ABSTRACT
Generational replacement is one of the most important drivers of social and political change. This is because values and voting habits are acquired early in life and then remain relatively stable over time. While scholars do not deny that parents still play an important role in socialization of young children and adolescents, Inglehart made it clear that the post-war generations did not simply "inherit" parental values and loyalties. The "engine of generational replacement" is particularly clear in the evolution of long-term change in electoral turnout, which has declined almost everywhere among advanced industrial democracies in recent years. The unfreezing of party systems has resulted in lower overall levels of partisanship and higher levels of volatility as younger voters give support to new party offerings, perhaps voting for different parties in successive elections. As well as showing very distinct differences between US and Europe in terms of the timing of partisanship decline graphs also show differences in overall strength of partisanship.
