Long-run effects of earlier voting eligibility on turnout and political involvement

Autor(en)

Jonas Jessen, Daniel Kuehnle, Markus Wagner

Abstrakt

Theories of habit formation and transformative voting posit that voting has long-run consequences for turnout and political involvement, with younger voters possibly experiencing more pronounced effects from earlier eligibility. Long-term evidence of the effects of becoming eligible to vote at a younger age remains scarce. We use rich, long-term panel data from the United Kingdom to examine the effects of earlier voting eligibility on turnout and political involvement. By leveraging the election eligibility cutoff in a regression discontinuity design, our precise estimates document that earlier eligibility results in con-temporaneous increases in several measures of political involvement. However, these short-term effects fade away quickly and do not translate into permanent changes in turnout propensity or political involvement. Our results imply that, in a setting with low institutional barriers to vote, the persistent and transformative effects of being eligible to vote at a younger age are short-lived at most.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Staatswissenschaft

Externe Organisation(en)

Universität Duisburg-Essen, Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Journal

Journal of Politics

Band

86

Seiten

1045-1059

Anzahl der Seiten

15

ISSN

0022-3816

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1086/729972

Publikationsdatum

2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

506014 Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Sociology and Political Science

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/cccdc378-5d32-495b-89fc-dea3b1c4a457