This dissertation addresses key questions regarding democratization, institutional choice and political mobilization from the narrow standpoint of an important but understudied institution: compulsory voting.;There is widespread confusion with respect to mandatory voting; even concerning its conceptualization. The conventional wisdom about its introduction (in democratizing or democratic regimes) is informed by two premises. First, that the legal obligation to vote was a progressive measure insofar as it sought to build citizenship and contribute to equality by boosting electoral participation among the poor. Second, that it was the Left that advocated for it. My work casts doubt on these assumptions.;I herein argue that compulsory voting was instituted to offset the anticipated effects of pro-democratic reforms or developments. It was enacted by politicians used to relying on clientelistic mobilization under a broad franchise so as to meet the electoral challenge posed by an emerging party that was capable of generating intense loyalties on the basis of a program/ideology. Adopters expected that by making the bulk of the citizenry vote, mandatory voting would mobilize an indifferent, uninformed, and/or moderate mass that would drown out the ballots of the highly motivated/ideological minority.;My empirical analysis zeroes in on Latin America, a region where compulsory voting is overrepresented but still offers significant variation across countries and over time. I have done fieldwork in Argentina, Chile and Colombia. I have also drawn on secondary sources about mandatory voting laws in Asia, Europe and Oceania.
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