Age and Political Alienation: Maturation, Generation and Period Effects

Abstract

Trends in political alienation may be defined in terms of one or more of three age-related explanations reflecting different aspects of change over time. These may be posed as the following set of hypotheses: (1) trends in political alienation represent cumulative effects of maturational pro cesses—aging—of subgroups within the population; (2) trends in political alienation represent the flow of successive generational cohorts through the population; (3) trends in political alienation reflect political and historical events or periods which affect all members of the population in a similar fashion. The purpose of this research is to discern the plausibility of these hypotheses by analyzing data on political alienation via the technique of cohort analysis. An analysis of three nationwide political attitude surveys re vealed that, of the three possible explanations, the historical or period effect best explains changes in political alienation across the years 1952 to 1968. Much less marked is a trend attributable to generational effects. No maturation or aging effects were evident.