Abstract
ABSTRACT Youth political disengagement continues to be a major issue facing contemporary democracies that needs to be better understood. There is an existing literature on what determines youth participation in terms of socio-demographic factors, however, scholars have not given much consideration to the macro-level determinants. In this paper, I outline an empirical analysis of what determines political participation among young people using the Eurobarometer 375 survey data from 28 European Union countries. I argue that while socio-demographic factors are crucial for youth political participation, context matters in shaping levels of political participation among young people. The results from the logistic regression analyses indicate that democratic maturity influences patterns of political participation among young people in the EU. The results show that youth engagement in different modes of political participation varies significantly across distinctive democracies, where individuals situated in established EU democracies are more likely to be politically active. The findings raise fresh concerns about existing levels of young people’s engagement in politics in advanced and new democracies. This paper also contributes to the comparative research on young people’s participation in politics.
Highlights
Participation in political activities is in crisis, especially when it comes to young people, and this is a major issue facing contemporary democracies (Norris 2003; Hay 2007; Farthing 2010; Furlong and Cartmel 2012; Henn and Foard 2012)
To determine what shapes youth political engagement, and to identify the crucial explanatory factors associated with it, a logistic regression is applied
There are variations in young people’s political engagement depending on their age and as seen in Figure 2, the results indicate that individuals aged 18–24 are more likely to be a member of an organisation than individuals aged 25–30 (58% compared to 49%)
Summary
Participation in political activities is in crisis, especially when it comes to young people, and this is a major issue facing contemporary democracies (Norris 2003; Hay 2007; Farthing 2010; Furlong and Cartmel 2012; Henn and Foard 2012). This is a vital challenge that is re-shaping electoral politics and the relationship between citizens and political parties. The paper contributes to youth engagement literature by conducting empirical research investigating determinants of young people’s political participation by conceptualising age of democracy
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