Younger voters less likely to punish politicians for undemocratic actions, study finds

In an expansive study spanning across ten countries, researchers have unearthed a troubling trend: younger voters are less inclined than their older counterparts to penalize politicians exhibiting undemocratic behaviors. This global analysis, which comes at a time when many nations are grappling with the robustness of their democratic institutions, suggests a potential shift in how future generations may respond to threats within political systems.

The findings have been published in the British Journal of Political Science.

The impetus for this investigation stemmed from a debate that has been brewing in academic and political circles: Are younger individuals becoming disenchanted with democracy? Previous studies have ping-ponged between two positions—one arguing that the younger demographic is disillusioned with democracy due to its perceived failures, and the other asserting that being raised in a democratic environment has made them more, not less, committed.

However, these discussions often lacked a focus on concrete actions, such as how these individuals would act in the face of democratic backsliding, where elected officials might erode the very fabric of democratic systems.

Seeking to add empirical weight to this discussion, Kristian Vrede Skaaning Frederiksen of Aarhus University embarked on a comprehensive analysis using data from five experimental studies carried out from 2020 to 2022. These experiments included 13,922 respondents from the United States, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Mexico, South Korea, India, Italy, Brazil, South Africa, and Poland.

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Through these studies, participants were presented with hypothetical election scenarios where they had to choose between political candidates displaying either democratic or undemocratic behaviors. These undemocratic behaviors ranged proposing the closure of polling stations in opposition strongholds to purging existing public officials and replacing them with party loyalists.

The heart of the study lay in its simulation of voting intentions. Respondents were tasked with rating their likelihood of voting for candidates who, within these crafted scenarios, engaged in behaviors that either upheld or violated democratic principles. The measures were carefully designed to reflect real-world dilemmas, such as a candidate’s stance on civil liberties or adherence to the rule of law, without overwhelming participants with too many variables at once.

What the research team discovered was a discernible pattern: as voter age decreased, so did the likelihood of penalizing undemocratic behavior through their vote. This was quantified by noting that the youngest voters were found to punish such behavior by a mere 0.5 to 1 percentage point, while the oldest voters could punish it by an 8 to 12 percentage point margin. This finding held true across multiple countries and was robust even when accounting for potential biases such as survey attentiveness.

Despite its breadth, the study isn’t without limitations. One of the key challenges is disentangling whether this observed pattern is a true generational shift — a difference in values and priorities that will persist as the younger cohort ages — or a product of the life cycle, where political engagement and values evolve as people grow older. The study’s design, which didn’t track changes over time, makes it difficult to conclude definitively.

However, the study found that these effects were not a byproduct of younger individuals simply being less engaged or attentive to political issues. In fact, when it came to other controversial political behaviors, like anti-minority stances, younger people were more likely to react. This suggests that younger generations are not apathetic but may prioritize different issues than older voters.

Looking ahead, future research will be crucial to understand the underlying causes of this generational divide. If young people indeed prioritize different political issues, this could lead to significant shifts in the political landscape as they become the majority of the electorate.

“Young people seem to care about different political matters than older people rather than not care about politics at all, which is more suggestive of a generational divide reflecting different priorities than a life-cycle effect reflecting increasing engagement,” Frederiksen concluded. “A generational effect would be severe for democracy, implying that younger, less committed generations replace older, more committed generations… Examining this suggestive stance in favour of generational effects regarding punishment of undemocratic behaviour is crucial for future research.”

The study, “Young People Punish Undemocratic Behaviour Less Than Older People“, was published December 15, 2023.