Die (geringe) Beteiligung am Berliner Klimaentscheid 2023: Empirische Erklärungsversuche

The Berlin Climate Referendum has failed. Although a majority of voters (50.9%) approved of the proposal, the decision did not meet the required approval quorum of 25%. Only 35.7% of the eligible voters participated, which means that only 18.2% of the eligible voters approved of the referendum. How can this relatively low turnout be explained? To address this question, the following article analyses a post-referendum survey. The results show that factors primarily associated with the Rational Choice theory can explain the individual decision to participate in the vote. Individual participation probability was positively influenced by high instrumental (high issue saliency) and expressive benefits (duty to vote). On the other hand, those who doubted the feasibility of Berlin’s referendum and did not participate in the previous parliamentary elections were less likely to participate in the vote. The article contributes to the empirical research on voting in Germany, which is still in its early stages.