The Effects of Generational Differences on the Formation Redistribution Preferences and Electoral Behaviour in Western Europe

Summary (no more than 500 words) The rise of economic inequalities in Western European democracies has provoked significant shocks in the policy and electoral preferences of large shares of the electorates (Piketty 2020). However, it remains unclear whether such rising economic insecurity heightens redistribution preferences and drives voters towards social democratic parties. Why rising economic inequalities do not foster a higher demand for economic redistribution and instead drive a general tendency towards conservative reactions to economic inequalities remains debated (Hopkin 2020; Norris and Inglehart 2019), and young people appear critical of the economy and increasingly supportive of challenger parties (Milburn 2019; Giugni and Grasso 2021).
The relevant scholarship usually explains the formation of redistribution preferences as an effect of changes in personal economic circumstances, the former being the intervening factors shaping vote choice (Meltzer and Richard 1981; Rueda and Stegmueller 2019). Economic voting arguments nevertheless overlook the extent to which economic views may depend on the experience of political socialisation of voters (Inglehart and Abramson 1994; Inglehart 2008; Grasso et al. 2019).
This research enhances this state-of-the-art by drawing on a political socialisation perspective of generational politics. In particular, it examines the cross-generational effects of exposure to economic insecurity during youth on policy and electoral preferences and assesses the extent to which redistribution preferences matter in the electoral choice between a mainstream and a challenger party.
The project is informed by main research questions: (i) does the experience of economic insecurity during early adulthood have a lasting effect on redistribution preferences, especially during periods of economic hardship? (ii) do redistribution preferences drive the electoral choice of people who experienced economic insecurity in their youth more than people who grew up in a different socioeconomic context? The aim is to assess if the formative experience of economic insecurity has an enduring effect on attitudes during periods of economic hardship and if people who experienced early economic insecurity have a higher propensity to vote challenger parties than people who did not.
To address these questions, I will implement a Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort analysis with pooled data on individual-level preferences from several Western European democracies and test the effect of redistribution preferences on electoral choice using conjoint survey experiments fielded in two crucial country cases, the United Kingdom and Italy.
This research provides an original contribution to the debate around the political effects of inequalities, enlightening the importance of considering formative experiences as a rival explanation of the formation of redistribution preferences and voting behaviour. It will constitute a relevant piece of knowledge to explain relevant aspects of the currently ongoing political transformation of democracy in Western Europe.