Voto dual y abstención diferencial

Un estudio sobre el comportamiento electoral en Cataluña

Abstract

This article presents the results of an empirical study about the reasons of the systematic
change in the electoral results in Catalonia according to the type of elections. The hypothesis,
positively tested with data from the period 1982-1993, is that the victory of the nationalist
centre-right party in the autonomous elections in a region where always wins the socialist party
in general elections, is due to the combination of the dual vote and differential abstention
phenomena. The rational choice approach allows constructing groups of electors with different
electoral behaviour according to his perceptions of the political space. In combining these results
with those obtained from the analysis with aggregated social and structural data, it is defined a
profile of the dual voters and the differential non-voters. Finally, it is given an interpretation of
the Catalan election results in 1995 and 1999 using as a clue the results of this study.