The Generational Effect in Turnout in the Swedish General Elections, 1960–2010

Recent analyses have reported a generational pattern in electoral participation both in national and the European Parliament elections which suggests that a lower voting propensity among the younger cohorts remains relatively stable over time. Based on the Swedish national election studies 1960–2010, this article examines the magnitude of generational differences in a high‐turnout context. It contributes to earlier studies by using multilevel modeling to estimate the impacts of life cycle, generation and period on turnout and by aiming to account for the generational effect with institutional‐ and individual‐level factors. The results show a fairly modest generational effect. When controlling for the proportion of party members in the electorate and the effective number of parties, the differences between generations in their propensities to vote are substantially reduced.     

The puzzle transformed: Explaining declining turnout

This analysis of the decline in aggregate voting turnout in the United States between the 1950s and the 1980s attributes the decline to changes in the generational composition of the electorate. In particular, the post-New Deal generation (first presidential vote in 1968 or later), which continues to grow in size, votes at a rate well below that of older generations. A minor part of the generational differences in turnout can be attributed to generational differences in party identification and social connectedness (as measured by such indicators as home ownership and church attendance). The larger portion of generational turnout differences cannot be directly explained with variables contained in the National Election Studies. The generational differences in turnout arenot reflected in preelection participation (informal campaigning, doing party work, etc.) and they cannot be accounted for by a declining sense of political efficacy or citizen duty or by lessened interest in campaigns and election outcomes.     

A normal vote approach to electoral change: Presidential elections, 1828–1984

This article offers a macro-level approach to a core concept in the study of electroral behavior, the normal vote. The approach uses interrupted time-series analysis and focuses upon electorally homogeneous political regions within states. After developing the approach used to generate normal vote estimates, analyses using those estimates are compared with (1) parallel analyses using survey-based research, and (2) across levels of analysis (national, regional). The comparison with survey-based analyses show that the macro-level measure follows the actual vote more closely and is more sensitive to shortterm influences. Comparisons across levels of analysis demonstrate that national level analyses obscure a volatile, dynamic electorate that exists at the regional level. These findings suggest that the creative use of the macro-level measure at the regional level has the potential to contribute new and important insights into the role of citizens in American politics, and the forces that drive the behavior of the electorate. Its particular strengths lie in the study of electoral change and its ability to contribute toward a developmental perspective on American democracy.     

The Age Gap in the 2008 Presidential Election

The 2008 presidential election suggests a significant realignment among voters entering the electorate, with younger voters deviating considerably from older voters in their partisan preferences. Barack Obama won the vote of those under 30 years old by a 66% to 32% margin and first time voters favored him by an overwhelming margin of 69–30%. The fact that the age gap between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination contest was also among the largest age gaps in American electoral history suggests that part of the age gap was undoubtedly due to the appeal of Obama with younger Americans. Part of the age gap, however, was also due to the unpopularity of the George W. Bush administration. The strong youth vote for Obama in 2008 was thus both pro-Obama and anti-Bush in nature. The huge age gap in 2008 suggests a split of the electorate along generational lines and the long-term consequences of the age gap appear to overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party. George W. Bush’s unpopular and divisive presidency helped to make the youngest generation of American voters increasingly Democratic in their vote preference. This suggests that if younger Americans follow other generations in keeping the same partisan voting patterns throughout their life, the Democrats are potentially poised to make considerable gains in future elections.     

Ageing and generational effects on vote choice: Combining cross-sectional and panel data to estimate APC effects

This paper examines how ageing and generational formative experiences affect vote choices in Britain. Using a combination of panel data and assumptions about party fortunes we estimate ageing effects. These are then entered into a model using cross-sectional data from 1964 to 2010 to estimate generational differences in vote choice. Ageing increases the likelihood of a Conservative vote substantially, but there is no trend towards lower rates of Conservative voting among newer generations. There are however identifiable political generations corresponding with periods of Conservative dominance: voters who came of age in the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s are ceteris paribus somewhat more Conservative. Our method therefore lends some support to theories of political generations, but also demonstrates the considerable impact of ageing on vote choice.     

Where Else Does Turnout Decline Come From? Education,Age, Generation and Period Effects in Three European Countries

Recent research has found that voter turnout is declining in most advanced industrial countries. The trend is driven by generational replacement because the age cohorts that entered the electorate at the end of the twentieth century are voting at lower than expected rates. In North American countries, the decline is also concentrated among the poorly educated. This article examines the relative contribution of period, life-cycle, generational and educational effects on changes in electoral participation over the last four decades in Sweden, Norway and Germany with individual-level data. Turnout decline is partly driven by generational change in the countries observed as the literature suggests. Additionally, there is also a clear socio-economic correlate. Most strikingly, poorly educated persons of all age groups are increasingly failing to vote in Germany. The results suggest that the causes of the long-term evolution are multidimensional and the relative consequences vary across countries. The debate about turnout decline and its possible remedies has to take into account the fact that both members of new generations and citizens with low education attainment are the main targets of measures aimed at increasing turnout rates, but different actions might be required to attract each specific demographic group to the polls.     

Caught in the middle? How voters react to spatial indifference

According to one of the tenets of the Spatial Theory of Voting (SToV), spatial indifference is positively associated with abstention. However, the political behaviour literature has not yet fully settled whether this is always the case and, if not, why individuals still vote despite the differential utility they extract from the two closest candidates equals zero. In this letter we explore the effect of spatial indifference on political behaviour by analysing survey data from American elections since 1972 and through a survey experiment that randomizes candidates’ ideological position on different dimensions. Findings show that spatially indifferent individuals are more likely to abstain—mainly moderate voters. Yet, around two-thirds still vote for a candidate. We advance two tentative explanations: First, when spatially equidistant, individuals that vote are more likely to consider valence attributes. Second, they are more likely to resort to a directional logic. Results have implications for our understanding of the spatial models and, in particular, of the behaviour of spatially equidistant individuals, which represent a non-negligible group of the electorate.     

Differential Turnout Decline in Norway and Sweden: A Generation of Apathy or Alienation?

Voter turnout has been in a trend of gradual decline in most established democracies in recent decades and the reasons for this are by no means fully understood. While most studies agree that the trend is largely driven by younger generations voting less than older cohorts, the individual‐level mechanisms of their declining propensity to vote are still disputed. A major distinction in the literature on democratic developments is that between theories of political apathy and political alienation: whether citizens are less interested in politics or still interested but instead estranged from their political systems. An interesting test for these different explanations can be found in Scandinavia: While Norway and Sweden have intimate historical, political and cultural similarities, Norway has been experiencing gradual turnout decline, while there has been no clear overall trend in Sweden. This study uses a combined dataset of over 50.000 respondents from 31 national election studies in these two countries from 1956–2013 to test the relative roles of apathy, alienation and generational dynamics in explaining these different trends in turnout. The results indicate that apathy has been declining while alienation has been rising in both countries. However, in Norway, those who are more apathetic today are much less likely to vote than apathetic citizens were in the past. The youngest generations are also significantly more apathetic and less likely to vote in Norway than in Sweden. These dynamics appear to account for the larger trend of turnout decline in Norway.     

Generations,political attitudes and voting behavior in Taiwan and Hong Kong

Society changes with the addition of new members. Different generations have distinct historical experiences, which may shape their political stance across a spectrum of attitudes and behaviors. This symposium includes four articles analyzing generational politics in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The studies show that there are behavioral and attitudinal differences between the young and the old in both places. As overall voter turnout has declined in Taiwan, youth turnout has declined even more. In particular, the “China factor” is the main driving force to the younger generations’ political activism. Youths in both Taiwan and Hong Kong exhibit a strong local identity that differentiates them from the Chinese. The stronger the identity is, the more politically active they are.     

Facing the future: young people's awareness of the 2001 British general election advertising campaigns

This paper presents findings from a national survey of ‘potential’ first time voters at the 2001 British general election. It investigates these young people's awareness of the advertising used by the main political parties during this election. Overall what emerges is a young electorate aware of the advertising, who were interested in the election itself and nearly half of whom say they voted in it. Consequently the findings reject the notion that young people are generically unaware of and disinterested in party political messages. In addition the findings indicate that the political parties' print advertisements—to some degree—are penetrating the first layer of young people's message processing, suggesting they are a useful aid in capturing the youth vote. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

The Conditionality of Vote‐Buying Norms: Experimental Evidence from Latin America

Anti‐vote‐buying campaigns led by NGOs and political elites denounce the practice as a crass economic transaction detrimental to democracy. Do potential clients stigmatize vote buying to the same degree, or does the mass public have a more conditional view of the acceptability of vote buying? We theorize that normative evaluations of vote buying vary based on individuals’ understanding of the transaction itself and abstract societal costs associated with the practice. We assess this perspective using survey experiments conducted in several Latin American countries that present hypothetical vote‐buying situations for evaluation by respondents, varying the socioeconomic status of the hypothetical client and the client's political predispositions. We find that the disapproval of vote buying is highly conditional on the attributes of the hypothetical client and that evaluations of vote buying depend on conceptions of the concrete benefits and abstract costs of vote buying as a part of electoral politics.     

When Voters and Parties Agree: Valence Issues and Party Competition

There has been much talk of valence, consensus or competence politics but little theoretical explanation or empirical investigation of how this has arisen. In this article I argue that British political competition has become competence-based because the major parties and the electorate have converged on the dominant left–right dimension of British voting behaviour. As a result, commonly cited core vote explanations for party polarisation have only limited application. The electorate has converged on left–right issues, narrowing the policy space and the available positional strategies of political parties. A different pattern is found for the issue of Europe, and this is interpreted in light of possible causal mechanisms. The article offers a formal model for a rise in valence politics as parties and voters converge, and the implications are discussed for theories of party competition. I argue in favour of competence and salience-based theories of party strategy in place of a reliance on traditional spatial models.     

Generations and Socialization into Electoral Participation in Finland

This article examines the extent to which political socialization accounts for generational differences in electoral participation found in recent studies. Political socialization is defined as the learning process in which an individual adopts various political attitudes, values and patterns of actions from his or her environment. The analysis is based on the Finnish National Elections Study 2003. The results show that even though politics has had the smallest role during the formative years of the youngest generation and they most often do not know their parents' partisanship, this generation has received the most encouragement for voting and the attitudinal change towards voting within an individual's life span has been the most positive. Consequently, the study shows that if there were no differences in the socialization between the youngest and the older generations, the difference in turnout would be larger if only sex and socioeconomic factors were taken into account. Based on these results, the author draws the conclusion that, rather than political socialization, the factors behind the low turnout among the young generation have to be searched for elsewhere.     

British Muslim Political Participation: After Bradford

In this article I argue that there is a significant generational shift within British Pakistani communities in relation to political participation and civic engagement. Using George Galloway's March 2012 by‐election victory in Bradford West and an analysis of primary empirical research conducted amongst British Pakistani communities between 2005–2007, and, 2011, I argue that kinship‐based bloc voting—a feature of British Pakistani political engagement in UK politics—is being challenged. A younger generation of British Pakistanis want politicians to engage with them as individuals rather than politicians assuming their votes through co‐opting Pakistani community elders in a system of patronage politics, an arrangement which has been in place since mass immigration from the subcontinent in the 1950s and 60s.     

The Impact of Elite Polarization on Partisan Ambivalence and Indifference

Considerable evidence documents the impact that elite polarization has had on the influence of partisanship on vote choice and attitudes. Yet, much of the electorate remains moderate. This paper seeks to shed some light on this paradox. Examining trends from 1952 to 2004 demonstrates that the electorate is now more opinionated about the parties than in the recent past, but that a significant portion of the increase is in the form of negative statements about an individual’s party—there are fewer indifferent individuals, but the electorate is not overwhelmingly more one-sided, instead there has been an increase in both the proportion of one-sided and ambivalent individuals. It is next examined if the intensity of one’s ideological and partisan self-identification influences how they respond to elite polarization. The results suggest that non-ideologues and pure independents are more likely to be indifferent; all other groups have shown a decline in the likelihood of being indifferent and an increase in ambivalence. The results demonstrate that the public is responding to the increased clarity in elite positions in the form of an increased number of opinions, but for many the increase results from a mix of positive and negative reactions.     

Interrogating the Political Economy of Age

This article considers the argument by Tim Vlandas, in this issue, that an ageing electorate may undermine democracies’ ability to make the right economic choices. Vlandas suggests that the emergence of gerontocratic politics may give rise to ‘gerontonomia’: an economy run for the old, at the expense of younger generations and of future prosperity. However, evidence from the UK suggests a more mixed picture. Age-based voting patterns have been consequential around single issues, not least the 2016 Brexit referendum. However, voters’ interests in broad economic policy models are not easily reducible to age dynamics, and intergenerational politics are filtered through a set of normative and affective considerations beyond straightforward self-interest. Moreover, since the rational interests of different age groups do not speak for themselves, cueing by political elites is potentially significant and may be contributing to older voters’ relative tolerance of a poor economic record.     

Constituents’ Responses to Congressional Roll‐Call Voting

Do citizens hold their representatives accountable for policy decisions, as commonly assumed in theories of legislative politics? Previous research has failed to yield clear evidence on this question for two reasons: measurement error arising from noncomparable indicators of legislators’ and constituents’ preferences and potential simultaneity between constituents’ beliefs about and approval of their representatives. Two new national surveys address the measurement problem directly by asking respondents how they would vote and how they think their representatives voted on key roll‐call votes. Using the actual votes, we can, in turn, construct instrumental variables that correct for simultaneity. We find that the American electorate responds strongly to substantive representation. (1) Nearly all respondents have preferences over important bills before Congress. (2) Most constituents hold beliefs about their legislators’ roll‐call votes that reflect both the legislators’ actual behavior and the parties’ policy reputations. (3) Constituents use those beliefs to hold their legislators accountable.     

The political consequences of uninformed voters

Americans fail to meet the democratic ideal of an informed electorate, and the consequences of this political ignorance are a topic of significant scholarly debate. In two independent settings, we experimentally test the effect of political information on citizens' attitudes toward the major parties in the U.S. When uninformed citizens receive political information, they systematically shift their political preferences away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. A lack of knowledge on the policy positions of the parties significantly hinders the ability of low-socioeconomic-status citizens to translate their preferences into partisan opinions and vote choices. As a result, American public opinion—and potentially election results and public policy as a result—is significantly different from the counterfactual world in which all voters are informed.     

Tilting Towards the Cosmopolitan Axis? Political Change in England and the 2017 General Election

The general election of June 2017 revealed a continued tilting of the political axis in England that has been long in the making. This was not a Brexit ‘realignment’—in that the vote is better seen as a symptom of a longer‐term divide that is emerging between citizens residing in locations strongly connected to global growth and those who are not. In this analysis, we explore constituency‐level patterns of voting in England between 2005 and 2017. Over this period, Labour's vote share has tended to rise in urban areas (that is, major cities), with younger and more diverse and more educated populations often working in ‘cosmopolitan’ industries, whereas the Conservative vote has tended to increase in less densely populated towns and rural areas, with older and less diverse populations. Significantly, Labour has also increased its vote in constituencies with a higher share of ‘precariat’ and emerging service workers—somewhat at odds with characterisation of a party that has lost the ‘left behind’. To the extent that changes in electoral support for the Conservatives and Labour are linked to the Brexit vote, the relationship far predates the referendum vote and should be expected to continue to reshape British politics in future.     

Does polarization affect even the inattentive? Assessing the relationship between political sophistication,policy orientations,and elite cues

In this paper we focus on how individuals’ level of political sophistication conditions how they respond to growing elite polarization. The party coalitions in the electorate have become increasingly ideologically sorted. We assess whether all citizens have sorted into the ideologically “correct” partisan camp or whether this phenomenon is limited only to the highly sophisticated. Using a combination of ANES and DW-NOMINATE data we show that individuals of all sophistication levels have become more likely to identify with and vote for the party that best matches their policy orientations as a function of increasing elite-level polarization. Our findings suggest that the effects of increasing polarization are felt throughout the electorate.