How the recent crises and citizens' democratic values interact to shape political behaviour

Political culture and understandings of democracy A common interpretation of the rising electoral absenteeism is that the younger generation has alternative modes of political participation. Still, the age gap in institutional political involvement differs across Western democracies, and this cross-national variation has been largely neglected in the literature. This study alleges that citizens’ unequal representation through electoral mechanisms is due to an interplay between diverging individual and contextual determinants rather than universally construed as a lack of interest in political order and institutional channels. This paper analyzes voting between young citizens and older counterparts using the European Social Survey data from 26 European countries for the period of raising the salience of contextual issues between 2008 and 2018. The study mainly addresses the following questions: (1) how much does the age gap differ across European countries; and (2) does countries’ experience of the recent crises (economic and immigration crises and democratic backsliding) explain the age gap in electoral participation between old and young individuals. The findings raise fresh concerns about citizens’ perceptions of socioeconomic realities and democratic quality, and thus suggest further improvements on the operationalization of macroeconomic and immigration proxies and also contribute to the comparative study on democratic deficit.