Unrepresentedness, climate concern and voting behavior: understanding youth voter turnout in European elections

Alessandro Cascavilla ()
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Alessandro Cascavilla: Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 2025, vol. 25, issue 3, No 1, 343-358

Abstract: Abstract Participation in European elections has been declining over the last decades, especially among young citizens. In order to invert this trend, it is essential to understand what brings young voters to participate in the European Parliament (EP) elections. This study investigates the determinants of 2024 European Parliament elections turnout across young electors, addressing for scarcely explored determinants such as the perception of being unrepresented and the individual climate change concern, as well as controlling for political, institutional, and socio-economic factors. Conducting an original survey across 1642 young Italian citizens, the results show that the likelihood of voting in EP elections is positively associated with the presence of concurrent elections, it is larger across subjects who tend to be more informed, who show higher trust in European Parliament, and those who declare a larger individual’s climate change concern. On the contrary, there are high abstention levels among citizens reporting they feel underrepresented, evidencing the potential self-reinforcing cycle of political disengagement.

Keywords: Voting behavior; Electoral turnout; Climate change; Concurrent elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10784-025-09666-0

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