Protest participation scholarship tends to focus on the special characteristics of novices and the highly committed, underplaying the significance of those in between. In this article, we fill a lacuna in the literature by refocusing attention on four different types of protesters: novices, returners, repeaters, and stalwarts. Employing data from protest surveys of demonstrations that took place in seven European countries (2009-2010), we test whether these types of protesters are differentiated by biographical-structural availability and/or psychological-attitudinal engagement. Our results suggest that biographical availability distinguishes our four groups, but not as a matter of degree. Few indicators of structural availability distinguish between the groups of protesters, and emotional factors do not distinguish between them at all. Some political engagement factors suggest similarity between novices and returners. This confirms the need to avoid treating protesters as a homogenous group and reinforces the importance of assessing the contributions of diverse factors to sustaining "protest politics."
Existing datasets provided by statistical agencies (e.g. Eurostat) show that the economic and financial crisis that unfolded in 2008 significantly impacted the lives and livelihoods of young people across Europe. Taking these official statistics as a starting point, the collaborative research project "Cultural Pathways to Perceived economic self-sufficiency: a country-and…
Student dissatisfaction with undergraduate research methods courses in politics and international relations is common across the sector. We suggest that methods teaching suffers from an unhealthy disassociation between research in theory – which we call ‘method acting’ – and research in practice. Our critical interviews with eminent researchers expose the compromises professional researchers make when designing their research. Students appreciate these insights when combined with first‐hand research opportunities. We call this approach a ‘reality show’. Our analysis based on survey data and students’ evaluations of our approach suggests that these aids can provide an effective resource to improve teaching and learning of research methods.
This article examines the impact that unemployment and low quality work conditions have on young adult's work values. Academic theory suggests that harsher economic conditions will make people prize extrinsic work values (income, security) more and intrinsic work values (creative, independent working conditions, autonomy) less. We apply this reasoning to study young Europeans' response to unemployment experience and low quality work conditions, expecting that those who have these experiences will value extrinsic values more and intrinsic work values less than those who do not have these experiences. Using the CUPESSE dataset of 18-35 year olds in eleven European countries, we do not find support for the effect of previous unemployment experience on intrinsic or extrinsic work values. However, when it comes to the effect of low quality work conditions there are mixed results. We find that one dimension of low quality work conditions-overqualification-does have a positive effect on extrinsic work values. Further, we find that age has a moderating effect: unemployment and low quality work conditions have a larger impact on the younger workers in our sample than their older counterparts.
This article challenges the current research on youth disengagement by asking what makes young people active in different political organisations. It applies the classic civic voluntarism model to explore which factors (skills, attitudes, mobilisation and motivations) best distinguish between young activists in political parties’ youth factions, the British Youth Council and the 2010 National Union of Students demonstrations. The results from multinomial logistic regression show that there are differences especially in the civic and political attitudes. The results also show that different organisations attract different kinds of young people, which can be used to (re-)engage young people in politics.
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