There was a great deal of media attention in the United Kingdom (UK) following the May 2015 General Election on the impact of older voters on the election of a government that self-evidently set out to court what has become known as the ‘grey vote’, with a range of pledges including a promise to extend the ‘triple lock’ protection for the state pension until 2020. Whilst in reality the lives of lots of ordinary older people have been adversely affected by huge cuts in social care budgets, the idea that older people should at least appear to be supported in the face of austerity is tied to the recognition that this group is far more likely to vote than a younger demographic. In the 2010 election, three-quarters of 60-year-olds voted in comparison to less than half of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24. This led to the Institute for Public Policy Research, UK to suggest that the government introduce a legal obligation to vote on first-time voters in order to address this imbalance in perceived and actual political influence. Brittany Bramlett's investigation of ‘senior power’ (the mobilisation of older people in order to exercise collective political influence) and ‘senior peril’ (the notion that older people become less politically engaged and more isolated and powerless as they age) offers a useful analysis of this phenomenon in the specific context of older adult locales in the United States of America (USA). Bramlett sets out to explore the impact of the growing numbers of ‘aged communities’ in the USA upon the political behaviour of older people in relation to models of ‘senior power’ and ‘senior peril’.

In this study, Bramlett asks what sort of social and political context develops when a lot of older people live in one place and considers whether aged communities offer increased opportunities for focused political discussions, the sharing of information and collective influence, and ‘why and how an aged community exhibits unique political knowledge, issue attitudes, efficacy levels, and voting behaviour’ (p. 27). She sets out to test the proposition that the ‘aged context is unique socially and politically’ (p. 36) by way of a series of analyses based upon data drawn from the National Annenberg Election Surveys, and US Census data using a combination of analytical techniques and multi-level modelling. The conclusions that she draws on the basis of this analysis are not particularly surprising, although the importance of this work is the production of an evidential basis to support what are fairly intuitive propositions. For instance, the analysis indicates that places with high concentrations of older adults living in close proximity tend to produce people that know more about the political system and issues that impact upon their interests than peers living elsewhere (Chapter 4). However, people over the age of 75 are less politically engaged and politically knowledgeable than ‘emergent older adults' (age 65–74) for reasons that Bramlett suggests are connected to increasing levels of impairment related to advanced ageing (p. 62). There is also evidence that aged communities have the potential to become sites of collective action but often lack ‘political efficacy’ and influence for a variety of reasons – including deliberate disengagement, cynicism about the potential for change and the impact of ‘increased health challenges’ (Chapter 6). Perhaps the most interesting findings of the study relate to the assumption that one of the consequences of an ageing population might be intergenerational conflict around the welfare ‘safety net’. However, Bramlett's analysis of the data indicates that younger adults who are aware of the needs of older people are more likely to support what she describes as ‘safety net policies’ (Chapter 5).

Bramlett emphasises the importance of her work's contribution to scholarship on ageing and political behaviour throughout, particularly with regards to her consideration of the behaviours of the current population and her use of multi-level modelling in order to demonstrate that distinctive political attitudes and attributes are directly related to the aged community context. The book certainly offers very useful information about ageing and political behaviour in the USA, although it is perhaps of primary interest to social scientists given its emphasis upon method and process at the expense of a more qualitative and sustained interpretation of the data and its political implications. It is less illuminating in relation to an understanding of ageing and political behaviour in the UK for a number reasons primarily related to context specificity, the absence of the kind of vast, gated retirement communities that have emerged in the USA, and some very different attitudes towards politics and welfare. However, Bramlett's work lays the groundwork for what is an increasingly important issue: the relationship between ageing, an aged context and political attitudes, understanding and behaviour.