The Source of Turnout Decline

Abstract

Voter turnout has consistently declined since the 1980s across a wide range of advanced democracies. Much of this decline appears to be the result of young people abstaining. In this article the authors test two arguments for this trend. The first rests on the claim that the character of elections has changed, specifically that elections have become less competitive and that young people’s propensities for voting are particularly negatively affected by this. The second maintains that recent generations have different values and that these value differences explain turnout declines. The authors test these two explanations using three different data sets: (a) individual-level and election-specific data from 83 elections in eight countries since the 1950s, (b) longitudinal individual-level and district-level data from British elections for the period 1974–2005, and (c) panel data from American presidential elections. The findings provide strong evidence for the generational value change argument, whereas the authors find scant support for the competition argument.