Political Engagement of the Young in Europe

Youth in the crucible

Peter Thijssen, Jessy Siongers, Jeroen Van Laer, Jacques Haers, Sara Mels, Peter Thijssen, Jessy Siongers, Jeroen Van Laer, Jacques Haers, Sara Mels

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138923386
• eBook ISBN: 9781317411123
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although many scholars are convinced of the apparent civic disengagement of youth, others suggest that civic participation of young people is stable and increasingly expressed through non-institutionalized forms of practicing politics.

This book makes a key contribution to this discussion by asking whether the "decline or shift" paradigm is sufficient in understanding political participation of the youth. It argues that we need to move beyond this framework and develop a renewed reflection on the meaning of "civic and political engagement". It asks crucial questions such as:

• How can the young be educated into assuming civic and political responsibility?
• Why and how do young people engage in social and political action?
• How do the principal mediating institutions (education, media and the family) contribute to new or different forms of youth civic engagement?

This text contains contributions from acknowledged specialists such as Constance Flanagan, Mark Elchardus, Marc Hooghe and Bert Klandermans and will be of key interest to students and scholars of youth and young citizens, civic & political involvement, European politics, youth studies, sociology, political participation and electoral behaviour.

Part I
Context

Change in time and space

1 Youth engagement in politics

Generational differences and participation inequalities

Marc Hooghe and Joris Boonen

Introduction

In studies involving political engagement, there is quite a bit of concern about the political participation habits of young age groups. It has been shown that young people are much less inclined than their elders to participate in elections, and even apparently shun political parties. Their membership in political parties and other formal political organizations is very low, and these rates are declining even further (Whiteley, 2011). For a number of authors, this has led to rather pessimistic assumptions about a lack of social and political commitment among young age groups. They have been accused of not paying sufficient attention to politics and society in general, and of being focused too strongly on their own individual preoccupations. Indeed, if one defines democracy with a strong focus on the process of electoral procedures, the only conclusion can be that there is a lack of democratic linkage between young citizens and the political system. A closer look at the figures, however, suggests that this approach is one-sided. While it is correct that in numerous societies, electoral turnout rates are lower among young age groups, it can simultaneously be observed that there are no indications of a general societal apathy among this group (Sloam, 2014). To some extent, even the opposite phenomenon occurs (Flanagan, 2013). Innovations with regard to various forms of lifestyle politics are heavily concentrated among this group, and internet-based forms of participation and political communication are also rapidly gaining popularity. This trend, by itself, demonstrates that the pessimistic claim about political indifference is simply too narrow. If young age groups were indeed completely lacking interest in public and social affairs, there would no point for them in buying fair trade products, for instance, or expressing their indignation on various websites. Interpreting the relation between young age groups and politics solely in terms of decline clearly does not help us to understand the complex character of contemporary processes of social and political change. Instead, we need to investigate in depth how young age groups actually view the political process and their own role in it. Therefore, the central aim of this chapter will be to map the political engagement habits of young citizens and compare the current generation of young citizens with an older generation of adults.

The most recent figures suggest that young age groups are not withdrawing from public life, but rather using different means to make their voices heard. Some authors are very optimistic about the democratic potential of these new forms of participation (Bennett & Segerberg, 2013). These authors tend to assume that internet-based forms of political activism, for example, might lead to a democratization of society as a whole. It does remain an empirical question, however, as to what extent this optimism is warranted. We do not know how effective new and emerging forms of political participation are in influencing political decision-making. Facebook activism and political consumerism might indeed be to a large extent purely self-expressive: participants can derive a certain personal satisfaction from broadcasting their horror about a terrorist attack on their Facebook page, for instance. The main question, however, does remain: does it have an effect on society or on politics? One of the main concerns in the literature on internet activism is that this kind of political participation can be easily ignored by decision-makers, with the result that it does remain a purely self-expressive act. For participants, it might be important to express their individual opinion in this manner, but in practice there are very few examples of internet activism having an impact on policy (Gil de Zúñiga & Valenzuela, 2011). From that perspective, the new and emerging forms of political participation might even lead to a less democratic functioning of the political system.

Another drawback of these emerging forms is that to a large extent they are performed in an individual manner. Institutionalized politics is almost by definition group-based, as citizens are organized in political parties, social movement organizations or trade unions. This form of collective participation has rightly been criticized, as some interests more easily lead to collective action than others. Research has repeatedly shown that collective action does not ensure an equal representation of the interests of all citizens. Simultaneously, however, it should be noted that specific groups of the population can be mobilized, e.g., by trade unions or by religious groups. As such, traditional and institutionalized forms of political participation can mitigate patterns of social stratification. If, however, political participation is largely rendered an individual act, this moderating effect is eroded and, as a consequence, inequalities might even become more pronounced (Oser, Hooghe, & Marien, 2013). This too, might be a possible downside of the trends in political participation patterns.

In this chapter, we first offer a brief review of the recent developments on this topic, and the sometimes opposing expectations that emerge from it. While some authors emphasize the differences between old and younger age groups, in another line of research the focus is more strongly on the continuity across generations. Subsequently, we use the results of a recent Belgian survey among adolescents and their parents to investigate the empirical merits of both approaches.

Is the new generation different?

Thinking in terms of differences between generations is self-evidently not a new phenomenon. Some of the classic authors of more than a century ago emphasized that young age groups might introduce new concepts and forms of action into society, and thus might be considered an important force for social innovation. In the contemporary literature, this view on generational replacement is most strongly expressed in the work of Ronald Inglehart (1977). He assumes that the core values and attitudes of a person remain rather stable through the course of his/her life, seeing as most actors hold on to their basic political and ethical beliefs. This view implies that it is crucial to find out how these value patterns are developed in the first place, most likely at a relatively young age. If young age groups develop their own and distinct value patterns, they will most likely hold on to these attitudes in later life. In his work, Inglehart is very positive about these new and emerging value patterns. Older age groups socialized during the crisis in the 1930s and the Second World War to a large extent developed a more authoritarian and materialist value pattern that they held to even decades later. For the younger age groups socialized in a more prosperous environment, this emphasis on materialist values has become obsolete, and they have a strong preference for self-expressive and post-materialist value patterns. This transition toward post-materialism has even been described as a major step forward in the historical development of human civilization (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005).

While strong doubts have been expressed about the empirical validity of Inglehart’s claims, maybe the most enduring effect of his work is that the causal mechanism he proposes has become generally accepted in political participation studies. Quite a few scholars now take it for granted that there are strong differences between age cohorts, and that these differences to a large extent explain the process of social change. In the literature on secularization, for example, it has become a routine assumption that new age groups in particular pay less attention to organized religion, while this is not necessarily the case for older age groups, who tend to continue the religious tradition they grew up with. It is clear, therefore, that in the social sciences we have become used to thinking in terms of generational differences, and it is assumed that the conflict between generations is a driver of processes of social change. It is quite remarkable to observe that the completely opposite point of view was prevalent in the older studies of the 1950s and 1960s, which mainly held to the idea of stability between generations. Back then, the idea that young people were being socialized into the value patterns of a previous generation was even seen as a mechanism to ensure social stability over time (Sapiro, 2004). A first empirical question that emerges from this, therefore, is to determine whether there really are these presumed strong differences between generations. Rather than simply being assumed to be fact, the hypothesis of strong difference between a population’s younger and older cohorts should be investigated more rigorously.

Even if the claim about generational change is accepted, however, opinions diverge about whether these differences should be interpreted as a positive or negative phenomenon. For the more pessimistic authors, it is clear that the change is rather negative with regard to its effect on the democratic functioning of society (Milner, 2010). Their view is that elections and the electoral process are key defining elements of a democratic political system. Worldwide, liberal democracies are being confronted with a decline in voter turnout (Hooghe, 2014). Empirical research has repeatedly shown that young age groups tend to withdraw from the electoral process, while voter turnout is to a large extent stable among older age groups (Blais & Rubenson, 2013). A likely explanation for this phenomenon is that voting is also strongly subject to habit formation. Once voters have picked up the habit of voting every time they have the occasion to, it becomes a matter of course, a habit they repeat throughout the years. Young voters, on the other hand, never picked up this habit, with the result that they are much more vulnerable to the effect of specific circumstances. Sometimes elections are not considered to be salient, or it is clear already from the start who will be the likely winner. In these circumstances, voters experience a much weaker incentive to cast their vote. Given the fact that young voters are much less likely to experience voting as a civic duty to be performed independent of short-term consideration, these young groups are the first ones that will refrain from participating. Furthermore, once this pattern of not voting has been introduced, it is just as likely to be turned into a habit as the pattern of voting is among older age groups. The difference in voting patterns between generations, therefore, already allows us to predict that in the years ahead, younger voters especially will be responsible for the bulk of the observed decline in voter turnout (Blais & Rubenson, 2013).

Other authors, on the other hand, are much more optimistic about the value patterns and democratic orientation of young citizens (Flanagan, 2013). Those taking this perspective stress that changes should be interpreted not in terms of decline, but rather as representing a qualitative change: young citizens tend to stress different and distinct values compared to previous generations. Dalton (2008) has argued that traditional notions of citizenship are to a large extent “duty-based.” Voting is traditionally seen as a duty: whether one is interested in this specific election or not, showing up at the polling station is considered simply as something that a good citizen should do. For younger age groups, this concept of duty is no longer appealing. Instead, they are motivated by a feeling of “real engagement” that translates itself into actions like helping out in the community or various forms of lifestyle activism. According to Dalton, this transition will mean that while young age groups abandon traditional forms of participation, they are increasingly attracted to various non-institutionalized forms of political participation. This would imply that it is wrong to see their lower levels of institutionalized engagement as an abandonment of social responsibilities. This change should rather be interpreted against the backdrop of a general process of de-institutionalization (Hooghe & Houtman, 2003). Across Western societies, it can be observed that the traditional institutions of society and social interaction are losing ground and being replaced by more informal interaction patterns. Apparently a similar process occurs with regard to politics: replacing party membership with forms of lifestyle politics basically means that institutionalized forms of political participation are considered obsolete, and are replaced by non-institutionalized participation acts.

Here, too, it is striking to observe that this debate is often conducted on normative grounds, as some authors are clearly convinced by the democratic merits of traditional and institutionalized forms of political participation, while others are not. This can also be considered an empirical question: if we can indeed observe the changes as described in the work of Dalton and others, how do they relate to the democratic process in general?

Data: parent-child socialization study (PCSS) 2013

The data for the analyses in this chapter...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: bridging the transatlantic schism
• Part I Context: change in time and space
• Part II Mapping civic engagement/practices
• Part III Keys to transformation/mediating change
• Index