<p>Political participation is an inherently future-oriented activity. Whereas single country case studies suggest that future orientation can influence voting and non-electoral political participation (NEP), its cross-national generalizability and an empirical test of the national political and economic context that would moderate this relationship has not been conducted. We address this gap via a multi-level analysis of the European Social Survey 2018; the political opportunity structure, measured with a liberal democracy index, and economic instability are, respectively, the macro-level political and economic factors. We found that general future-orientation is correlated with voting and NEP even controlling for standard micro-level factors. Whereas the level of democracy does not change this relationship, higher levels of economic instability weaken the link between future orientation and political participation. Predicted probabilities are modest. Thus, there is empirical support for the theory that future orientation is associated with political participation across European nations.</p>