson behind surprise campaigns such as the
2023 Salzburg regional election in Austria, where a fringe
party surprised pollsters by winning 12% of the vote – many
of whom were former voters, because they explicitly cam-
paigned in districts with previously low turnout. Their voter
testimonials along the lines of: ‘This is the first time a poli-
tician is talking to us’ (Jennewein 2023).

In a nutshell: Non-voter campaigns are hard to pull off.

It requires candidates who are willing to put themselves
out there, who have a unique profile that resonates with
people. They also need a lot of help and cooperation from
actors outside the immediate party sphere. But: Non-voter
campaigns have the potential to win votes. In the case of
Croatia, this potential also exists, as we found that Croatian
non-voters, despite being less informed and scoring lower
on political efficacy scales (Henjak 2017; Henjak and Čular
forthcoming), are no less supportive of democracy than
regular voters. This means that they have not yet given up
on democracy, despite being alienated from political rep-
resentation. At the same time, we know that non-voters in
Croatia tend to have pronounced populist attitudes (Raos
2020; Vuksan-Ćusa and Šalaj 2024), suggesting that they
may indeed be populist democrats (Zaslove and Meijers
2023).

14
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16
 Imprint

ABOUT THE AUTHORS IMPRINT

Bartul Vuksan-Ćusa is a PhD Candidate in the Political Sci- Publisher:

ence at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and FES Regional Office for International Cooperation
Assistant and Lecturer at Faculty of Political Science at Uni- Democracy of the Future
versity of Zagreb. He holds a BA from University of Zagreb Reichsratsstr. 13/5
and MA’s from University of Zagreb and Central European A-1010 Vienna
University in Political Science. His research deals with political
attitudes and voting behavior. Responsibility for content:
Johanna Lutz | Director, Democracy of the Future
Michael Jennewein is a Researcher for Democracy & Eco- Phone: +43 1 890 3811 301
nomics at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Democracy of the Future X: @FES_Democracy
in Vienna mainly working on inequality & democracy and democracy.fes.de
right-wing populism. He holds a BA in Philosophy & Eco-
nomics from University of Bayreuth) and a MA in Technology Contact / Orders: democracy.vienna@fes.de
Governance & Digital Transformation from Tallinn University
of Technology. Design: pertext, Berlin | www.pertext.de

The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily

those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) or of the organ-
ization for which the author works. Commercial use of
media published by the FES is not permitted without the
written consent of the FES. Publications by the FES may
not be used for electioneering purposes.

ISBN 978-3-98628-545-6

© 2024

ABOUT UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES

Unequal Democracies is a project by FES Democracy of

the Future. The main goal is to promote comparative under-
standing of why inequality in voting and other democratic
processes hurts our democracies.

In country reports we provide country-specific analyses

about the state of particular national contexts with the
aim to develop and discuss political recommendations for
decision-makers.

More information at:

https://democracy.fes.de/topics/inequality-democracy

17
 WHO DOES (NOT) VOTE IN CROATIA?

Why should Croatians care Who are the Croatian non-­ What should be done?
about turnout? voters?

Fewer than one in two Croatians go In line with general European trends, Changing Croatian non-voter behavi-
vote in national elections – the forth the Croatian young, less educated our requires tackling persistent struc-
lowest turnout in Europe. Persistent and working class are likely to abstain tural problems. As one incremental
voting abstention undermines Croa- from voting. Croatian non-voters have measure we recommend discussing
tian democratic reslience as more and low political interest but at the same to lower the voting age to 16. For par-
more citizens become estranged from time – in contrast to other countries – ties, we advocate taking lessons from
political processes. are not disproportionally dissatisfied election campaigns across Europe that
with democracy. specifically targeted non-voters.