This article examines effects of political party affiliation on U.S. young adults’ political participation across age and historical time. Using national U.S. longitudinal Monitoring the Future data from youth aged 18 to 30 years, we estimate effects of partisanship (Democrat, Republican, Other) on change in youth’s electoral and political voice participation with age, and test whether effects differ between 1976 and 2003. Political engagement and partisanship declined for young adults over several decades. Partisanship had a consistent positive effect on electoral participation across age and cohort. Democratic youth were higher on nonelectoral participation for some cohorts, and Democrats and Republican youth showed growth in nonelectoral participation at different historical moments. Although younger cohorts of Americans are less politically engaged based on available measures, political parties still remain a powerful force for political participation among those who choose to affiliate. Youth’s partisan attachments and political behavior are best understood in historical context.
AbramowitzA. I. (2010). The disappearing center: Engaged citizens, polarization, and American democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
2.
AlfordJ. R.FunkC. L.HibbingJ. R. (2005). Are political orientations genetically transmitted?American Political Science Review, 99, 153-167.
3.
AndradeL. M. (2017). “The war still continues”: The importance of positive validation for undocumented community college students after Trump’s presidential victory. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 18(3), 273-289. doi:1538192717720265
4.
BafumiJ.ShapiroR. Y. (2009). A new partisan voter. The Journal of Politics, 71, 1-24. doi:10.1017/S0022381608090014
5.
BartelsL. M. (2000). Partisanship and voting behavior, 1952-1996. American Journal of Political Science, 44(1), 5-50.
6.
BlaisA.St-VincentS. L. (2011). Personality traits, political attitudes and the propensity to vote. European Journal of Political Research, 50, 395-417.
7.
CampbellA.ConverseP. E.MillerW. E.StokesD. E. (1960). The American voter. New York, NY: John Wiley.
DaltonR. J. (2008). Citizen politics: Public opinion and political parties in advanced industrial democracies. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.
10.
DaltonR. J. (2016). The good citizen: How a younger generation is reshaping American politics (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.
11.
DavisJ. A. (2004). Did growing up in the 1960s leave a permanent mark on attitudes and values? Evidence from the general social survey. Public Opinion Quarterly, 68, 161-183. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3521588
12.
FiorinaM. P.AbramsS. J.PopeJ. C. (2006). Culture war? The myth of a polarized America. New York, NY: Pearson Longman.
13.
FlanaganC. A. (2013). Teenage citizens: The political theories of the young. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
14.
FlanaganC. A.LevineP. (2010). Civic engagement and the transition to adulthood. Future Child, 20, 159-179. doi:10.1353/foc.0.0043
15.
GreenD. P.PalmquistB.SchicklerE. (2002). Partisan hearts and minds. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
16.
HershE. D. (2013). Long term effect of September 11 on the political behavior of victims’ families and neighbors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110, 20959-20963.
17.
HolbrookT. M.McClurgS. D. (2005). The mobilization of core supporters: Campaigns, turnout, and electoral composition in United States presidential elections. American Journal of Political Science, 49, 689-703.
18.
KaufmannK. M.PetrocikJ. R.ShawD. R. (2008). Unconventional wisdom: Facts and myths about American voters. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
KimS.-Y.MunE.-Y.SmithS. (2014). Using mixture models with known class membership to address incomplete covariance structures in multiple-group growth models. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 67, 94-116.
21.
KinderD. (2006). Politics and the life cycle. Science, 312, 1905-1908.
22.
KlarS.KrupnikovY. (2016). Independent politics: How American disdain for parties leads to political inaction. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
23.
LevenduskyM. (2009). The partisan sort: How liberals became Democrats and conservatives became Republicans. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
24.
MartinezM. D.GillJ. (2005). The effects of turnout on partisan outcomes in U.S. presidential elections, 1960-2000. The Journal of Politics, 67, 1248-1274.
25.
MillerJ. M.SaundersK. L. (2016). It’s not all about resources: Explaining (or not) the instability of individual-level political participation over time. American Politics Research, 44, 943-981. doi:10.1177/1532673X15599840
26.
MycockA.TongeJ. (2011). The party politics of youth citizenship and democratic engagement. Parliamentary Affairs, 65, 138-161. doi:10.1093/pa/gsr053
27.
NiemiR. G.KlinglerJ. D. (2012). The development of political attitudes and behaviour among young adults. Australian Journal of Political Science, 47, 31-54.
SchulenbergJ. E.JohnstonL. D.O’MalleyP. M.BachmanJ. G.MiechR. A.PatrickM. E. (2017). Monitoring the future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2016: Volume II, college students and adults ages 19-55. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, the University of Michigan.
30.
SchumanH.CorningA. (2011). Generational memory and the critical period: Evidence for national and world events. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76, 1-31. doi:10.1093/poq/nfr037
31.
SchussmanA.SouleS. A. (2005). Process and protest: Accounting for individual protest participation. Social Forces, 84, 1083-1108.
32.
StokerL.JenningsM. K. (2008). Of time and the development of partisan polarization. American Journal of Political Science, 52, 619-635.
33.
TwengeJ. M.CampbellW. K.FreemanE. C. (2012). Generational differences in young adults’ life goals, concern for others, and civic orientation, 1966-2009. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 1045-1062. doi:10.1037/a0027408
34.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2017). Voting and registration in the election of November 2016. Available from www.census.gov
35.
ValentinoN. A.SearsD. O. (1998). Event-driven political communication and the preadult socialization of partisanship. Political Behavior, 20, 127-154.
36.
VerbaS.SchlozmanK. L.BradyH. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
37.
VissersS.StolleD. (2014). Spill-over effects between Facebook and on/offline political participation? Evidence from a two-wave panel study. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 11(3), 259-275. doi: 10.1080/19331681.2014.888383
38.
WattenbergM. P. (2009). The decline of American political parties, 1952-1996. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
39.
WattenbergM. P. (2015). Is voting for young people?New York, NY: Routledge.
40.
ZukinC.KeeterS.AndolinaM.JenkinsK.CarpiniM. X. D. (2006). A new engagement?:Political participation, civic life, and the changing American citizen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
