АУТОР / AUTHOR(S): Paweł Swianiewicz 
, Veli Kreci
DOI: 10.46793/CSGE5.36PS
САЖЕТАК / ABSTRACT:
North Macedonia is a country in which the variation in local electoral participation belongs to the highest in Europe (coefficient of variance 0.148 in 2013 and 0.200 in 2017, even 0.214 in 2021). This paper tries to explain this variation through series of regression models including several independent variables. In additional to typical factors taken into account in such analysis in earlier studies (population size of local community, competitiveness of elections, and social status of residents) the country specific variable—ethnic composition of population in individual municipalities is taken into account. In individual models dependent variables are: 1) turn-out in local elections, 2) difference between turn-out in national and local elections, and 3) competitiveness of local elections measured by the difference between votes for two major candidates in mayoral elections. In most of North Macedonian municipalities there is a clear domination of one ethnic group (usually either Macedonian or Albanian), but there are also communities in which there is an almost equilibrium with two or more ethnic groups of comparable size. The paper investigates how ethnic composition modifies the model based on “conventional” explanatory variables. Those “ethnically balanced” municipalities are in a special focus of the paper. Empirically the paper investigates turn-out in 2013 and 2021 elections. The reason of including 2013 results in the analyses is related to particular time of voting, very close to national holidays in most of West European countries, which has enabled casting vote by numerous “non-resident citizens” and boosted overall turn-out. Since participation of „non-resident population“ may change the ethnic balance in some of North Macedonian municipalities, taking into account timing of elections seems to be very important.
Overall results suggest that the balanced ethnic structure may have some importance for voters’ mobilization, however its role is less important than it might be expected. The most important explanatory variables are population size of municipality (similar to factors found in other countries) as well as proportion of ethnic Macedonians (ethnic Macedonians seems to be more attached to state institutions, and their civic activeness is higher than in case of other groups).
КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS:
local government; citizens’ participation; ethnic cleavages; local elections; North Macedonia