The Kids Are Alright: The Role of Civic Knowledge in Electoral Punishment and Democratic Accountability

Recent scholarship has raised significant concerns about declining democratic commitment among younger generations. Studies document lower rates of electoral participation and weaker support for democratic norms among Millennials and Gen Z compared to older cohorts, sparking debate about whether democracy is experiencing generational deconsolidation. However, we argue that this generational interpretation conflates age-related differences in democratic competence—citizens' ability to distinguish democratic from undemocratic practices—with fundamental differences in democratic values. While previous research has examined whether younger generations value democracy less, we investigate whether they can recognize democratic transgressions when evaluating political leaders. Using conjoint experimental data from over 9,900 respondents and 199,920 observations across seven European countries (Estonia, Germany, Poland, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, and Ukraine), this study tests whether apparent generational differences in electoral accountability can be explained by variations in democratic knowledge rather than generation per se. Our analysis reveals three key findings. First, democratic competence increases systematically with age: 68% of Gen Z respondents are democratically competent (correctly valuing democratic over undemocratic practices) compared to 88% of Baby Boomers. Second, and most critically, within-generation variation in electoral punishment due to democratic competence substantially exceeds between-generation variation. Across all countries, citizens with high democratic competence punish undemocratic candidates 8-24 percentage points more than those with low competence within the same generation—a range 6-16 times larger than the 1.5 percentage point difference between generations overall. Third, this pattern replicates robustly across diverse political contexts, from Nordic democracies to post-communist states. These findings challenge narratives about generational democratic decline. Rather than representing a cohort-specific rejection of democratic norms, the observed generational differences appear largely attributable to age-related gaps in civic knowledge necessary to translate democratic commitments into electoral behavior.