The overarching question that Achim Goerres (Universität Duisburg-Essen) and Pieter Vanhuysse (University of Southern Denmark) ask in Global Political Demography is how the ever-evolving political economy and political sociology traits of some population groups relative to others – notably in terms of numerical size, economic clout and political capacity – can be expected to affect public policies, political actions and political order, via the intermediary of political and institutional processes, and how this may then produce various feedback effects. What does the demographic profile in terms of statics and dynamics tell us about the political problems that a country or a macro-region was facing in 1990, is facing today and will be facing by 2040? This demographic structure, in turn, reflects stages of socio-economic modernisation. Cohort sizes influence citizens’ demand on the state in certain policy areas, as mediated by institutions, notably constellations of trade unions and age-relevant interest groups, electoral, legal and constitutional rules, policy and governance cultures and welfare state regimes. The degree to which these factors affect a cohort’s relative political power will then affect its command of policy resources and the cornerstones of political order.
In order to analyse the many variables covered in their book empirically and coherently, they have built the Global Political Demography Database as an empirical companion to this book, which covers many more countries than they can analyse in-depth here. All chapters in Global Political Demography have used this database; in addition, all regional chapters in the book also feature a similar set of three population pyramids to streamline the analysis.
Goerres, A., Vanhuysse, P., Krause, S., Elis, J. (2020). Global Political Demography Database, Version 1.4.1, November 2020, available at https://osf.io/xcvdh/.
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