Introduction: The Political Participation of Older People in an Era of Demographic Ageing

Abstract

This book is about the political participation of older people in Europe; how and why it differs from the participation of younger people; and why it matters for ageing democracies. At the moment, the public debate about the political impact of population ageing is rather superficial, with sensationalist undertones. Politicians and public commentators expect growing political pressures from a group of older people who will dominate all political processes and influence outcomes in their favour. According to this view, electoral politics in particular will be determined by people aged 50 and older who will soon be in the voting majority due to sheer numbers and their high voting propensity. In democratic systems that are based on majority decisions, this group of older voters will influence all policy outputs. This opinion is not only held by prominent elder statesmen, such as Roman Herzog, but also resonates in the writings of economists, international organisations and scientific journalists (International Monetary Fund 2004: Chapter 3; Kotlikoff and Burns 2004; Wallace 1999; Peterson 1999; Sinn and Uebelmesser 2002; see Lynch and Myrskylä forthcoming in 2009; Tepe and Vanhuysse 2008).

I am afraid to say that we are currently witnessing the early signs of a pensioners’ democracy. Older people are becoming more and more numerous, and all political parties pay extraordinary attention to them. This development could end in a situation in which older people plunder the young.

Roman Herzog, former judge at the Federal Constitutional Court (1983–94) and former President of Germany (1994–99) on the German government’s announcement in April 2008 that it would raise public pensions by 1.1 per cent and so deviate from the pension formula (Blome et al. 2008)