Apathy or alienation? Political passivity among youths across eight European Union countries

Dahl, Viktor; Amnå, Erik; Banaji, Shakuntala; Landberg, Monique; Šerek, Jan; Ribeiro, Norberto; Beilmann, Mai; Pavlopoulos, Vassilis; Zani, Bruna

doi:10.1080/17405629.2017.1404985

Cited by 50 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…For instance, the so-called lifecycle effect states an increasing willingness for political participation up to middle age and a subsequent decline in political participation, resulting in low participation scores among the youth and the elderly (Jennings, 1979). However, while former studies argued that youth are less politically interested and active in general (Dahl et al, 2017), research has since clarified and corrected this observation: Young adults use institutionalized forms of participation less, such as voting or party membership, and rely instead on noninstitutionalized forms of political participation, such as boycotts or online discussions (Quintelier, 2007;Weiss, 2020). Since non-institutionalized forms of political participation are often not covered in studies, young adults are frequently considered as being less politically involved.…”

Section: Youth Political Participation and School Socializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“How Dare You!”—The Influence of Fridays for Future on the Political Attitudes of Young Adults

et al. 2020

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In recent years, young adults have increasingly expressed their displeasure with climate policies, arguing that the preservation of the earth for future generations is not secured by existing policies. A growing number of young citizens demands action from politicians and accuses them of a lack of responsiveness. At the same time, young adults are undergoing political socialization, not only within their families, but especially in school, where they learn to lead an independent life and to form their own political opinions. However, what happens if students question the knowledge on the political system that they have acquired in school? This paper analyses how the exogenous “shock” of Fridays for Future has influenced pupils' political attitudes compared to other continuous skills that pupils learn in school. Relying on a unique survey experiment among pupils from different school types and among students in Germany (more than 300 respondents), we find that priming for Fridays for Future and protest participation significantly change perceived political responsiveness and satisfaction with democracy. The results demonstrate that the efforts of schools to prepare young citizens for professional life have no effect, while equal treatment in school is explanatory for varying political satisfaction. Protest participation seems to have a great influence on how the political attitudes of the young cohort develop.

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Section: Youth Political Participation and School Socializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“How Dare You!”—The Influence of Fridays for Future on the Political Attitudes of Young Adults

et al. 2020

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“…In this respect, it is found at the low end of internal political efficacy. Politically alienated individuals may show interest regarding political matters, but it is not clear whether they will be mobilized on their interests, by actively participating to fight for them (Dahl, et al, 2018) or not. Instead, political alienation encloses feelings of weakness, illegality and loss of meaning (Finifter, 1970).…”

Section: Political Efficacy/alienationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is not to be confused with political apathy, which is characterized by a lack of motivation to take an interest in politics. Young people are particularly vulnerable to be affected by political disengagement that leaves them apathetic or alienated (Dahl et al, 2018).…”

Section: Political Efficacy/alienationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Whereas it is almost a banality to conclude that young people who express alienation and distrust toward social and political institutions are increasing in number across Europe (e.g., Eurobarometer, 2013), the direct association of alienation with different forms of political participation is less clear, since it was found to relate negatively with electoral participation but positively with activism (Dahl et al, 2018). This is in line with a recent trend that emerged in a study of young people in Greece of recession, suggesting their 'return to politics' but only through direct-democratic unconventional action first, and then through the established political institutions (Pantelidou-Malouta, 2015).…”

Section: Political Efficacy/alienationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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From Political Interest to Participation in EU-related Actions: The Mediating Role of European Identity and Political Efficacy

Pavlopoulos¹,

Kostoglou²,

Motti‐Stefanidi³

2020

Psychology

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European youth’s civic engagement and political participation in EU-related issues is a timely imperative. Research findings on youth citizenship range from political apathy to alternative forms of participation, although theoretical evidence remains poor. This study is based on empirical data from the Greek contribution to the European program CATCH-EyoU (Horizon 2020), aiming to explore different forms and predictors of youth’s civic engagement and political participation on EU-related issues. Based on social psychological theoretical background, we assumed that the expressed political interest for the EU translates to specific forms of action. Identification with the EU and perceived political efficacy/alienation were expected to mediate the above relationship. The sample consisted of 749 young adults aged 18-27 (M = 22.2, 50.7% women, 89.7% Greek citizens, 72% university students, 75.5% employed). In addition to voting, four components of political participation and civic engagement were studied, namely conventional participation (in support of political parties and goals), activism (acts of protest against the authorities), online participation (social networks), and volunteering (non-profit actions). Mediation analyses showed that the relationship between political interest and participation can be explained by different mechanisms: The sense of belonging in the EU lead to more frequent electoral participation, but to less activism and online participation. On the contrary, EU identity exploration and reconsideration contributed to increased conventional participation. Political efficacy seemed to promote activism and online participation, while political alienation tended to decrease activism. These findings reveal the multiple connotations of youth’s politicalparticipation regarding EU issues.

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“…The global voter turnout rate has dropped by more than 10% over the last 25 years (Groupe de la Banque mondiale, 2017), and this trend does not appear to be slowing down. The public have reported decreasing confidence and apathy towards the democratic process (Dahl et al, 2017). Deliberative Democracy represents a potential solution to these problems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting the Outcome of Deliberative Democracy: A Research Proposal

McKillop¹

2019

Proceedings of the 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Student Research Workshop

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As liberal states across the world face a decline in political participation by citizens, deliberative democracy is a promising solution for the publics decreasing confidence and apathy towards the democratic process (Dahl et al., 2017). Deliberative dialogue is method of public interaction that is fundamental to the concept of deliberative democracy. The ability to identify and predict consensus in the dialogues could bring greater accessibility and transparency to the face-to-face participatory process. The paper sets out a research plan for the first steps at automatically identifying and predicting consensus in a corpus of German language debates on hydraulic fracking. It proposes the use of a unique combination of lexical, sentiment, durational and further derivative features of adjacency pairs to train traditional classification models. In addition to this, the use of deep learning techniques to improve the accuracy of the classification and prediction tasks is also discussed. Preliminary results at the classification of utterances are also presented, with an F1 between 0.61 and 0.64 demonstrating that the task of recognising agreement is demanding but possible.

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Apathy or alienation? Political passivity among youths across eight European Union countries

Cited by 50 publications

References 15 publications

“How Dare You!”—The Influence of Fridays for Future on the Political Attitudes of Young Adults

“How Dare You!”—The Influence of Fridays for Future on the Political Attitudes of Young Adults

From Political Interest to Participation in EU-related Actions: The Mediating Role of European Identity and Political Efficacy

Predicting the Outcome of Deliberative Democracy: A Research Proposal

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