Social identification, in-group integration and voter turnout in three parliamentary elections: An analysis of the Swedish Sámi electorate

In this article, we analyse the explanatory value of different individual factors explaining voter turnout among a self-identified ethnic sub-group of the Swedish electorate, the indigenous Sámi people. We assess if the same factors explain turnout among the Sámi electorate in three different elections: to the Sámi Parliament, to the Swedish national parliament (the Riksdag), and to the European Parliament. This enhances our understanding of the processes affecting voter turnout on different and distinct levels of government (cf. Cancela & Geys 2016). Using unique survey data from the two first ever election studies in conjunction to elections to the Swedish Sámi Parliament 2013, 2017, our study's main contributions are three: first, our data allows us to unwind the obtuse variable self-identification with an ethnic group, as we can show heterogeneity in voting behaviour between individuals identifying with the same group; second, we show the importance of using several variables for measuring the importance of in-group integration to explain individual voting behaviour (vernacular language skills, group affinity, and day-to-day practices); third, our data allows us to compare the individual factors explaining voter turnout within a self-identifying ethnic group in three different electoral contexts. We find that in-group integration, i.e. social integration within the Sámi community, positively affects voter turnout in Sámi Parliament elections, but has a clear negative effect on voter turnout in elections to the Riksdag, and almost no effect on European Parliament elections. In the latter two elections, traditional explanatory variables like education, institutional trust and general political interest are positively affecting turnout, while having no or negative effects in elections to the Sámi Parliament.