Author
Listed:
- Susanne Garritzmann
(Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
- Sigrid Roßteutscher
(Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
- Arndt Leininger
(Institute of Political Science, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany)
- Birgit Becker
(Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
- Thorsten Faas
(Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science, Free University of Berlin, Germany)
- Max P. Jansen
(Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany)
- Armin Schäfer
(Institute of Political Science, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany)
Abstract
Unequal political participation increasingly challenges democracies. The turnout gap is particularly large among younger voters, with severe implications for future developments of democratic representation, legitimacy, and quality. This article focuses on the role of political efficacy beliefs in explaining unequal turnout among newly enfranchised citizens. We argue that internal political efficacy beliefs are particularly important for turnout among the newly enfranchised from lower-class backgrounds, as they lack alternative mobilizing factors such as politically aware and active parents, political knowledge, and mobilizing networks. Furthermore, we argue that once these voters successfully turn out in their first election, they are as likely as those from higher-class backgrounds to turn out in their second election. We empirically test these arguments using original longitudinal data on newly enfranchised citizens from three German federal states (Bundesländer). Overall, our results support the argument: Political efficacy beliefs are a stronger predictor of first turnout among young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds compared to those from more advantaged backgrounds, and those who do turn out are as likely as those with higher-class backgrounds to turn out in their second election. This highlights the relevance of political efficacy beliefs in the (re)production of persisting political inequality.
Suggested Citation
Susanne Garritzmann & Sigrid Roßteutscher & Arndt Leininger & Birgit Becker & Thorsten Faas & Max P. Jansen & Armin Schäfer, 2025.
"Unequal Turnout Among the Newly Enfranchised: The Role of Political Efficacy,"
Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 13.
Handle:
RePEc:cog:poango:v13:y:2025:a:9196
DOI: 10.17645/pag.9196
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v13:y:2025:a:9196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.