Why Urban-Rural Voting Gaps Are Biggest in US, UK, Canada — And Rising in Europe

This study introduces the first cross-national measure of urban–rural electoral divides that facilitates direct comparison beyond majoritarian democracies such as the UK and North America. The new measure is calculated for each election and political party, allowing comparisons over time and across countries with different electoral and party systems.

📊 What Was Measured and How

A standardized party-level urban–rural divide is derived from national election results at the lowest available geographic unit in each country. This approach makes it possible to compare electoral geography across varying institutional contexts and over long time horizons.

• Coverage: fifteen countries
• Time span: roughly five decades
• Unit: national election results at the lowest available geographic level
• Output: a measure for each election and for each political party, enabling temporal and cross-system comparison

🔍 Major Findings

• Long-term increases in urban–rural electoral divides are most pronounced in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
• Urban–rural divides have also emerged in several European multiparty systems in recent decades.
• The recent emergence in multiparty systems is largely driven by the growth of smaller parties that draw predominantly urban or predominantly rural support.
• Despite these recent developments, overall urban–rural divides remain lower in many European multiparty systems because mainstream parties continue to command geographically diverse support.

🌍 Why This Matters

The measure enables systematic, cross-national investigation of urban–rural polarization’s causes and consequences. It opens a comparative research agenda on how party systems, electoral rules, and party emergence shape geographic political divides and their policy and democratic implications.