Do New Generations Still Perceive Voting as a "Civic Duty" in Spain?

This article looks at the evolution of the relationship to voting in Spain according to cohorts since the 1980s. Do the cohorts who only grew up in a democracy and, therefore, neither experienced Franco's dictatorship nor the conquest of the right to vote following the Transition still consider voting a 'civic duty'? Is the socialization to civic duty still sufficient for new generations to mobilize at the ballot box, especially in times of crisis? Civic duty is one of the most explanatory factors of electoral participation (Blais, 2000; Blais & Daoust, 2020). Citizens internalize this attitude during their formative years (Grasso et al., 2014; Neundorf & Smets, 2020). It remains relatively stable over the short and long term (Galais et al., 2020; Blais et al., 2020b). In turn, the 2008 crisis has eroded the moral basis of voting among the new "critical" Spanish generations, although it remains high (Galais & Blais, 2014; García-Albacete et al., 2014). To do so, we use post-electoral surveys designed by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas between 1979 and 2019. To measure the generation gap in the perception of voting as a civic duty, we use the question, designed initially by Blais & Achen and available between 2008 and 2019. It is less affected than others by the social desirability bias (Blais & Achen, 2019; Blais & Daoust, 2020; Galais & Blais, 2021). Next, this change in the relationship to voting is analyzed according to the cohort, level of education, and social class. It is analyzed in several indicators between 1986 and 2005: declaring that they 'always' vote, 'irregularly' vote, or 'always abstain,' and the acceptability of abstention as an acceptable means of action. We compare that data with the declaration of voting frequency in 2017's European Values Study in general, European, and local elections. Then, intermittence in voting is reconstituted thanks to a longitudinal study of the declaration of abstention in general and European elections between 1979 and 2019. Several multilevel regressions are designed to disentangle age, period, and cohort effects (APC). First, we show that abstention is becoming a more acceptable means of action in the 'action repertoire' of cohorts born and socialized in democracy. The more recent the cohort, the less likely it is to declare 'voting in all elections.' Plus, new Spanish generations oscillate between intermittent voting and systematic abstention depending on their social profile and the context of the elections. The cohorts born after the 1970s still participate intermittently and significantly in first-order elections, but not out of 'civic duty.' On the one hand, among that new generation, intermittent voting is more important among "critical" citizens. From another hand, systematic abstention habits tend to be more significant among those who did not have a higher level of education or have a temporary contract. The Spanish case does shed light on the evolution of voting cultures of new generations in other Western and South European democracies.