Long-Run Effects of Earlier Voting Eligibility on Turnout and Political Involvement

Abstract

"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 contemporaneous 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." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Jessen, J., Kühnle, D. & Wagner, M. (2024): Long-Run Effects of Earlier Voting Eligibility on Turnout and Political Involvement. In: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 86, No. 3, p. 1045-1059., accepted on October 01, 2023. DOI:10.1086/729972