How did the political parties affect voter turn out when they were stronger

A sense of citizen duty is a powerful predictor of voter turnout, yet it has often been misunderstood or neglected entirely in empirical studies. By contrast, political theory has developed a rich literature ontheobligations of democratic citizens. Using two recent panel studies in the United States and Canada, we show that a new statistical model based on political theorists‘ analysis of duty handily outperforms conventional turnout specifications.