Reto Mitteregger
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Social Sciences
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. My research spans political sociology, political behavior, party systems, and political economy, with a particular focus on generational and age-related differences in voting and attitudes in Western European societies.
Before joining the Humboldt-Universität, I was a researcher at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Zurich, where I completed my PhD in 2025 with a dissertation on generational voting effects in Western Europe. During my PhD, I was also a guest researcher at the University of Amsterdam.
My research has appeared in World Politics, West European Politics, Electoral Studies, the European Journal of Political Research, and the Swiss Political Science Review, among others.
Peer-reviewed publications
Nothing else matters: Salience Differences between age groups
Younger generations' attitudes and behavior increasingly diverge from those of older individuals. To better understand these political differences, it is relevant to analyze whether younger citizens also disagree about "what matters" in politics. However, this assumption of younger voters' different salience perceptions has rarely been tested for a large range of issues. Thus, this paper argues that younger and older citizens differ in issue salience and specifically suggests that younger generations perceive cultural issues as more salient. To test this, I use novel survey data collected in Germany (N = 2,509) and Switzerland (N = 2,494) and apply rating tasks and a pairwise choice experiment, looking at young and older respondents' salience regarding six political issue areas and a selection of 42 political issues derived from widely used voting advice applications in the respective countries. The results show that issues related to gender equality and certain age-related socioeconomic policies, such as rent prices, are more salient for younger than older respondents, whereas immigration is more important for older generations. This points to both value change and self-interest that divides salience assessments. Overall, these findings can help understand diverging political perceptions and the resulting electoral differences between younger and older generations.
In many advanced democracies, newer generations and younger citizens are less likely to vote than earlier generations and older individuals. However, despite this being an established empirical matter, less is known about the reasons why they decide to stay away from the polls. This 'Age-Period-Cohort' (APC) study analyzes generational and age differences in reasons for abstaining using Swiss SELECTS post-election survey data from 1995 to 2023. We specifically examine the self-reported motivations of abstainers and how they diverge across cohorts and age groups. Our analysis demonstrates that newer cohorts of Swiss citizens are more likely to justify their abstention by indicating low levels of political interest and a lack of political knowledge, whereas age differences in reason-giving point to higher levels of political disillusionment among older non-voters. These findings have broad implications for understanding the higher levels of electoral abstention of younger generations and highlight ways of addressing these issues.
How Generational Replacement Feeds the Urban-Rural Divide: Evidence from Switzerland (1995–2023)
Conflicts about 'place' are increasingly shaping the politics of advanced democracies, and voters are ever more divided along the urban-rural divide. However, this does not mean that members of all generations are growing apart. Instead, the urban-rural divide is stronger among younger generations, who are slowly replacing older, less divided ones. To demonstrate this, we combine post-election surveys from Switzerland spanning 28 years with macro data on the municipality level to examine the role of different cohorts in the urban-rural divide using age-period-cohort logistic regressions. The results reveal that the role of place is stronger for newer cohorts, with more recently socialized urbanites holding more progressive immigration attitudes and preferring left-wing parties compared to earlier urban cohorts. In contrast, whereas newer cohorts in urban contexts are less likely to vote for the far-right than their older neighbors, this is not the case for the same cohorts in more rural places. The results help to understand the role of generational replacement in explaining the growing differences between urban and rural citizens in Europe.
Trade-offs of social democratic party strategies in a pluralized issue space: a conjoint analysis
This article provides a novel framework and empirical test of the strategic trade-offs of political parties' programmatic appeals. In a pluralized issue space, political positions have the potential to create severe strategic trade-offs for political parties, with gains among one group of voters offset by losses among another. Existing research assumes that these trade-offs are especially prominent for social democratic parties but does not directly test whether specific subelectorates respond differently to particular programmatic appeals. To identify trade-offs for social democratic parties, the authors ran conjoint experiments in six Western European countries. Respondents could choose between programs that varied on several issue dimensions. The authors find that trade-offs among potential social democratic voters are less pronounced than the literature expects, especially regarding economic policies. The findings also establish two underrated challenges for social democratic parties: the existence of stronger trade-offs between age groups and the potential longer-term consequences of salience trade-offs.
Overlooked De- and Realignment: Cohort Differences in Consideration Sets
While it is established that core values and voting behaviour persistently differ between birth cohorts, less is known about the consideration set stage that lies between those two points of the electoral decision. However, studying cohort differences in the consideration stage can help even better to detect underlying cohort-driven transformations of the electoral decision than the final vote choice. This article thus studies this 'overlooked' stage: Do newer cohorts consider voting for more parties than earlier cohorts? And how does the composition of the consideration sets differ? These questions are analysed by using data from the European Election Studies, covering thirty years and fifteen countries. APC-mixed-regressions show that newer cohorts are more likely to include more parties in their consideration sets. Furthermore, cohort differences exist regarding which parties are represented in consideration sets. Those results have important implications for understanding cohort-driven de- and realignment, as well as increasing trends of volatility.
Across Western Europe, the electoral base of formerly dominating parties on the left and the right has been eroding in the past decades. In contrast, both far-right parties and green parties could expand their vote share in numerous elections all over Western Europe - especially among younger voters. Still, those transformations in multiparty systems remain understudied: Are those electoral differences representing a cohort effect within the left and within the right bloc? This study uses survey data from ten Western European countries spanning over 60 years to test for cohort differences in political blocs. By applying multilevel logistic regression models and generalized additive mixed models, the analysis yields generational differences within the left and the right, with more recent cohorts being more likely to vote for greens than other left-wing and more likely to prefer the far-right over other right-wing parties. Those results shed light on the cohort-driven electoral realignment in Western Europe.
Cohorts and neighbors: Urban-rural conflict along the age gradient
The 2021 German Federal Election saw an increasing variation in voting behavior between both age groups and geographic groups. This paper brings these developments together and argues that the urban-rural divide is much bigger among younger than among older voters. We combine data from the German Longitudinal Election Study with original survey data and introduce the number of freelance artists at the ZIP code level as a new measure of urbanity. Using this data, we show that the urban-rural age divide concerns cultural attitudes as well as the propensity to vote. While the Greens mainly attract young voters in cities, the AfD performed well among young rural voters, particularly in Eastern Germany. At the same time, the differences between the young and the old are larger in cities than in the countryside. These results suggest that the importance of the urban-rural divide is likely to increase in future elections.
Books & book chapters
Dissertation
Generational Voting Effects in Western Europe
Reports & other publications
Media appearances
- Financial Times: Who is voting for the far-right Alternative for Germany?
- Watson: AfD-Sieg in Sachsen-Anhalt: Warum die SVP von 40 Prozent weit weg ist
- Al Jazeera: Far-right AfD and socialist left win over young Germans, election reveals
- Denknetz: Denknetz Zeitung Nr. 13
- Domani: «Ciò che è radicale diventa virale», perché i giovani in Europa e nel mondo piace l'ultradestra
- El Diario: El odio no crece en toda Europa: por qué se desploma la extrema derecha en algunos países
- Der Freitag: Mythen zu AfD & Rechtsruck: Sind junge Männer, Arbeiter und Ostdeutsche schuld?
- Le Temps: La conquête vert'libérale est partie de Zurich
- NZZ: Gleichstellungskampf trotz Krisen: Setzt sich Frauenlobby durch?
- NZZ am Sonntag: Bevölkerungswachstum: Bald gibt es 8 Milliarden Menschen
- Republik: Wie politikfaul sind die Jungen tatsächlich?
- SRF: Nachfolge von Sommaruga – Schadet der Knatsch ums weibliche Bundesratsticket der SP?
- TVP: How to get more young Europeans involved in politics?
- WOZ: Luzerner Wahlen: Die Konkordanz kehrt zurück
Under review
Life-cycle differences between cohorts in Switzerland
Shaping the Norm: The Impact of Salient Direct Democratic Campaigns on Young Voters' Political Socialization
Programmatic Trade-Offs of Green Parties in Difficult Times
Working papers
"Man-y Ways to be right": Generational Differences in male far-right voting
"Abstiegsangst": Leveraging the relegation of football teams to study the political effects of regional status loss
Progressive Placeholders
It turns out, they don't turn out: Generational Realignment and Turnout Differences in Direct Democracy (1981–2026)
Teaching
"Talking 'bout the Generations"
Beyond Social Democracy: Left-wing electorates in Europe
Beyond Social Democracy: Left-Wing Parties in Western Europe
Social Democracy in Switzerland and Europe in the 21st Century
Research Seminar: Datajournalism
Political Systems and Theories
Political Systems and Theories
Swiss Politics from a Comparative Perspective
International Relations
Contact
- reto.mitteregger@hu-berlin.de
- Universitätsstraße 3B, 10117 Berlin