Learning to vote in democratic and authoritarian elections

Abstract

High turnout levels are key to legitimacy in new democracies, ultimately contributing to their consolidation. However, little is known about the determinants of long-term electoral participation and how the legacies of authoritarian and democratic elections compare. To investigate these individual-level legacies, we rely on socialization and institutional theories of turnout, which have not been tested in authoritarian settings. We rely on newly harmonized public opinion data covering over 106 countries from 1975 to 2016 to estimate generational differences in propensity to vote. Leveraging within-country variation, we confirm the positive effects of early opportunities on turnout later in life. Generations of voters who experienced their formative years in authoritarian contexts without national elections are less likely to take up opportunities to vote later in life than those with some formative experience of elections, even uncompetitive ones. However, experiencing high numbers of uncompetitive elections, typical in authoritarian elections, can jade voters.