The Political Participation of Older People in Europe: The Greying of our Democracies

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Tables......Page 11
List of Figures......Page 12
About the Author......Page 14
Preface......Page 15
List of Abbreviations......Page 17
1 Introduction: The Political Participation of Older People in an Era of Demographic Ageing......Page 20
1.1 Exploring the political participation of older people in Europe......Page 22
1.2 The 'state of the art' in the literature on the political participation of older people......Page 27
1.3 A model for studying the political participation of older people......Page 31
1.4 The country-level implications of age-related effects......Page 34
1.5 Organisation of the book......Page 37
2.1 Assumptions about human nature......Page 41
2.2 A modified resource-based perspective on political participation......Page 43
2.3 Age-related effects on political behaviour and their implications for ageing societies......Page 48
2.4 Summary of propositions......Page 56
3 Voting Participation......Page 58
3.1 The cohort explanation of voting participation......Page 59
3.2 Methodological excursion: An international cross-sectional approach......Page 62
3.3 Independent individual-level variables......Page 70
3.4 International cross-sectional regression analysis......Page 73
3.5 Summary and discussion......Page 85
4 Party Choice in Britain and West Germany......Page 88
4.1 Voting for old age interests: The failure of grey parties......Page 91
4.2 Descriptive analysis of age groups and political generations......Page 93
4.3 Combined hypothesis testing in multivariate regressions......Page 101
4.4 Summary and discussion......Page 112
5 Membership of Political Organisations......Page 114
5.1 The dynamics of changing membership structures......Page 116
5.2 Analysing differences at the individual level......Page 120
5.3 Longitudinal analysis of age structures of membership in 25 European countries......Page 130
5.4 Summary and discussion......Page 138
6 Non-institutionalised Participation outside Organisations......Page 141
6.1 Average levels of participation and the age ratio by country......Page 143
6.2 Longitudinal analysis of Western Europe 1981–2000......Page 145
6.3 Multivariate regression analysis......Page 149
6.4 Summary and discussion......Page 156
7 The Experience of Older Participants in the English Council Tax Protests in 2004/5......Page 158
7.1 The background of the council tax protests and protesters......Page 159
7.2 Resources and motivation to protest in old age......Page 162
7.3 The experience of social images of old age and protest......Page 168
7.4 The lack of a common senior identity......Page 171
7.5 Mobilisation and opportunities for older protesters......Page 173
7.6 A new generation of protesting older people......Page 174
7.7 Summary and discussion......Page 176
8 Summary and Conclusions......Page 178
8.1 Older people's political participation – a summary......Page 179
8.2 Why the findings matter for political behaviourists and social gerontologists......Page 186
8.3 Why the findings matter for ageing democracies......Page 189
Appendix......Page 195
Notes......Page 204
References......Page 211
B......Page 226
D......Page 227
E......Page 228
H......Page 229
K......Page 230
M......Page 231
O......Page 232
P......Page 233
S......Page 234
V......Page 235
Z......Page 236