Should You Vote if You Don't Know Anything About Politics Peer Reviewed Articles

Elect Stud. 2012 Jun; 31(ii): 372–383.

Voting at 16: Turnout and the quality of vote choice

Received 2011 Feb 24; Revised 2012 Jan 19; Accepted 2012 Jan twenty.

Abstruse

Critics of giving citizens under 18 the right to vote fence that such teenagers lack the power and motivation to participate finer in elections. If this argument is true, lowering the voting age would accept negative consequences for the quality of democracy. Nosotros test the argument using survey data from Austria, the only European country with a voting age of 16 in nation-broad elections. While the turnout levels of young people under 18 are relatively low, their failure to vote cannot be explained past a lower ability or motivation to participate. In add-on, the quality of these citizens' choices is similar to that of older voters, so they practise cast votes in ways that enable their interests to be represented equally well. These results are encouraging for supporters of a lower voting age.

Keywords: Input legitimacy, Political participation, Teenage vote, Turnout, Voting age

Highlights

► Citizens under 18 may lack the motivation and ability to participate in elections. ► We examine the political motivation and ability and their impact on turnout and vote option quality for citizens under 18. ► We use a survey from Austria, the only country with a voting age of 16. ► Their reasons for not voting are not based on a lack of political motivation and political ability. ► Their quality of vote choice is no lower than among older voter cohorts.

one. Introduction³

The level of turnout at elections is oftentimes seen as an indicator of the health of a democracy (Fieldhouse et al., 2007), yet there is a general trend towards failing rates of electoral participation in Western Europe (e.yard. Aarts and Wessels, 2005; Blais and Rubenson, 2007; Franklin et al., 2004). This has led to fears that democratic legitimacy may turn down equally elections increasingly fail to act as the 'institutional connection' (Topf, 1995a) betwixt citizens and the land.

In lite of these developments, it has been suggested that the minimum voting age should be lowered to 16 (e.g. Ability Committee, 2006; Votes at 16, 2008; Hart and Artkins, 2011). Supporters of such a reform argue that lowering the voting age would have a positive impact on balloter participation. This is considering young people nether 18 are likely to still be in school and live with their families, ii factors that accept been shown to encourage turnout through a variety of socialisation mechanisms (Franklin, 2004; Highton and Wolfinger, 2001; Bhatti and Hansen, 2010). In the long term, this higher level of participation at a young age may so facilitate the early evolution of a habit of voting (eastward.yard. Plutzer, 2002; Franklin, 2004). Of course, lowering the voting age is not merely justified equally a mode to stop the decline in turnout. For example, it is likewise seen as a way to ensure that the interests of young citizens are represented in the political system (Votes at 16, 2008).^iv

Yet, the proposed reform is not without its critics. The main statement made confronting lowering the voting historic period is that young people under eighteen lack the ability and motivation to participate finer in the electoral process (Chan and Clayton, 2006). It is suggested that this will atomic number 82 to depression turnout rates, comparable to – if not even lower than – those observed among citizens aged xviii–25 (Electoral Commission, 2004). A further consequence would exist that citizens under 18 might non make employ of their vote as effectively as older voters. While they might vote for the sake of voting, they would not challenge the government to respond to their interests. Thus, their vote option would be driven more strongly by expressive instead of instrumental considerations (Tóka, 2009), and their policy views would not be well-represented by political actors.

In this newspaper, nosotros test whether these critics are right. Are young people under 18 less able and motivated to participate effectively in politics? And practise these factors influence whether and how they apply their correct to vote? If the respond to these questions is yeah, then lowering the voting historic period could indeed take negative consequences for the health of democracy. If the answer is no, and so critics are arguably left with fewer arguments why nosotros should oppose lowering the voting age. Instead, we might consider potential positive consequences of the reform, such as tying young people to the autonomous procedure, encouraging the development of a habit of voting and ensuring the representation of their interests.

We examine the choices made by young people under 18 using data from Republic of austria, where in 2007 the voting historic period at national elections was lowered to 16. Specifically, we employ a survey carried out in the run-upwards to the European Parliament (EP) elections 2009 which over-sampled young people under 26. Austria's reform allows us to examine for the get-go time whether the critics of lowering the minimum voting historic period are right. Before, the only possible empirical strategies were either to extrapolate nearly the behaviour of citizens under 18 from that of voters only over eighteen or to written report the potential electoral behaviour of immature people nether eighteen in a context where they did non accept the vote.

Our survey indicates that the intention to plow out was indeed relatively low among citizens under 18 in the 2009 EP election. Using the self-assessed likelihood of voting on a calibration of 0–10, nether-18s have a low average intention of turning out, with a mean score of 5.91. This is lower than among respondents anile between 18 and 21 (6.24) and between those aged between 22 and 25 (6.98), while respondents over 30 have a hateful score of seven.38.

Is this blueprint due to the fact that Austrians under 18 are particularly unable or unwilling to participate in politics? Our findings prove that this is not the example. Commencement, measures of political interest, knowledge and not-electoral participation indicate that young people nether eighteen are not particularly unable or unwilling to participate in political life. 2nd, these factors do not help to explain their lower turnout rates, then nosotros cannot say that immature citizens fail to vote for reasons that are particularly troubling for democratic legitimacy. Finally, there is no prove that the quality of vote choices among citizens under 18 is whatever worse than that of older voters.

We begin this newspaper past discussing in greater depth existing arguments regarding the political behaviour of citizens under eighteen and the potential effects of lowering the voting age in terms of democratic legitimacy, focussing on turnout and the quality of vote option. After describing the survey, nosotros provide a cursory descriptive account of young people's motivation and ability to engage in politics. We and so turn to a multivariate analysis that explores the reasons backside turnout decisions of citizens nether xviii. Finally, we examine the quality of vote choice among these voters.

2. Citizens under 18 and the democratic procedure

In the scholarly fence democratic legitimacy includes two dimensions: input and output legitimacy (Scharpf, 1999). This newspaper focuses on the input dimension of democratic legitimacy. Input legitimacy refers to the idea that "[p]olitical choices are legitimate if they reflect the 'will of the people' – that is, if they can exist derived from the authentic preferences of the members of a community" (Scharpf, 1999: 6). Input legitimacy requires citizens who are motivated and competent and who appoint in reasoned arguments in commonage decision-making processes. Equally a event, input legitimacy may be negatively affected by lowering the voting age if this only serves to extend suffrage to citizens who are not motivated or able to participate in decision-making in this way. Simply put, the central question is whether citizens under xviii have the power and motivation to participate effectively in elections.

Why might we wait this not to be the case? Chan and Clayton (2006) argue that young people under 18 are just non politically 'mature' enough to take part in the electoral process, and they define this 'maturity' precisely as the ability and motivation to participate. They measure the 'political maturity' of young people nether xviii using political involvement, party identification, political knowledge and attitudinal consistency. According to Chan and Clayton (2006), those under 18 fail to score loftier enough on any of these indicators. They advise that these differences cannot be explained by the fact that in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland those under xviii do non yet have the vote and therefore take no incentive to become involved in politics. Instead, citing Dawkins and Cornwell (2003), they argue that the teenage brain may simply not exist ready to vote at 16. Even so, Hart and Artkins (2011) indicate out that so far no neurological testify has been put forward to testify this point, while Steinberg et al. (2009) show that teenage citizens possess the same cognitive sophistication as young adults. It is mayhap more probable that these age differences may exist due to a universal life-cycle effect, with younger voters but not yet having developed the political interest, knowledge and sense of duty that comes with historic period (Aarts and Wessels, 2005).

Thus, from this disquisitional perspective young citizens under eighteen lack the ability and motivation to engage finer in politics. Since our aim is to test the arguments made by critics of lowering the voting historic period, our hypotheses are every bit follows:

• H1a:

  Young citizens under xviii are less able to participate in politics finer than older voters.

• H1b:

  Young citizens under 18 are less motivated to participate in politics effectively than older voters.

2.one. Citizens nether 18 and turnout

Enlarging suffrage to include young people under 18 may have consequences for the level of turnout. On the one hand, some scholars fence that turnout numbers may better, especially in the longer term, as immature people under 18 are more easily and more lastingly mobilised to vote due to socialisation effects (e.chiliad. Franklin, 2004). On the other hand, critics put forward the argument that it could also exist that immature people under eighteen only mirror the depression levels of turnout found among those aged between 18 and 21 (due east.one thousand. Electoral Commission, 2004).

However in this paper, nosotros are not concerned with the levels of turnout themselves. For one, to examine the development of a habit of voting requires a longer-term perspective than cannot be achieved simply two years after the voting historic period was lowered. Moreover, looking exclusively at the level of turnout should non be the but fashion to accost whether declining electoral participation is worrying. Equally pointed out, it is especially apropos when decisions not to vote are a reflection of disenchantment, indifference or a lack of capabilities (Chan and Clayton, 2006).^five

Lower levels of turnout among citizens nether 18 practice not automatically indicate that this pattern is due to a lower power and motivation to participate. Other reasons may underlie this decision. First, young voters may privilege new modes of political participation over traditional forms of electoral participation (Topf, 1995b), 'bypassing the electoral routes' (Franklin, 2002: 165). Balloter participation is not the just style that a democratic bond between citizens and the political organization tin can exist created (due east.k. Topf, 1995b; Franklin, 2002; Fuchs and Klingemann, 1995; Dalton, 2009). Young voters may be particularly likely to cull other forms of participation due to longer schooling years, exposure to other forms of informal civic didactics, college data levels, new information channels and a decrease in political party affiliation (eastward.g. Thomassen, 2005). Second, young voters may simply see voting itself every bit less of a borough duty (eastward.thou. Blais, 2000; Dalton, 2009; Wattenberg, 2008). They may have a more private calculus of the utility of voting and rely more heavily on the assessment of the importance of election outcomes (Thomassen, 2005).⁶ Thus, analysing only turnout rates per se is non enough to provide a good picture of the condition of input legitimacy as nosotros likewise need to take the underlying motives into account. In other words, nosotros need to know whether citizens under 18 fail to vote considering of a lower ability and motivation to participate effectively. If this is the example, then this undermines input legitimacy; if not, so lower turnout is mayhap less worrying.⁷

In sum, nosotros argue that the quality of the electoral participation of citizens under eighteen is specially unsatisfactory if low turnout can be explained by a low willingness and motivation to engage in politics. We will therefore test the following ii hypotheses:

• H2a:

  The lower turnout of immature people nether 18 can exist explained by their lower ability to participate in politics.

• H2b:

  The lower turnout of young people under xviii can be explained by their lower motivation to participate in politics.

2.2. Citizens under 18 and the quality of vote pick

Simply because citizens go to the polls does not mean that they volition be well-represented past those they elect. As Lau et al. debate: "[Five]otes freely given are meaningless unless they accurately reflect a citizen'southward true preferences" (2008: 396). Citizens should be able to select accurately between political actors and make a pick that is consistent with their ain views, attitudes and preferences (e.g. Lau and Redlawsk, 1997). If voters nether xviii take choices that do non reflect their interests and attitudes, then this volition limit their substantial representation (Pitkin, 1967). The arguments presented earlier that citizens under 18 may lack the requisite ability and motivation to participate (Chan and Clayton, 2006) would likewise pb them to exist less inclined to think carefully about their decision and therefore choose parties that do not reflect their preferences. They may neglect to accept choices that represent their interests well. Thus, there would also be negative consequences for democracy if the choices made by voters under xviii are less well-linked to their actual preferences than those of older voters. On the other hand, if the decisions of voters under 18 reflect their preferences likewise as they do in older age groups, then the critics' arguments take no empirical footing. We would have no reason to believe that the interests and preferences of voters under eighteen would be less well-represented.

Our final hypothesis therefore tests this last argument by critics of lowering the voting age and reads equally follows:

• H3:

  The quality of vote choice amid voters nether xviii is lower than among older voters.

3. Data and methods

Until now, empirical research on the furnishings of lowering the voting age has had to take ane of 2 unsatisfactory approaches. The first method has been to assume that under-18s are little different from those just over 18, justifying the use of evidence from the voting behaviour of young citizens aged 18 and older (e.one thousand. Electoral Commission, 2004).⁸ The second approach uses data on citizens under eighteen before they have the right to vote (e.g. Chan and Clayton, 2006). Studying balloter participation for those who do non have the right to vote has a considerable flaw: without the right to cast a ballot, at that place is no rational incentive for citizens to increase their interest and knowledge in politics. Just having voting rights may encourage people to get together information and become politically active in other ways (Rubenson et al., 2004; Hart and Artkins, 2011). To test correctly whether the balloter participation of under-18s matches the quality of that of their older peers, we therefore need a case where such young citizens have the right to vote.

Austria is the but country in Europe that has a voting age of 16 for national elections.^ix The reform was passed by the Austrian parliament in 2007, and since then, young people under xviii have bandage ballots at a series of elections, including for the national parliament in 2008, the European Parliament in 2009 and the presidential elections in 2010. Austria thus provides the starting time opportunity to examine the political participation of nether-18s in a nation-wide election, at least in a stable avant-garde industrial democracy. The specific data used in this paper are from a pre-election survey (n = 805) conducted at the end of May and the beginning of June 2009, and then in the weeks directly before the European Parliament election (Kritzinger and Heinrich, 2009).¹⁰ Voters between sixteen and 25 were over-sampled for this survey (north = 263), making this dataset particularly suitable to our research questions. We have advantage of the over-sampled segment of Austrian voters to compare xvi- and 17-yr olds to voters between eighteen and 21, 22 and 25, 26 and 30 and to voters over 31.¹¹

We assess the power and motivation to participate finer in politics using three measures.¹² The power to engage in politics is evaluated using political noesis, which we measure past assessing whether respondents correctly place the Social Democrats (SPÖ) to the left of the ii far-right parties (FPÖ and BZÖ) and the People'due south Party (ÖVP). Nosotros measure the motivation to participate effectively in politics using political interest and the willingness to consider various forms of not-electoral participation. The respondents' interest in politics is measured every bit the average of answers to eight questions tapping attention to politics in general and the EP entrada in detail. The variable was rescaled to range from 0 to one, and the alpha reliability coefficient of this scale is 0.81. We measured non-electoral political participation by request respondents to charge per unit on a four-point scale their hypothetical willingness to engage in a series of political activities: contacting a politician, collecting signatures, working for a non-governmental organization, taking part in a legal demonstration and working on a campaign. We also create an overall index for not-electoral political participation using the boilerplate answer to the five questions. The scale ranges from 0 to 1 with an alpha reliability coefficient of 0.75.

It is always difficult to measure turnout using survey questions due to the issues of over-reporting, sample selectivity, social desirability bias and the stimulus effects of pre-elections interviews (due east.thousand. Aarts and Wessels, 2005; Bernstein et al., 2001; Karp and Brockington, 2005).^xiii There is prove that the pre-election turnout intention questions are the best available predictor of whether a person is likely to vote (Bolstein, 1991). Respondents might be more honest regarding their actual intention to plough out when presented with a scale in which people tin can indicate uncertainty and reluctance without declaring directly that they might abstain. Therefore, we apply turnout intention as our dependent variable. We measure propensity to turn out with a question request respondents to state their certainty of voting in the upcoming EP election on a scale of 0–10. In our sample, 54.one% of respondents gave a vote intention score of eight or college and 41% a score of 9 or higher.^fourteen This compares favourably to the 46% who actually voted on seven June 2009.¹⁵

Examining the intention to turn out in an EP election gives united states also the advantage of studying an election with lower overall turnout; this could reduce the social desirability bias as people might be less reluctant to declare that they volition not vote when abstention is a more mutual phenomenon. We take into business relationship the specific EU nature of the election by including Eu-specific versions of cadre variables in our regression models and by including a control variable apropos views on European integration.

4. Results

We present our results in iii steps. Commencement, we nowadays descriptive findings on the ability and motivation to participate in politics among immature people nether eighteen. Next, nosotros examine the causes underlying turnout decisions before finally examining the quality of vote pick.

4.1. The ability and motivation to participate finer

Critics of lowering the voting age fence that citizens under 18 have a lower motivation and ability to engage in politics than older citizens. We test this by considering three measures widely used in the literature to capture these constructs (e.g. Fieldhouse et al., 2007): interest, knowledge and not-electoral political participation.

Fig. 1 presents the historic period grouping means for political interest and knowledge. We meet, first, that interest in politics is by no means especially low amid under-18s; indeed, it is the 2nd-highest average of the four age groups under 30. Withal, in spite of their credible interest in politics, political knowledge is somewhat lower amongst nether-18s compared to the other 3 groups of young voters. Withal, it is worth noting that this difference is significant in a two-tailed t-test only for the comparing with 22- to 25-year-olds. Moreover, a cautious estimation of these results is required since we only have one knowledge question. Nevertheless, there is some indication that political knowledge might be lower amidst under-18s. This may be due to the fact that immature citizens do not all the same have the experience necessary to place parties correctly on a left–right calibration. There is thus some support for H1a, i.e. that citizens under 18 are less able to participate in politics.

Involvement and knowledge, age group differences. Note: mean values by age grouping shown; bars indicate 95% confidence intervals around the mean; dashed line indicates overall mean; see Appendix for question details.

Citizens can besides engage in politics outside of elections. In Fig. two, nosotros present the average scores for each age grouping across all five activities nosotros asked about, with the meridian-left panel presenting the results for the overall index. It is clear that the youngest citizens' willingness to participate in non-electoral politics is relatively loftier and no different from the overall hateful. Young citizens are specially likely to say that they would have function in a sit-in. Overall, citizens nether eighteen are merely as motivated to take part in political life as older age groups. This preliminary result indicates that there is trivial testify in favour of H1b.

Non-electoral political participation, age grouping differences. Notation: mean values by age group shown; confined indicate 95% confidence intervals around the mean; dashed line indicates overall mean; see Appendix for question details.

Finally, we further illustrate the attitudes of young people under eighteen using measures of democratic disaffection and alienation, specifically the three indicators institutional trust, satisfaction with democracy and the perceived impact of politics on ane's life (Fig. 3).¹⁶ These are related to measures of the motivation to engage effectively in politics. Surprisingly, our data show that trust in institutions among citizens nether xviii is significantly college than the overall mean among all citizens, so there is no indication at all of disaffection using this classical measure. In addition, satisfaction with national and European democracy amongst citizens nether 18 is actually college (and often significantly so) than amongst older citizens. Turning to the bottom-right panel, younger citizens do not differ from older citizens in the proportion who say that either the national parliament or the EP has a 'potent' impact on them personally. Given this evidence and their satisfactory level of political interest, there is strong descriptive evidence that the youngest citizens in Austria are non particular 'turned off' past electoral politics, democracy and political institutions in general – results which are quite contrary to those reported in the literature (east.thou. Chan and Clayton, 2006). There is therefore so far little evidence in favour of H1b, so that there is piddling indication that citizens under xviii are less motivated to participate effectively in politics.

Alienation, indifference and impact of parliaments, historic period group differences. Note: mean values by age group shown; bars indicate 95% conviction intervals around the mean; dashed line indicates overall hateful; encounter Appendix for question details.

In sum, citizens under xviii practice non differ in terms of their democratic disaffection and their motivation to participate in politics from older age groups. Still, they do have relatively little knowledge, indicating that they might exist less able to participate. In the adjacent section, we volition examine whether age group differences in the motivation and ability to participate effectively in politics can aid explicate lower turnout levels among citizens nether 18.

4.2. Turnout motivations of citizens nether 18

We at present plow to examining the causes of lower turnout by post-obit the arroyo of Rubenson et al. (2004) and Gidengil et al. (2005). The starting point is a very basic regression model with dummy variables for the four age groups under 31 likewise as a serial of fundamental socio-demographic controls. In the following steps, a serial of independent variables are added to the model. This allows us to test whether different age groups decide not to vote considering they lack the ability or motivation to participate effectively in politics; if this is the case for the youngest cohort, the historic period coefficient for the under-18s should subtract (or even cease to be significant) when the relevant variables are added to the model. Importantly, the cases included in each model are the same, so the most bones model only includes respondents for which all variables in the fullest model are available. Due to a heteroscedastic fault distribution robust standard errors are used.

Nosotros present six OLS regression models predicting voter turnout (Table 1). Model 1 includes 4 historic period dummy variables for those aged 16 and 17, 18–21, 22–25 and 26–30. The reference grouping are citizens aged 31 and older. The model also includes four socio-demographic controls: instruction, gender, rural residence and migration background. Previous research indicates that education is an important predictor of the propensity to turn out in most all democracies (eastward.g. Wolfinger and Rosenstone, 1980; Blais et al., 2004; Rubenson et al., 2004; Aarts and Wessels, 2005). We also include migration background as this may be related to the level of resources and to the level of connectedness one feels to the political system; nosotros therefore expect having a migration background to have a negative effect on turnout (Fieldhouse et al., 2007). Living in a rural area may increase turnout equally social uppercase and thus the pressure to vote may be college there (e.grand. Putnam, 2000; Nevitte et al., 2009).

Tabular array i

OLS regression results.

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model four	Model 5	Model 6
	Basic model	Bones model + controls	Knowledge	Participation	Interest	Full model
Age (ref: 31+)
16–17	−1.005 (0.517)	−1.244** (0.458)	−1.210** (0.467)	−ane.272** (0.438)	−i.09* (0.424)	−one.100** (0.419)
18–21	−i.562*** (0.361)	−1.138** (0.375)	−ane.163** (0.366)	−1.201*** (0.353)	−0.429 (0.347)	−0.600 (0.332)
22–25	−0.690* (0.329)	−0.708* (0.306)	−0.771* (0.306)	−0.936** (0.302)	−0.295 (0.294)	−0.576* (0.293)
26–30	−1.040** (0.354)	−1.118*** (0.330)	−1.109*** (0.328)	−1.040*** (0.306)	−0.547 (0.293)	−0.565* (0.284)
Political knowledge			0.703* (0.277)			0.672** (0.253)
Not-balloter participation				3.396*** (0.499)		2.423*** (0.511)
Political interest					six.815*** (0.689)	five.841*** (0.709)
Education	1.332*** (0.250)	1.013*** (0.251)	ane.012*** (0.249)	0.659* (0.258)	0.749** (0.242)	0.533* (0.245)
Female	0.075 (0.228)	0.063 (0.216)	0.089 (0.216)	0.007 (0.208)	0.154 (0.202)	0.126 (0.197)
Rural residence	0.156 (0.229)	0.195 (0.222)	0.179 (0.221)	0.233 (0.213)	0.254 (0.208)	0.257 (0.202)
Migration background	−0.392 (0.306)	−0.513 (0.289)	−0.521 (0.293)	−0.431 (0.285)	−0.432 (0.270)	−0.393 (0.275)
Eu attitude		−0.0002 (0.474)	0.063 (0.474)	−0.496 (0.461)	−0.135 (0.429)	−0.409 (0.427)
Trust in institutions		3.043*** (0.773)	2.964*** (0.776)	2.718*** (0.755)	1.559* (0.748)	1.464* (0.738)
Dem. satisfaction: National		0.135 (0.281)	0.126 (0.282)	0.255 (0.276)	0.103 (0.264)	0.184 (0.263)
Dem. satisfaction: EU		0.311 (0.259)	0.302 (0.260)	0.224 (0.258)	0.479 (0.247)	0.385 (0.246)
Impact of national parliament		1.246*** (0.265)	1.163*** (0.263)	1.011*** (0.254)	0.380 (0.253)	0.256 (0.251)
Touch of European Parliament		0.998** (0.309)	1.024** (0.314)	0.851** (0.296)	0.419 (0.289)	0.422 (0.286)
Abiding	seven.217*** (0.245)	3.960*** (0.529)	3.522*** (0.553)	3.479*** (0.504)	3.044*** (0.498)	2.413*** (0.496)
R two	0.055	0.16	0.169	0.219	0.273	0.308
Due north	699	699	699	699	699	699

We can see that turnout intention is indeed predicted to exist lower for all younger age groups. The gap betwixt these groups and the reference group of citizens over 30 is quite large: on average, respondents in the youngest groups assess their intention to vote over 1 unit of measurement lower than the reference grouping. The results as well underline that at that place are only pocket-sized differences between young people under and just over xviii. Concerning the socio-demographic controls, we find that pedagogy is significantly associated with higher levels of voting intention. The coefficients of the other controls are in the expected direction simply are not pregnant. Importantly, including basic, mainly socio-demographic controls does not account for the age gap in turnout, so it is not young citizens' place of residence or their migration background that explains lower rates of electoral participation.

Model 2 adds two further groups of controls: first, measures of democratic dissatisfaction and alienation; and second, support for European integration. In full general, we expect respondents who trust institutions, believe that they have an important influence and are satisfied with politics to likewise be more likely to vote. The attitude towards European unification is included every bit a control every bit, given that we measure out turnout in EP elections, citizens may desire to abstain because they disapprove of the EU as a whole. In the model, the only significant effects are for the variables measuring institutional trust and the perceived political touch of the national and European parliaments on the respondent's life. Moreover, these added controls exercise not substantively affect the interpretation of the key age group dummy for young people under xviii.

Next, in Models iii–6 we add our primary independent variables measuring the ability and motivation to engage in politics, first separately and so jointly. We start in Model iii adding our variable measuring political knowledge; we remove this in Model four and add non-electoral participation; Model five tests merely the effect of political interest; and finally Model 6 includes all three controls. In each of these models, our added variables are clearly significant, so they influence people's stated intention to plough out to vote. However, the nature of the historic period gap remains. As pointed out to a higher place, if these variables did explicate lower levels of turn out amidst citizens under eighteen, then they would crusade the coefficients of the dummy variables for the youngest age group to shrink or fifty-fifty cease to be significant. However, nosotros find that the coefficient for the 16-to-17 age grouping decreases simply by a very minor amount (0.fourteen units). This means that the lower turnout levels of citizens under 18 cannot satisfactorily be explained by the fact that they are not motivated or able to engage in politics.¹⁷ Interestingly, information technology is if annihilation the age group of young people aged xviii–21 where we tin observe a decrease in the size of this group'southward coefficient. Thus, citizens just over 18 appear to be substantively influenced by their lacking ability and motivation to vote, but not citizens just under 18.

In sum, the results prove while turnout amongst under-18s is indeed lower than among Austrians in general, this is non primarily due to a lack of knowledge or involvement nor due to democratic dissatisfaction and alienation. H2a and H2b are both rejected.

iv.iii. The quality of decision of voters under 18

The quality of electoral participation among citizens under 18 goes across the reasons that drive avoidance: information technology is the concern that voters nether xviii do non choose the political party that best represents their views or interests. Thus, we analyse whether the quality of the vote decisions taken by voters under 18 in one case they turn out to vote is any dissimilar from those of older voters.

We examine vote pick quality directly, though of grade this is a concept that is difficult to gauge. We operationalise it equally the ideological congruence between voters and the party they want to vote for: the greater the ideological similarity between a voter and the party she chooses, the higher the quality of vote choice. This is a simplified approximation of the conventional operationalisation of 'right voting', which uses measures of voter preferences on a number of dissimilar bug by which the competing candidates or parties tin be distinguished, as well equally on some defensibly objective measure out (such every bit expert judgements) of where the candidates actually stand on those same issues (e.g. Lau and Redlawsk, 1997; Lau et al., 2008).¹⁸ Although such detailed measures are non available to us, nosotros believe our simplified approach provides a good indication of whether voters choose a political party that is ideologically relatively shut to them.

Our main comparison concerns voter-party congruence on the left–right dimension. This dimension tin can be considered a shortcut or heuristic that voters utilise in social club to simplify ideological competition. The left–right dimension has been found to provide an appropriate measure of citizens' general ideological orientations (Fuchs and Klingemann, 1990; Huber, 1989) and to influence vote option, also in Austria (Hellwig, 2008). Thus, we use the left–right shortcut device to examination our hypothesis.

Nosotros measure congruence on the left–right dimension as the absolute distance of the voter from the party she voted for. Voter positions are measured using respondent self-assessments on a 0–10 left–right calibration. Our first version of the left–right congruence measure compares this self-cess with the voter's own placement of the party she voted for; the mean absolute left–right distances for our 5 age groups are shown in the top-left graph of Fig. 4.¹⁹ 2nd, we compared respondent self-placements with expert survey scores from Hooghe et al. (2010), who asked their respondents to place Austrian parties on a general 0–ten left–right scales; these results are shown in the top-right graph. We can see that there are no significant differences between the different groups of voters for either left–correct measure out. While the mean distance is slightly higher amidst the younger voters, the deviation is minimal.

Quality of vote choice, historic period group differences. Annotation: mean values by historic period group shown; bars indicate 95% confidence intervals around the hateful; dashed line indicates overall mean; see Appendix for question details.

As the survey was carried out in the context of EP elections, it might be that voters at that time cared more about congruence on the dimension of European integration rather than on the general left–right dimension. Nosotros present these results in the bottom ii graphs in Fig. 4. Since the survey contains no assessments of political party positions on this topic, we once more use the Hooghe et al. (2010) scores, who asked experts to score parties on their 'overall orientation towards European integration' using a 1–7 scale which we rescaled to range from 0 to ten. Nosotros carry out two comparisons. Outset, we compare voter's positions on European unification with rescaled party scores (bottom-left graph). Second, we separate voters into 2 groups – sceptical and not sceptical of integration – and compare these with Hooghe et al.'south dichotomised measure of party positions (bottom-right graph).²⁰ Both measurement approaches show that there are no significant differences between age groups. To the extent that differences – even if not statistically distinguishable – are present, information technology is the younger voters whose vote option is more congruent with party positions on European integration. This is an indication that voters nether 18 put some accent on the bug that the election, in this case the EP election, is about.

In sum, when because the precise choices made, we have no convincing testify that the voting decisions of voters under xviii are in whatever mode of lesser quality, that is, less congruent, than that of older groups of voters. There is thus no prove in favour of H3.

5. Give-and-take and conclusion

Critics of lowering the voting historic period to 16 accept argued that such teenage citizens are not able or motivated to participate effectively in politics and that this both drives their turnout decisions and means that their electoral choices are of lower quality. We accept tested whether these criticisms have an empirical ground using testify from Austria, the one European country where the voting age has already been lowered for nation-wide elections.

Our findings show the critics wrong. Starting time, we do non discover that citizens nether 18 are particularly unable or unwilling to participate effectively in politics. Second, while turnout among this group is relatively depression, we find no evidence that this is driven by a lacking ability or motivation to participate. Instead, 18- to 21-year-olds are if anything the more problematic grouping. Finally, we do not notice that the vote choices of citizens under 18 reflect their preferences less well than those of older voters do. In sum, lowering the voting age does not appear to have a negative touch on input legitimacy and the quality of democratic decisions. This means that the potential positive consequences of this reform merit particular consideration and should besides be empirically studied.

Is it possible to generalise from the Austrian feel? We believe so. It is not the case that Austrian teenagers are particularly unusual in a comparative context. If anything, in that location are two features of the Austrian case that would indicate that young Austrians are non particularly interested or engaged in politics. For one, the general educational test scores of Austrian schoolhouse-children are relatively depression compared to other OECD countries (OECD, 2011). Moreover, there is testify that it is immature voters in Austria who are about likely to plow to protest parties such as those on the radical correct (eastward.chiliad. Wagner and Kritzinger, 2012; Schwarzer and Zeglovits, 2009). Thus, nosotros do non call back that Austrians nether 18 are likely to be outliers in their political involvement and noesis compared to teenagers in other countries; if anything, Austria would be a country where we might expect citizens nether eighteen to be specially unmotivated to participate in politics.

Information technology is too of import to note that our written report has focused on 1 point in fourth dimension. It is therefore impossible for us to distinguish betwixt cohort and age furnishings. In other words, we cannot say with certainty whether citizens nether 18 compare favourably with citizens over eighteen because of their age or because of their cohort. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that there will be strong cohort differences betwixt such small differences in ages, so we believe our findings should reflect general historic period differences rather than time-specific cohort differences.

Finally, our written report leaves many questions for future research. A peculiarly important question – especially in the lite of our results of the 18–21 age grouping – is the beingness of a addiction of voting among teenage citizens (Franklin, 2004). Specifically, it may be easier to instil a habit of voting amongst those who are still in school and live at home. However, observing a addiction requires longer-term data, and citizens under xviii have just had the vote in Republic of austria for 4 years and in one national parliamentary ballot. Nosotros hope that future research will examine whether today'due south teenage citizens volition be more likely to develop a habit of voting than citizens who were first able to vote at an older age.

A farther important topic is the nature of participation amid young people today. Dalton (2009) has argued that younger generations are engaged in a variety of social and political activities beyond voting, with more than straight, action-oriented participation on the increment. Several authors accept institute supporting evidence for this from the Britain (Henn et al., 2005, 2002; O'Toole et al., 2003). Dalton'southward argument likewise fits with i our findings, namely that younger people are more probable to say that they would demonstrate in back up of their political goals. Younger citizens might see voting as less essential and instead plow to non-electoral forms of participation in order to influence political outcomes. For immature citizens, norms of engaged citizenship may be irresolute. While overall turnout rates would suggest a decrease of the bond between citizens and the democratic political system, new participation forms might mean that citizens are actually just as politically agile every bit before, or perchance fifty-fifty more so. Hereafter research should explore these other forms of political participation and assess the extent to which they are replacing voting as the main style of engaging with politics, especially for citizens nether xviii.

To conclude, our findings bear witness that a fundamental criticism of lowering the voting age to sixteen does non hold: there is little evidence that these citizens are less able or less motivated to participate effectively in politics. This ways that critics of lowering the voting age to 16 need to look once again at the arguments they use, and that in that location are important reasons to consider the potential positive touch on of such a reform more closely.

Footnotes

³This inquiry is conducted under the auspices of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Research Fund (FWF) (S10903-G11). The authors would like to thank Marking Franklin, Kasper K. Hansen, Wolfgang C. Müller, Kaat Smets, Eva Zeglovits and the anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article, which was also presented at the Colloquium of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Enquiry (MZES) and the PSAI-Conference, Dublin.

^fourIn Republic of austria the voting historic period was lowered to 16 for national elections in 2007. Five German Länder have also inverse the minimum voting age to 16, and the reform now has official backing of all chief British parties apart from the Conservatives (Votes at 16, 2008).

^fiveLow turnout is also a concern when the preferences of non-voters are different from those of voters (Lutz and Marsh, 2007). In the instance of immature people under 18, there are two potential problems. First, those under 18 may have different preferences than those over xviii, so low turnout of citizens under xviii may mean that their interests are less well-represented. Second, among immature people under 18, in that location may be a bias in who votes and who does not. This would over again result in unequal representation of interests. In both cases, this would accept negative consequences for democracy (Verba, 2001). Notwithstanding, examining the problem of unequal representation goes beyond the scope of this paper.

^{half dozen}Of course, it is occasionally argued that lower turnout rates are an indication of high satisfaction with republic (e.grand. Lipset, 1959; Dittrich and Johansen, 1983). From this perspective lower turnout rates, particularly amidst young voters, do not endanger the health of republic.

^viiInstead of the expected long term positive effect, such as encouraging voting as a habit (Franklin et al., 2004), lowering the voting historic period may thus rather stimulate habitual non-voting (Balloter Commission, 2004).

^viiiNonetheless, the literature provides a substantial corporeality of reasons why young citizens nether eighteen and citizens anile eighteen or more are different from each other: for instance, young people nether 18 are more than likely to alive at home with their families and to still attend schoolhouse, leading to potentially dissimilar socialisation effects at the time of their first ballot (east.g. Highton and Wolfinger, 2001).

^nineCo-ordinate to the Electoral Commission (2004), the following other countries have a voting historic period under 18: Iran (15); Brazil, Republic of cuba, and Nicaragua (16); and East timor, Indonesia, North korea, the Seychelles and the Sudan (17).

^tenThe data can be downloaded from http://methods.univie.ac.at/.

^elevenThose nether 25 are commonly seen as young (east.grand. European Commission, 2001); we add another group of citizens up to xxx as they would typically withal be considered every bit young in Republic of austria (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, Familie und Jugend, 2011) and a quarter of Austrian university students are anile betwixt 25 and 29 and only half under 25 (Eurostat, 2011). Information technology may be a business organization that turnout will decline in onetime age, therefore obscuring differences between younger and older voters (Bhatti and Hansen, 2010). Nosotros also ran our analysis leaving out voters over 65; our results remain the same.

¹²The texts of the key questions used in these analyses are in the Appendix.

^thirteenHowever, there is likewise evidence that personal traits are not correlated with the trend to over-report (Rubenson et al., 2004).

¹⁴We also ran our analyses using three dichotomised versions of this variable, with responses coded every bit sure to vote if they were (ane) at or over eight, (2) at or over nine or (three) at 10; no noteworthy differences between our results and the results from the models were establish.

¹⁵Turnout data from the Austrian Federal Ministry for the Interior (http://world wide web.bmi.gv.at/cms/bmi_wahlen/europawahl/2009/).

¹⁶For coding details, see Appendix.

¹⁷Political interest tin can be a problematic variable in turnout models. The decision to turn out to vote may increase involvement, reversing the causality the model assumes, and it may be that involvement and turnout intention are in any case highly related concepts (Rubenson et al., 2004; Denny and Doyle, 2008). The strong effect of the involvement variable underlines this possibility. Our results excluding political interest show that the interpretation of the age gap does not depend on this one variable.

¹⁸Besides, they include additional measures of right vote decision, e.yard. by considering which of those unlike issues any voter believed to be more or less important (Lau et al., 2008).

¹⁹Of course, notation that these graphs necessarily simply include voters who felt able to position parties in the get-go place and thus have a minimal level of political knowledge.

²⁰Voters who oppose integration are those who say that membership of the EU creates mainly disadvantages for Republic of austria; respondents who practise non give that answer are coded as not being sceptical of integration.

Appendix. Variable coding

Trust in institutions

The respondents' trust in institutions was measured equally the average of four questions concerning trust in the Austrian parliament and government, the EP and the European Commission. The variable was rescaled to range from 0 to 1. The blastoff reliability coefficient of the calibration is 0.86.

Satisfaction with national and EU democracy

Satisfaction with national and Eu commonwealth are each measured using a four-point scale, with answers rescaled to range from 0 to 1.

Participation across voting

The willingness to engage in each of the v activities was rated on a four-bespeak calibration. Overall non-balloter political participation was measured as the average answer to the five questions. The scale ranges from 0 to 1. The blastoff reliability coefficient of this scale is 0.75.

Interest in politics

The respondents' interest in politics is measured as the average of answers to viii questions tapping attention to politics in full general and the EP campaign in particular. The variable was rescaled to range from 0 to one. The alpha reliability coefficient of the calibration is 0.81.

Political noesis

Political noesis is measured past assessing whether respondents correctly place the Social Democrats (SPÖ) to the left of the 2 far-right parties (FPÖ and BZÖ) and the People's Political party (ÖVP).

Attitude towards European integration

The attitude towards European integration is measured using a question request for opinions on whether the EU had integrated too much already or should integrate more, on a 10-indicate scale. This was rescaled to range from 0 to one, with positive values indicating a pro-integration opinion.

Touch of the national parliament

The touch of the national parliament is 1 for respondents who say that the parliament has a 'strong' impact on them personally, 0 otherwise.

EP impact

EP impact compares the perceived influence of the national parliament and the EP; it is i if the EP is not seen every bit weaker than the national parliament. Specifically, it is coded 0 if the EP is the EP is seen as having a depression or no bear upon and the national parliament has a strong impact, 1if not.

Education

Education is coded as 1 if the respondent is at or went to academy or is at a schoolhouse leading to a degree that allows university entrance; other respondents coded as 0.

Gender

Gender is coded ane for women, 0 for men.

Migration background

Migration background is i if the respondent or one of his/her parents was built-in outside of Republic of austria, 0 if not.

Rural residence

Rural residence is coded 1 for those living in a village in a rural area, in a village most a medium-sized or large city, or in a small rural town and coded 0 otherwise.

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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020373/

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