This article asks whether living through elections that unseat heads of government — “electoral turnovers” — affects citizens’ long-term support for democracy. Using a large merge of international surveys and historical election records, the author traces how many turnovers each respondent experienced across their life and uses cohort comparisons to estimate whether exposure predicts democratic support. The contribution is a broad, cross-national assessment that highlights how recent and repeated turnovers, especially after long incumbencies, relate to higher reported support for democracy.
Bold methods and measures: merged international survey data, historical electoral turnover exposure, cohort analysis
Data and methods
The study combines multiple international surveys covering more than 350,000 respondents in seventy-nine countries with about a century of electoral data to identify which national electoral turnovers each respondent was exposed to across their life. The author employs cohort analysis to compare respondents with different lifetime exposure to turnovers, emphasizing variation in exposure timing (for example, turnovers after extended incumbency). The abstract describes the merged surveys and matched electoral records but does not provide additional technical details in the summary.
Main findings
Cohort comparisons indicate that greater exposure to electoral turnovers is associated with higher and more durable support for democracy. The abstract notes the effect is particularly pronounced for turnovers that follow prolonged incumbency and that the positive association appears across many contexts but is strongest among people who have always lived under democratic rule.
- Exposure to turnovers after long incumbencies shows a stronger positive association with democratic support.
- The relationship holds broadly across contexts but is largest for respondents who have always lived in a democracy.
