Understanding Youth Participation Across Europe: From Survey to Ethnography
Abstract
This edited volume presents findings from a major cross-European research project mapping the civic and political engagement of young Europeans in the context of both shared and diverse political heritages. Drawing on new survey, interview and ethnographic data, the authors discuss substantive issues relating to young people’s attitudes and activism including: attitudes to the European Union and to history; understanding of political ideologies; how attitudes to democracy are shaped by political heritage; activism in radical right wing groups and religion-based organisations; and digital activism.
These contributions make the book’s case that transnational and multi-method projects can enrich our understanding of how young people envisage their place and role in Europe’s political and civic space. The book challenges methodological assumptions that survey research shows the big picture but at the cost of local nuance or that qualitative research cannot speak beyond the individual case, and demonstrates the added explanatory value of triangulating different kinds of data.
Understanding Youth Participation Across Europe will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including Sociology, Political Sociology, Youth Studies and Political and Civic Participation.
... Nevertheless several publications in the past decade significantly agree in proposing some distinctive traits of the current relationship between youth, politics and participation [1][2][3][4][5][6]. ...
... 5 The research focused on eight main dimensions: Individual biographical paths of the activists; individual meanings and motivations of the activists; distinctive traits and lifestyles of the activists; collective activities and forms of protest; collective issues of intervention and aims; organizational instruments and strategies; collective representations and narratives; uses and representations of squats places and urban space. 6 The different empirical materials have been coded through a qualitative content analysis approach [90][91][92] on the basis of the original thematic categories and on the basis of new unexpected categories appearing in the different texts. The total tree of codes is shown below in the Table 1. ...
... Some of them explicitly expressed the desire to read the dissertation, or other published works, deriving from the research, and the researchers agreed to this. The research was connected with a project ethically approved by the University of Turin (project: DANE_RIC_LOC_15_01). 6 The article focuses on youth activism in political squats, and only some of these dimensions will be considered and even so only the activists who are under 40 years old (so to include the so-called "adult youth") and who are most involved in the activities of the squats. Subsequently three different perspectives of processing have been adopted conjointly. ...
Nowadays a lot of research describes most young people as barely interested in politics, expressing little trust in political institutions and far from any forms of institutional political participation. Moreover, most of the engaged youth are involved in forms of participation described as more civic and social than political, weakly ideological, more and more often digital and developed in virtual space, and usually experienced as one among several components of everyday personal lives. The article explores youth activism in political squats because it is a form of participation which, in countertendency, is political and radical in its aims and strategies, explicitly ideologically inspired, strongly rooted in physical places, and often quite central in everyday personal lives. The text is based on research conducted in the city of Turin (Italy) by means of qualitative interviews, participant observation and document analysis. Four main interconnected thematic dimensions are considered: Individuals’ biographical paths and meanings of activism; distinctive lifestyles and cultural sensitivities among the activists; collective narratives about contemporary society and possibilities of social change; patterns of intervention and forms of organization. On the basis of these analyses, the article maintains that this form of activism can be usefully interpreted as a real lifestyle, which has an explicit and intense political sense, but which young activists also connect with a much wider, more differentiated set of meanings.
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
En julio de 2019, Valencia acogió el XIII Congreso Español de Sociología. Allí se dieron cita numerosos especialistas en acción colectiva, que compartieron los últimos avances de sus investigaciones bajo la coordinación del Grupo de Trabajo de Movimientos Sociales de la Federación Española de Sociología. En ese encuentro se sitúa el origen de esta obra. La riqueza de los estudios allí presentados tuvo su secuela natural en una serie de fecundos debates. Los textos derivados de todo ello reclamaban ser publicados. Y demandaban un armazón que a un tiempo hiciera justicia a su valor individual y destacara las conexiones entre unos y otros, los hilos conceptuales que atraviesan la totalidad. Esta trilogía da respuesta a todo ello. Así, el primer volumen de este libro se ocupa de la Teoría sobre movimientos sociales; el segundo disecciona sus Genealogías; y el tercero reúne Estudios de caso. Si un principio recorre esta obra, es el de unidad en la diversidad. Se encontrará el lector aquí con los más diversos movimientos, analizados desde las perspectivas epistemológicas y metodológicas más variadas. Así, estos tres volúmenes son testimonio de un encuentro entre estudiosos de la acción colectiva, pero más aún, son un mapa del conocimiento sobre movimientos sociales existente al terminar el segundo decenio del siglo XXI.
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
La sucesión de denominaciones Partido de Unificación Comunista de Canarias (PUCC), Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria del Archipiélago Canario (MIRAC), Unión de Nacionalistas de Izquierda (UNI), Canarias Alternativa y Acciónenred-Canarias ha conformado a lo largo de los últimos cuarenta años una corriente sociopolítica de la izquierda canaria que bajo distintas formas organizativas -desde partidos políticos hasta organizaciones políticas no convencionales- ha ido evolucionando en el tiempo y en la que sucesivamente han ido participando numerosos activistas sociales y políticos de las islas. Este trabajo presenta una primera aproximación a las importantes relaciones de esta corriente con la evolución y alcance de algunos de los movimientos sociales canarios más relevantes de las últimas décadas. A través del análisis de distintas fuentes podemos conocer los debates, las reflexiones y la influencia de esta corriente en la evolución y alcance de movimientos sociales en diferentes etapas de la historia reciente canaria. La historia particular de esta corriente sociopolítica es interesante porque nos muestra un claro ejemplo del papel importante que juegan las redes políticas y sociales como fuente de oportunidades para la acción colectiva en los movimientos sociales, y más en concreto sobre algunos aspectos del impacto de las redes en las que se insertan muchos activistas sobre la orientación, la participación y la estructura de organizaciones de los movimientos sociales.
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
... Las ciencias sociales han debatido ampliamente acerca de la participación juvenil; desde la relación entre los niveles educativos y socioeconómicos con los niveles de participación electoral (Pilkington y Pollock, 2018;Sloam y Henn, 2017); el descenso en la membresía en partidos políticos y sindicatos (Putnam, 2000;Pilkington y Pollock, 2018); y la preferencia por nuevos repertorios de acción, activismo basado en causas concretas e identidades (Norris, 2004). Algunos estudios han recurrido a los métodos experimentales para esclarecer las razones detrás de las «paradojas de la participación» (Bäck et al., 2013): dichos análisis sugieren que en muchos casos la presión de grupo, la identificación con quienes apoyan la protesta y los vínculos fuertes con el grupo son factores que inciden en la decisión de unirse a determinadas formas de participación (Bäck et al., 2013;Bäck et al., 2011;Valenzuela et al., 2012). ...
La intención de este trabajo es describir y comparar cuatro de estas experiencias en la capital del país: la Biblioteca Social Reconstruir, Chanti Ollin, Okupa Che y la Escuela de Cultura Popular Mártires del 68. La comparación de estas cuatro experiencias de autogestión nos permite evaluar los logros y limitaciones de este tipo de bienes comunes urbanos en México. Además, la diferente cronología de los cuatro casos permite un análisis de las diferentes etapas en la relación entre estos movimientos sociales urbanos y ciclos de movilización más amplios.
... Nevertheless, as has been summarized elsewhere [2], focusing on the European context, it is possible to highlight six traits which seem to characterize the present relationship among youth, politics, and participation: Youth have minimal trust in political systems, institutions, and formal organizations; they are weakly involved in the more established and institutionalized forms of political participation connected with representative democracy; they express little interest in politics or the mainstream political debate. However, they show significant awareness of today's main social problems; they are seen to be reflective about potential solutions; and they are often more active than adults in non-institutional forms of participation, demonstrating considerable creativity in elaborating new forms of public presence and action (see [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] on youth and political participation, [13][14][15][16][17][18] on civic participation, [19][20][21][22] on digital forms of participation). ...
... Finally, present political groups and "political" musical bands emerge sometimes as points of reference for right-wing interviewees, whereas youth cultures-such as punks or skaters-are sometimes cited by left-wing interviewees, although mainly as more relevant to their adolescence than to present. 10 On the whole, in both areas, "friends" and "peers", more than famous personalities, are thus very often described by the activists as their main influences with regard to personal attire. From this point of view, however, the two areas diverge. ...
Research shows that forms of participation among youth are strongly differentiated and connected with complex meanings and motivations. A growing sector of youth develops political intervention through the adoption of distinctive everyday practices and lifestyles. The article aims to reflect upon dress among young activists involved in political groups. Very little research focuses on this topic, but following studies on everyday politics, the young activists’ clothing could be considered as a form and a field of political participation. This approach, however, seems not to be sufficient to interpret the phenomenon. Taking inspiration from research about youth cultures, the article suggests interpreting youth clothing conjointly as a component of style, as a means for constructing collective identity, and social positioning. The article is based on qualitative interviews collected in Piedmont (Italy). Six main topics have been investigated: 1. Socialization to clothing; 2. clothing of the activists and in their groups; 3. meanings of clothing; 4. relevance of clothing; 5. practices of buying clothes; 6. clothes as consumer goods.
... Triangulation is a process of seeking a more nuanced understanding of research findings to clarify disparate results by using different methods in dialogue with each other (Franc 2018). Feeding back selected results from interviews in focus groups with the interviewees as participants has been done in the context of triangulation (Caillaud and Flick 2017). ...
Philippine wetlands are important sites for birds as the country lies
along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Canarem Lake is an inland wetland located in the agricultural town of Victoria, Tarlac in Central Luzon. Direct pressures can lead to habitat degradation and biodiversity loss in the wetland, thereby making threat identification critical in shaping conservation action. In this research, key informants
participated in a survey composed of Likert scale and open-ended questions to determine perceived direct threats to Canarem Lake and its avifauna. Mixed methods involving consensus measure and thematic analysis were used to analyze responses, and a focus group was conducted as an in-method triangulation of results. Quantitative results show that key informants perceive seven specific threats belonging to three anthropogenic threat classes as direct pressures to Canarem Lake avifauna. Recreational activities emerged as the top perceived threat in the ranked list, while fishing and farming were identified in the thematic analysis of responses. Focus group was done to reconcile and validate results, where participants concurred with the threats in the ranked list and revealed additional insights on the threats identified in
the thematic analysis. Policy options and management regimes should be studied and explored to protect Canarem Lake and the avifauna therein.
... Selanjutnya, triangulasi telah diterapkan di berbagai bidang, termasuk ilmu politik dan tata kelola, di mana ia membantu dalam memahami transisi sosial yang kompleks dan masalah kebijakan (Figaro, 2014). Ini juga memainkan peran penting dalam meningkatkan koherensi dalam komunikasi penelitian metodologis, menunjukkan kegunaannya di berbagai domain penelitian (Franc, 2018). Penerapan triangulasi dalam analisis jaringan lebih lanjut mencontohkan potensinya untuk memberikan perspektif yang lebih komprehensif tentang pertanyaan penelitian dengan mengatasi keterbatasan pendekatan metode tunggal (Tindigarukayo, 2006). ...
Desain penelitian kuantitatif adalah pendekatan yang digunakan dalam
penelitian ilmiah untuk mengumpulkan dan menganalisis data numerik
atau kualitatif yang dapat diukur. Tujuan utama dari desain penelitian
kuantitatif adalah untuk mengumpulkan data yang dapat diukur dan
dianalisis statistik, memungkinkan peneliti untuk mengevaluasi hubungan
antara variabel dan menentukan pola atau tren dalam data.
Buku ini membahas :
Bab 1 Pendahuluan Desain Penelitian Kuantitatif
Bab 2 Kerangka Konseptual Dalam Penelitian Kuantitatif
Bab 3 Rancangan Penelitian: Metode Dan Desain
Bab 4 Variabel Dan Pengukuran Dalam Penelitian Kuantitatif
Bab 5 Pemilihan Sampel
Bab 6 Survei Dan Pengumpulan Data
Bab 7 Validitas Dan Reliabilitas Dalam Konteks Kuantitatif
Bab 8 Interpretasi Hasil Dan Kesimpulan
Bab 9 Tantangan Dan Strategi Dalam Penelitian Kuantitatif
Bab 10 Etika Dalam Penelitian Kuantitatif
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agar dapat membantu penyempurnaan buku ini pada edisi berikutnya.
Akhir kata penulis mengucapkan terima kasih kepada semua pihak yang
telah membantu penyusunan buku ini hingga terselesaikan dengan baik.
... Selanjutnya, triangulasi telah diterapkan di berbagai bidang, termasuk ilmu politik dan tata kelola, di mana ia membantu dalam memahami transisi sosial yang kompleks dan masalah kebijakan (Figaro, 2014). Ini juga memainkan peran penting dalam meningkatkan koherensi dalam komunikasi penelitian metodologis, menunjukkan kegunaannya di berbagai domain penelitian (Franc, 2018). Penerapan triangulasi dalam analisis jaringan lebih lanjut mencontohkan potensinya untuk memberikan perspektif yang lebih komprehensif tentang pertanyaan penelitian dengan mengatasi keterbatasan pendekatan metode tunggal (Tindigarukayo, 2006). ...
Buku ini bertujuan untuk memberikan pemahaman yang lebih mendalam
tentang metodologi penelitian secara mendasar (fundamental) yang
berperan sangat penting dalam berbagai bidang ilmu khususnya dalam
ilmu pendidikan.
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membantu tentang cara atau metode yang digunakan dalam kegiatan
penelitian pendidikan. Penelitian diartikan sebagai upaya mencari
kebenaran akan sesuatu.
Pembahasan dalam buku ini meliputi :
Bab 1 Konsep Dasar Penelitian
Bab 2 Pendekatan dan Tahapan Penelitian
Bab 3 Perumusan Masalah Ilmiah, Variabel, dan Fokus Penelitian
Bab 4 Kajian Literatur dan Masalah Penelitian
Bab 5 Etika Penelitian
Bab 6 Jenis-Jenis Penelitian
Bab 7 Konsep Populasi dan Sampling, Pemilihan Partisipan
Bab 8 Teknik Pengumpulan Data
Bab 9 Instrumen Penelitian
Bab 10 Teknik Analisis Data
Bab 11 Teknik Pemeriksaan Keabsahan Data
Bab 12 Teknik Penulisan Karya Ilmiah
Bab 13 Plagiarisme dan Manajemen Referensi
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pedoman yang bermanfaat bagi peningkatan mutu pendidikan dan sebagai sarana untuk menyusun kebijaksanaan dalam menyusun strategi
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... Participation seems to be "a signifier without a signified" (Laclau, 2006), that is, a term always in motion and open to different interpretations and ascriptions of meaning. Participation can thus be equated with democracy, opportunity and justice, but just as well with tokenism, manipulation and control, which is evident by the many ways of understanding, conceptualizing and studying participation (see Percy-Smith & Thomas, 2010;Pilkington et al., 2017). Within the overlapping fields of childhood and youth studies, participation is commonly viewed either as young people's involvement in social and civic activities (e.g. ...
In this introductory chapter, some key points of departure for the book are introduced. The issue of youth participation has for a number of years attracted the interest of significant actors in the fields of research, policy making and youth work practice. A basic assumption for this volume is that youth participation should be studied as a social and situated practice and that this always contains a complexity of learning processes. The concept of participation has a quite indeterminate character and can be connected to a multitude of interpretations and meanings. The activities investigated in the different chapters of this book are often not defined in terms of “participation”. Still, through these efforts young people involve themselves in important contemporary issues of political and public nature, thus demonstrating a participatory commitment to societal concerns. Learning is connected to this engagement in multiple ways, giving young people new insights about themselves and the social contexts of which they are a part. Most chapters of the book use empirical material that was gathered as part of the research project PARTISPACE. This was an EU-funded project that involved eight European cities and was carried out between 2015 and 2018. In PARTISPACE, a variety of research methods were used, and the results have been published in several articles and books. Finally, the chapters of this book are presented.KeywordsYouth participationLearningSocial practicePARTISPACE
... These, as well as economic factors, contribute to diminished social capital and low feelings of selfefficacy (Selle and Wollebaek 2015); particularly if citizens feel that the institutionalised spaces for the expression of concerns and raising of questions, such as the parliaments and the media, are inaccessible (Braithwaite & Levi, 1998;Warren, 1999). Representational gaps not filled through media, protest groups, political parties or other institutions lead to disaffection among groups who feel disenfranchised, such as young people, and therefore their trust levels are lower (Cammaerts et al, 2014;Pilkington et al, 2018). Widespread feelings of disenfranchisement can shape a generation's "social consciousness" (Mannheim, 1952;Woodman, 2016;Bolin, 2017) turning citizens away from the institutions of democracy. ...
This chapter ties the contribution of the chapters of the book and sets an agenda for future research. Key lessons for practitioners, from each chapter, are collated and discussed in this chapter. The chapter also asks a number of questions about the ethics of both political branding and related political marketing communications. At the heart of the conceptualisation of parties and candidates as brands is the logic and relevance of marketing ideology and technology in the political realm. Advocates of the introduction of marketing principles and techniques to the realm of politics have suggested that as the citizen is treated more as a consumer, and so placed at the heart of the decision-making processes, a stronger relationship will develop between citizens and political institutions. The citizen-consumer, it is argued, becomes empowered through being at the heart of political brand management and product development and so more trusting of institutions through their engagement. While it is clear that marketisation has impacted on politics, marketing plays a more significantly role in branding strategies, shaping platforms to align with public attitudes, market testing messages and the integrated marketing communication techniques apparent in campaigning innovation. This final chapter raises the question of whether political marketing communication, as practised, lacks an ethical anchor and thus has the propensity to undermine the democratic processes which give it a purpose.
... Although the news often skews the representation of youth actors in civic activities by focusing on mass coverage of large-scale public events such as rallies and demonstrations, these only show a fraction of the places civic participation occurs. Young people are making significant civic contributions in places where they are more in close proximity to the issue and can see the immediate impact of the work, such as schools, individual classrooms, afterschool programs, faith-based organizations, and community-based organizations (Gustafson, Cohen, & Andes, 2021;Manuscript authors, in review;Pilkington, Pollock, & Franc, 2017;Thomas, 2018). ...
Civic engagement is a critical component of diverse democracy, and youth have the capacity for meaningful engagement to create a more equitable society for all. Preparing youth for active participation in a diverse democracy entails supporting the development of diverse social relationships with a particular focus on providing experiences that stimulate positive intergroup contact between individuals from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. This paper outlines a conceptual model from which to understand the complex relationships between intergroup contact, social capital, and civic engagement. Of particular interest is the way in which intergroup contact can bring about changes in attitudes and behaviors relevant to youth civic engagement through the mediating factors of cultural awareness, prejudice reduction, awareness of systemic inequality, and social capital. In considering how these factors support one another and interact to encourage a trajectory of civic growth for diverse democracy, one can recognize and demonstrate a higher relational value of youth civic engagement.
... the vast majority of young people Pilkington, Pollock, and Franc 2017;Kitanova 2019;Walther et al. 2020). Moreover, the European Commission (2009,2) contends that: 'Full participation of young people in civic and political life is an increasing challenge in light of the gap between youth and the institutions'. ...
Youth councils, youth parliaments or youth organisations are often referred to as the king’s road to young people’s participation, at least from the point of view of policymakers. At the same time, there is evidence that many young people are either uninformed about or sceptical of institutionalised forms of youth participation as they distrust institutions in general. This article is interested in understanding why some young people actually engage in those institutionalised forms of youth participation that most of their peers assess as being ineffective and irrelevant for their needs and interests. Based on qualitative interviews with young people involved in different forms of participation in the context of a European research project, we take a biographical approach aimed at reconstructing what makes young people interested in getting and staying involved with youth councils, youth parliaments and/or youth organisations. The aim is, on the one hand, to analyse the different biographical pathways that lead young people into formal engagement as youth representatives. On the other hand, this article draws on a reconstructive analysis of the life stories of young people who engage in formal participation to elaborate the key dimensions and constellations that can be reconstructed from their participation biographies.
... The facilitation of participation for young people is part of the core of the youth policy formulated by the EU Commission and the Council of Europe and is generally given a central role at the national and local policy level of the member states (Pilkington et al. 2018;Walther et al. 2019). Participation usually refers to practices associated with the democratic well-being of societies, such as voting and taking part in political representation, but it can also be extended to include actions such as volunteering for causes which promote social goods. ...
One element of the PARTISPACE study into spaces and styles of Youth Participation in eight European cities is presented in this article. Drawing on ethnographically informed studies of four sites in three cities, the paper analyses the ways in which young people construct and sustain alternatives to the policy-driven forms of participation, based on their yearning and aspiration for different relations than those found in ordinary life. We suggest four themes as characterising their search for community: Places where communities are born; Breaking out of the Ordinary; Differentiated Openness and Protected Zones of Experimentation. In conversation with the work of bell hooks on ‘homeplaces’ and Victor Turner on anti-hegemonic anti-structures, the analysis suggests that young people’s self-created spaces give insights into what ‘youth participation’ might be and that forms of protection of such alternative spaces are an inbuilt necessity and not necessarily to be seen as exclusionary or anti-democratic.
Contemporary research on political participation often neglects the diversity of engagement across age groups. This study challenges this homogeneity by proposing and evaluating theoretical models that account for subjective interpretations influenced by age, gender and other factors. Reviewing relevant literature identifies the need for adaptable theoretical models that include subjective interpretations of political participation, particularly among younger demographics. Empirical evidence from a 2022 representative online survey of the adult Hungarian population ( N = 2,972) highlights differences in how social groups perceive political acts. Advanced statistical analyses explore the impact of age on the perception of institutional activism and speech acts. The study finds that young people recognize conventional forms of participation more than online activities, contradicting assumptions about youth and digital activism. The findings suggest revising classical categories of political participation to reflect modern, blended engagement forms. This approach would provide a more accurate understanding of political engagement across different social groups.
This research aims to investigate how young people who are actors of the punk scene in Zagreb define politics, what forms of politicalness and in what ways they themselves practice or recognize in other actors of the punk scene. The reason why the focus of this research was placed on young people can be found in frequent descriptions of the marginalizing attitude of the older population towards young people, especially in the context of political participation. However, regardless of the negative views on political engagement of young people, we can see how young people react differently to these (un)conscious barriers in front of which they find themselves. Even though a part of young people accepts the expected political disinterest, we can recognize in some of them the desire and willingness to be active and engaged, thereby providing resistance to the imposed marginal social status in various ways.
In order to investigate the topic of young people, politics and subculture in the local community, based on the example of Zagreb's punk subculture, an ethnographic research was conducted that consisted of observation with participation, writing diary entries, as well as conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The field part of the research was conducted in the span of 15 months, during which 28 interviews were conducted with participants between 20 and 36 years of age.
By analyzing the collected data, we obtained descriptions of activities, practices and political ideas that were organized into 7 categories: 1. Formal politicalness; 2. Informal politicalness - activism; 3. The punk approach; 4. Stylistic expression; 5. Consumption practices – (anti)consumerism; 6. Political (self-)declaration; 7. Verbal expression.
Likewise, this research emphasizes the need to recognize the political interest or participation of young people in a wider spectrum of political activities than those related to traditional indicators such as participation in political parties and voting in elections. Taking into account only the mentioned indicators, we can come to the incorrect conclusion that there has been a decline in social activism among young people, instead of recognizing new opportunities for engagement, as well as the change and diversification of political participation of young people (Norris, 2002). Therefore, as a contribution of this research, the presented categorization of forms of youth politics in the punk scene in Zagreb shows a wide spectrum of activities and practices that go beyond the existing known examples of youth participation in formal politics. All the aforementioned examples indicate the assertiveness of young people in response to the barriers in front of them with new ways and opportunities to participate in political processes.
This chapter will summarise the book, draw some conclusions and add some further considerations. Previous chapters have raised a normative question towards the current and especially the future purpose and meaning of borders: Should there be a reconfiguration of the purpose and meaning of borders and the related perceived security that is associated with it? This chapter will make some suggestions which add an intermediate step in the study of politics and society as ‘regimes of motion’ (Nail, 2016): the vernacularisation of ontological security. Processes of such vernacularisation of ontological security might unlock circulative and re-circulative processes of bordering that constantly produce particular political and social spaces. It might create a horizon that rather stimulates visions of hope, sustainability and reflexivity.
Despite the strong revival of interest on youth political participation in the last decades, most studies center on the political participation of young adults in countries of the North, with very limited work on South European youth and on Greece. The overarching aim of the edited volume is to investigate different modes, patterns, and potential challenges or barriers of youth political participation in Greece by incorporating a multiple methods approach produced in the context of the EURYKA project. The Introductory chapter of the edited volume discusses the importance of the Greek case and provides a brief literature review on youth political participation within Greece and beyond. Moreover, youth political participation in Greece is examined under a comparative perspective based on selective findings derived from EURYKA’s reports. Finally, the Introductory chapter offers a critical discussion on the concept of political participation in general and on youth political participation, specifically. It also introduces the chapters of the edited volume. Through its contributors, the volume offers rigorous and in-depth examinations based on distinct methodological approaches namely, panel survey, biographical interviews, action organization analysis, and experimental survey as well as the micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis.
This chapter summarizes and discusses fresh findings on youth political participation in Greece, based on a multiple methods approach with data from the EURYKA project. It highlights the volume’s contribution to the literature, which has mainly centered on the political participation of youth in countries of the North, with very limited work on South European youth and on Greece, despite the strong revival of interest on the topic during the last decades. The focus is on the conditions which influenced young adults’ involvement in politics, the authors’ use of the concept of youth, the different modes and patterns of participation among Greek youth, as well as the main determining factors influencing their political participation, during the past decade. In addition, the merits of the volume’s multiple methods approach and the contributions to the literature are pointed out by shedding light on the micro-, meso- or/and macro-level analysis each chapter offers, based on biographical interviews, experimental, survey and action organization analysis data. Taken as a whole, the volume adds to existing knowledge and the related debates by offering new empirical findings on political socialization, gender, precarity, organizational and space-related issues of Millennials’ political participation in times of crisis, at the EU’s southeastern periphery.KeywordsPolitical participationYouthGreeceCrisisMultiple methodsEU
Youth participated in the negotiations for the Sustainable Development Goals (sdg s) as an official United Nations constituency. And yet, so far, there has been no study of their participation in these negotiations. This is even more surprising given that the 2015 sdg s are now under their review stage just as youth are emerging, through protests, as key players in sustainable development governance. In order to improve knowledge of youth as global actors, this article embraces an innovative ‘youth agency’ perspective in global politics. Borrowing from youth studies, such a perspective relies on three research questions, on the (i) identity of youth actors, (ii) their claims, and (iii) their impact at the global level. Methodologically, the article mostly relies on a qualitative assessment of youth experiences in negotiation processes through interviews of youth actors. It reveals the subjectivities of youth identity at the global level and the limits of their achievements within formal negotiation processes.
The chapter provides the author’s perspective on the development of youth space in post-Soviet Russia in the wider context of the emergence of new forms of youth sociality. It focuses on the specific formation of authentic, shared cultural identities of solidarity, set against the background of the shifting patterns of discursive production and political regulation of youth activity. The research question posed in the chapter is to find the uniqueness of the Russian cultural youth experience both in a global perspective and especially in comparison with peers throughout the post-Soviet (post-communist) space. Particular attention is paid to the key transformations of Russian youth cultures which have taken place during this historical period, in comparison with what has occurred at the global level over the last three decades, as presented in key works by leading scholars in the field of youth studies. The empirical material and theoretical background for the consecutive three-stage analysis of the types and forms of youth communities’ development, which structures the chapter, were provided by the research projects carried out by the team of authors of this book—employees of two research centres—the Scientific Research Centre ‘Region’ at Ul’yanovsk State University and the Centre for Youth Studies of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg.
Resumo: Apesar de um discurso generalizado em torno da importância estratégica da participação dos estudantes na boa gestão das instituições de ensino superior como forma de fomentar a inclusão e superar desigualdades, a prática encontra-se muito aquém dos padrões desejados. Este artigo apresenta resultados preliminares de uma inquirição a estudantes universitários sobre participação estudantil no âmbito de um projeto transnacional e interuniversitário em que a Universidade de Évora é instituição parceira. O projeto STUPS-Participação Estudantil Sem Fronteiras tem como objetivo geral estabelecer as bases de uma rede europeia focada no desenvolvimento de novas práticas para promover a participação estudantil em contexto de ensino superior. Neste texto são exploradas as perceções, nomeadamente as vantagens e obstáculos identificados por estudantes universitários através de um questionário eletrónico aplicado na Universidade de Évora em 2020. No final, espera-se que os resultados obtidos possibilitem a identificação de dimensões chave que permitam refletir de uma forma ampla e sustentada sobre os diversos desafios que se colocam neste domínio e, ao mesmo tempo, fundamentar sugestões de mudança nos processos de funcionamento democrático das instituições de ensino superior tendo em vista o aumento da participação de categorias de estudantes sub-representados e desfavorecidos nos processos de tomada de decisão.
Apesar de um discurso generalizado em torno da importância estratégica da participação dos estudantes na boa gestão das instituições de ensino superior como forma de fomentar a inclusão e superar desigualdades, a prática encontra-se muito aquém dos padrões desejados. Este artigo apresenta resultados preliminares de uma inquirição a estudantes universitários sobre participação estudantil no âmbito de um projeto transnacional e interuniversitário em que a Universidade de Évora é instituição parceira. O projeto STUPS-Participação Estudantil Sem Fronteiras tem como objetivo geral estabelecer as bases de uma rede europeia focada no desenvolvimento de novas práticas para promover a participação estudantil em contexto de ensino superior. Neste texto são exploradas as perceções, nomeadamente as vantagens e obstáculos identificados por estudantes universitários através de um questionário eletrónico aplicado na Universidade de Évora em 2020. No final, espera-se que os resultados obtidos possibilitem a identificação de dimensões chave que permitam refletir de uma forma ampla e sustentada sobre os diversos desafios que se colocam neste domínio e, ao mesmo tempo, fundamentar sugestões de mudança nos processos de funcionamento democrático das instituições de ensino superior tendo em vista o aumento da participação de categorias de estudantes sub-representados e desfavorecidos nos processos de tomada de decisão.
Anthropologists and media analysts have long recognized the Internet and satellite channels as some of the most powerful tools that add tremendous value to the knowledge and experiences of youth. A common interpretation of this idea is that new media technologies have become an important source for information, news updates, cross-cultural communication, socializing, and entertainment. The effects of these tools on young people have predominantly been studied with respect to academic as well as health features. Drawing on data from a survey capturing the digital behaviors of Moroccan students, this article complements previous studies by examining the impact of Internet and satellite channels on the behaviors of Moroccan students. It explores the implicit and denotative consequences of modern media upon the values, behaviors, and lifestyles of young Moroccans. Further, the paper addresses the effects of the massive dissemination of global cultural products on teenagers’ attitudes towards their cultural values. Additionally, the research assumes that inducing behavioral change is overlooked once media outlets start demonizing the uniqueness of local cultures, thus ignite resistance to unconventional values among youth.
The aim of the article is to show that youth involvement in political groups is often driven by such multifaceted motivations that it is relegated to the border between engagement and leisure. Focussing on the European context, research about youth and politics often highlights that few young people are personally involved in political forms of action. In most studies, this involvement is interpreted as the actualisation of a set of values, through their translation into specific aims and means, on the basis of correspondent wider worldviews, that is, representations of society and human beings. Such an interpretative approach is challenged on the basis of the results of research conducted in Italy through qualitative interviews with young activists involved in political squats. Through an in-depth analysis of young activists’ narratives, it is suggested that youth involvement in political groups often represents partly, or even mainly, a form of leisure connected with variegated sensitivities and tastes at least partially external to perspectives of political engagement, and conversely connected with personal satisfaction and fulfilment.
Geht man von einem Verständnis von Partizipation als relationale Praxis aus, kommt man um eine kontextualisierende Betrachtung von Praktiken Jugendlicher im öffentlichen Raum nicht herum. Der Beitrag fragt deshalb danach, ob sich in den zwei Städten Zürich und Frankfurt am Main typische Muster von Jugendpartizipation herausarbeiten lassen und welche Faktoren eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Auf der Grundlage einer Analyse vorliegender Vergleichsstudien zu Jugend, Jugendpolitik und Jugendhilfe werden Experten- und Expertinneninterviews und Gruppendiskussionen bzw. Stadtteilspaziergänge mit Jugendlichen ausgewertet und zentrale Themen, Akteurskonstellationen und Spannungslinien der Partizipation Jugendlicher in den beiden Städten skizziert. Diese Portraits werden mit denjenigen in anderen europäischen Städten kontrastiert, um so das Verhältnis unterschiedlicher Faktoren wie lokaler Jugendpolitik, sozioökonomischen Bedingungen, kulturellen Repräsentationen und Strukturen des nationalen Wohlfahrtsstaats für spezifische lokale Konstellationen der Partizipation Jugendlicher herauszuarbeiten.
Young people in Europe are often described as apolitical non-participants in the civic culture of their own states and the European Union (EU). Using empirical data based on group discussions (n = 324) in 29 European states (104 locations; 2000 young people aged between 11 and 19), this paper challenges this, and suggests that many young people have distinct political views and are motivated to participate in both political discussions and traditional and non-traditional forms of participation. They are particularly interested in a range of current issues, largely around human rights, migration and (anti-)nationalism, and the article illustrates this with examples from a range of countries. Human rights issues raised concerned their perception of contemporary injustices, which were constructed as European values and formed a significant element in their self-identification as Europeans, and a general unwillingness to be identified with ‘the nation’. This broad pan-European analysis suggests that young people see themselves in many ways as a politically distinct cohort, a generation with different political values than those of their parents and grandparents.
This article outlines a novel application of meta-ethnographic synthesis in the analysis of multiple ethnographic case studies of youth activism emanating from a large transnational European research project. Although meta-ethnography is used increasingly as an alternative to systematic review for the synthesis of published qualitative studies, it is not widely applied to the synthesis of primary data. This article suggests such a use is not precluded epistemologically and potentially addresses a growing need as ethnography itself becomes increasingly ‘multi-sited’. The article outlines the practical process of adapting meta-ethnography to primary data analysis drawing on the synthesis of 44 ethnographic cases of youth activism and provides a worked example of the translation of cases and resulting ‘line of argument’. It discusses the challenges and limitations of the approach in particular the danger that, in extracting the general from the specific, the key quality of qualitative data – individual differentiation – is diminished.
Past research has shown that, although a majority of citizens in democracies support the idea of democracy as a form of governance, some tend to be distrustful of democratic institutions and express dissatisfaction with the way democracy works. It is argued in this article that to better understand the role of various groups of dissatisfied citizens in the democratic functioning of a society, one should examine their democratic characteristics. Based on youth's dissatisfaction with the performance of political institutions and the principles of democracy, four distinct groups of citizens are identified. These groups are then compared in terms of their political engagement, knowledge and interest, values and attitudes, and disposition to break the law. The results showed that youths with high levels of principle- and performance-driven dissatisfaction were less likely to participate in politics, less knowledgeable and interested in political issues, and more likely to break the law, even if people got hurt compared with other groups. In contrast, youths who were only dissatisfied with the performance of democratic institutions were more likely to participate in politics, and had higher tolerance towards immigrants, and political interest and knowledge. They were also more likely, peacefully and without harming other people, to break the law to change society. Overall, by examining distinct groups of dissatisfied citizens and their democratic characteristics, this study contributes to the general debate on the role of dissatisfied citizens in democracies.
Previous research has paid much attention to citizen dissatisfaction and the trends of growing political disaffection, cynicism, and scepticism – in short, the emergence of 'critical citizens'. Also, more recently, critical citizens have sometimes been viewed as an asset for democracy. However, despite both pessimistic and optimistic interpretations of public criticism, the issue of conceptualizing negative attitudes has received less attention. The present study was conducted to enrich understanding of this particular dimension of citizens' attitudes. To this end, the paper suggests an alternative theoretical framework for analysing various forms of negative political orientations. The framework has been tested empirically using three types of statistical procedures, which demonstrate its validity and usefulness.
This paper focuses on attitudes towards democracy, comparing European citizens’ reaction to the principles standing at the basis of their political system. Using data from the fourth wave of the European Values Study, the paper attempts to understand the mechanisms of support for democracy. The paper proposes an explanation of support based on resources, ideology, and communist experience. Special attention is given to the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, testing the assumption that the mechanisms of support in these countries differ from those in older democracies. The variables of interest used here are the items used in EVS to measure support for democracy and for non-democratic alternatives. Previous studies used these items to construct an index of support for democracy, assuming the items measure the same underlying dimension. I test this assumption and show that the relationships between the items vary across countries and that a bi-dimensional solution is more adequate to the data. Using this solution, multilevel regression analyses show that the factors related to support for democracy vary systematically across groups of countries.
This article analyzes the “realist” support for the current regime as well as the support for democracy as a set of “idealist” principles in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It also analyzes political support for nondemocratic regimes as alternatives to democratic governance. The main conclusion of this article is that mass public support for democracy as the best form of government encompasses an absolute majority of citizens in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and Belarus as well as a relative majority of Russian citizens. Political support for the current regimes declined between 1992 and 2002 and collapsed in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Armenia. This collapse of public support for the current political regime contributed to the “revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine. The proportion of supporters for authoritarian regimes in Russia and the other post-Soviet countries decreased from about one-third to onefifth of their respective electorates. This cross-national study provides empirical evidence of increasing support for democracy as an ideal form of government and a corresponding decrease in support for autocracy in eight political regimes in the Commonwealth of Independent States area in the period from 1992 until 2002.
In recent years, public opinion surveys have testified to increasing levels of ‘communist nostalgia’ in Central and Eastern Europe: that is, growing numbers of citizens who feel that ‘a return to communist rule’ would in fact be a preferable option. These apparently non-democratic sentiments have been subject to two alternative explanations – one related to political socialization and the other to system output. In fact, communist nostalgia is a multidimensional phenomenon, encompassing both generational differences and general discontent. However, it is clear that nostalgia is more closely related to dissatisfaction with the present system's ability to produce output than to genuine non-democratic values.
In this article, the extent of support for democracy is determined for thirteen countries in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in East Germany. In addition, West Germany, representing an established democracy, is included as a benchmark country. The analysis rests on the assumption, that a democracy can be regarded as consolidated only if it is supported by the majority of its citizens. The empirical analysis is based on comparative surveys conducted in 1998-2001, after a decade of experience with the new democratic structures. The results show that in most countries of Central and Eastern Europe support for democracy is considerably lower than in West Germany. This holds true not only for electoral democracies but also for liberal democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. In five countries, the percentage of respondents who can be classified as nondemocrats is about 50 percent. Thus, the consolidation process in most of the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe is not yet complete.
Why are some countries democratic and democratize continuously, while others stagnate? According to theories on political culture, citizens' attitudes are crucial elements. In this context the discussion on critical citizens is gaining prominence: Critical citizens are regarded as a threat to democratic stability or as promoter for democratic reforms. Based on the International Social Survey data (2004), I will contribute some empirical evidence to this controversy. In addition to the common equating of criticism with discontentment, I will also include the normative disposition of “critical” attentiveness. Bivariate and multivariate analyses show that contentment, praised in previous research, or discontentment, as suggested by recent studies, are not the decisive attitudes. It is the political attentiveness which promotes democracies.
In this article support for direct democracy and for stealth democracy in Finland is analysed. Stealth democracy represents a step towards a democracy in which there would be even less citizen involvement than in the representative form of today's democracy. The authors found that both options gained significant support among the Finnish electorate. Additionally, they found that it is mostly the same variables that contribute to the probability of citizens being supporters of either direct democracy or stealth democracy. It is the people with less education, who do not know much about politics and who feel that the current system does not respond to citizens' needs, that want change. The direction of change appears to be a matter of secondary interest. Political ideology affects which of the two options respondents favour. Right-wing citizens are more likely to favour stealth democracy. Citizens leaning to the left are more interested in direct democracy.
Amid growing concern about young people's apparent lack of interest and involvement in politics and civil society, many have looked to the Internet for the solution to the problem of civic disconnection. But does the Internet really help to overcome young people's feelings of exclusion, apathy, and lack of motivation, thus improving prospects for democratic citizenship? This article provides an overview of key findings from a pan-European project that set out to address this issue. The CivicWeb project involved three main forms of investigation. First, it looked at the range of websites that seek to promote civic and political participation among young people, particularly focusing on the technological affordances, pedagogies, and ideologies in play on such sites. Second, it explored whether and how young people are involved in civic action on- and offline, their general and specific motivations, and the constraints on their participation. Finally, it addressed issues from the perspective of producers: how might organizations with varying aims and funding models use the Web more effectively to promote civic education, engagement, and action among a broader spectrum of young people? This paper provides an overview of the cross-cutting findings from surveys and textual case studies of youth civic websites in seven European countries, surveys and focus groups with several thousand young people, and in-depth interviews with 85 civic website producers. The conclusions provide challenges to many current orthodoxies about young people, about the Internet, and about civic participation.
This article gives an analysis that tries to explain the core elements of the concept of political culture. It attempts to specify and differentiate the concept by considering important points of criticism, new problems, and perspectives. The analysis presented is conducted in four steps. The first step determines the paradigmatic core of political culture, and the second step suggests incorporating the civic community or the political community into the concept of political culture. The third step studies the problems of aggregation and causality. The fourth and final step provides summary conclusions and some considerations for the perspectives of future research.
Many fear that democracies are suffering from a legitimacy crisis. This book focuses on ‘democratic deficits’, reflecting how far the perceived democratic performance of any state diverges from public expectations. Pippa Norris examines the symptoms by comparing system support in more than fifty societies worldwide, challenging the pervasive claim that most established democracies have experienced a steadily rising tide of political disaffection during the third-wave era. The book diagnoses the reasons behind the democratic deficit, including demand (rising public aspirations for democracy), information (negative news about government) and supply (the performance and structure of democratic regimes). Finally, Norris examines the consequences for active citizenship, for governance and, ultimately, for democratization. This book provides fresh insights into major issues at the heart of comparative politics, public opinion, political culture, political behavior, democratic governance, political psychology, political communications, public policymaking, comparative sociology, cross-national survey analysis and the dynamics of the democratization process.
This article considers negative or critical views towards democracy and politics among young people, including supporters of ultra-patriotic or populist radical right movements, in the UK, eastern Germany and Russia. These countries represent a range of political heritages and current constitutions of democracy but, in all three contexts, it is suggested, young people experience some degree of the closing down of ‘legitimate’ political discourse as a result of the social distance between ‘politicians’ and ‘people like us’ and the legal and cultural circumscriptions on ‘acceptable’ issues for discussion. The article draws on survey data, semi-structured interviews and ethnographic case studies from the MYPLACE project to show variation between young people in these three countries in their experience of formal politics as a ‘politics of silencing’. Moreover, the article explores the relationship between perceived ‘silencing’, the expression of dissatisfaction with democracy and receptivity to populist radical right ideology.
Scholars of democratization have developed a variety of theories to explain national and cross-national differences in democratic support. These theories, however, pay little attention to the cognitive origin of democratic support. This study seeks to examine how informed understanding about democracy affects such support. To this end, it applies theories of institutional legitimacy and social learning and predicts that the relationship between citizen understanding of and support for democracy is not only positively concaved but also dependent on the historical experience of democracy. An analysis of the World Values Survey 2005-2008 reveals strong evidence to support the theoretical predications.
We investigate the effect of individual exposure to communism on support for democracy and capitalism. We examine whether this effect varies across different types of communism, at different periods of people's lives, in different countries, and across different types of individuals. To do so, we propose a modified approach to solving the APC problem that relies on (a) survey data from multiple countries (b) historically defined cohorts and (c) variation in the time-periods related to these cohorts across countries. We provide a series of robustness tests for the method, and show that results are not very sensitive to panel structure. We conclude that generally communism had an indoctrinating effect, with more exposure to communism resulting in more opposition to democracy and capitalism.
Worldwide, there is substantial popular support for the ideal of democracy but, on the other hand, there is considerable dissatisfaction with democracy within democracies. Democracies are inhabited by many so-called ‘dissatisfied democrats’: citizens who are strong supporters of the democratic ideal, but are unhappy with the way democracy is working in their country. It is not clear how to explain this phenomenon, but based on a review of the existing literature, two different approaches can be distinguished: an optimistic and a pessimistic one. Subsequently, this article investigates why some people are dissatisfied democrats while others are not in eight African democracies – Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa. The empirical evidence seems to support the complex mix of both the optimistic and pessimistic approaches: to be sure, dissatisfied democrats are critical citizens compared with dissatisfied non-democrats, but they are not more politically active than the rest of the population. Future studies need to find out whether dissatisfied democrats can be seen either as a democratic danger or as a democratic defence, but the first findings in this article suggest that a growing group of dissatisfied democrats are a sign of democracy in decline.
This arose as part of an ongoing project on ‘Visions of Governance for the Twenty‐first Century’ initiated in 1996 at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, which aims to explore what people want from government, the public sector, and non‐profit organizations. A first volume from the ‘Visions’ project (Why People Don’t Trust Government) was published by Harvard University Press in 1997; this second volume analyses a series of interrelated questions. The first two are diagnostic: how far are there legitimate grounds for concern about public support for democracy worldwide; and are trends towards growing cynicism found in the US evident in many established and newer democracies? The second concern is analytical: what are the main political, economic, and cultural factors driving the dynamics of support for democratic government? The final questions are prescriptive: what are the consequences of this analysis and what are the implications for strengthening democratic governance? The book brings together a distinguished group of international scholars who develop a global analysis of these issues by looking at trends in established and newer democracies towards the end of the twentieth century. Chapters draw upon the third wave (1995–1997) World Values Survey as well as using an extensive range of comparative empirical evidence.
Challenging the conventional wisdom, the book concludes that accounts of a democratic ‘crisis’ are greatly exaggerated. By the mid‐1990s most citizens worldwide shared widespread aspirations to the ideals and principles of democratic government, although at the same time there remains a marked gap between evaluations of the ideal and the practice of democracy. The publics in many newer democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and in Latin America have proved deeply critical of the performance of their governing regimes, and during the 1980s many established democracies saw a decline in public confidence in the core institutions of representative democracy, including parliaments, the legal system, and political parties. The book considers the causes and consequences of the development of critical citizens in three main parts: cross‐national trends in confidence in governance; testing theories with case studies; and explanations of trends.
Major cross-national surveys measure popular support for democracy through direct questions about democracy in the abstract. Since people may entertain competing democratic ideas and ideals, however, we ignore the extent to which standard questions capture citizen support for liberal democracy. To solve the validity problems associated with direct measures of democratic support, we propose linking them to more concrete, indirect measures of support for democratic principles and institutions. We employ the statistical technique of cluster analysis to establish this linkage. Cluster analysis permits grouping respondents in a way that is open to complex and inconsistent attitudinal profiles. It permits the identification of ‘democrats with adjectives’ who support democracy in the abstract, while rejecting core principles of liberal democracy. We demonstrate the fruitfulness of this approach by drawing a map of ‘illiberal democrats’ in Mexico, on the basis of the country’s 2003 National Survey on Political Culture.
This is a report commissioned by Nottinghamshire County Council Nottinghamshire County Council
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