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Authors: Reto Mitteregger
Cited by: 0

Abstract

RESUBMITTED FOR ANONYMIZATION - ORIGINAL REGISTRATION FROM MARCH 25 2024 Research on generational change has repeatedly shown that younger voters’ attitudes and behavior diverge from older voters. Still, much less is known about the importance that different age groups attach to certain issues. In this paper, I argue that issue-salience di- vergences between age groups are relevant in understanding political differences between young and old voters in contemporary societies. Hence, this paper discusses the role of (micro-) dimensional salience and empirically tests whether age groups are polarized re- garding the importance they attach to political issues. This paper relies on two studies: First, by relying on a pairwise comparison experiment, I test whether age groups differ in the priority they assess to certain issues and subset the data into ideological subgroups. I expect younger voters today to perceive socio-cultural issue bundles as more important than older voters. I aim to test this by using original experimental survey data from Ger- many and Switzerland.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Electoral Systems and Political Participation Computational and Text Analysis Methods Populism Right-Wing Movements

Publication details

Journal / source
OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints)
Publication date
4 March 2026
Document type
Preprint