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PSA 67th Annual International Conference
10-12 April 2017
Glasgow
DRAFT PAPER
Youth political participation in Europe: a cross national analysis
Magdelina Kitanova
Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Abstract. Youth political disengagement continues to be a major issue facing
contemporary democracies that needs to be better understood. The traditional
conception of participation in politics became outdated and new questions should be
explored. While, most scholars have analysed the issue of political engagement among
young people in a single country only, this paper adds contribution to a comparative
research on young people’s engagement in politics. In this paper, I outline an
empirical analysis relating to the understanding of youth participation across Europe. I
analyse the socio-demographic and contextual predictors of formal and informal
political participation among young people using survey analysis across 28 European
countries. I argue that socio-demographic factors and contextual factors are crucial
predictors when it comes to formal and informal political participation among young
people in Europe with variations across democracies. The results indicate that while
age, social and educational factors (at individual level) matter, individuals living in
different countries (for example advanced and new democracies) who have specific
characteristics mater, and this structures patterns of participation among young
people in Europe. Although some scholars and previous studies suggest and find some
evidence that new democracies are not that politically active as advanced
democracies (Letki, 2003; Bernhagen and Marsh, 2007), the results in this paper
indicated the opposite for some of the EU countries. The findings, for both formal and
informal political participation, raise fresh concerns about the levels of young
people’s engagement in politics in advanced and new democracies.
Keywords: youth; political participation; Europe; comparative study
Participation in political activities is in crisis, especially when it comes to
young people and politics. Youth disengagement is still a major issue facing British
democracy (see Norris, 2003; Farthing, 2010; Furlong and Cartmel, 2012; Henn and
Foard, 2012; Hay, 2007). This is a vital challenge facing not only Britain but other
contemporary democracies as well, which is re-shaping electoral politics and the
relationship between citizens and parties. Today, the youth are increasingly
disengaged and disconnected from the traditional political processes in Europe,
especially when it comes to voting (European Commission, 2001; Council of Europe,
2010). However, there may be a variation in levels of political engagement across
Europe, which is analysed (Ministry of Justice, 2007). Moreover, young people are not
only disengaged but it also looks like they are apathetic and even alienated from
traditional forms of politics (Stoker, 2006; Hay, 2007).
In the recent decades, there has been a decline in political engagement in
most European Union countries (Pharr and Putnam, 2000; Torcal and Montero, 2006;
Norris, 2011; Papadopoulous, 2013; Allen and Birch, 2015). The 2015 UK General
Election is an exact example of that with young people’s turnout of 43%, and more
than 25% of the young people remained not registered to vote. Contradictorily, in the
Scottish Independence Referendum when the 16 and 17 year olds were given the
opportunity to cast their vote, the results showed that 89% of all citizens aged 16 to
17 in Scotland registered to vote, which indicates an exceptional case. For example,
results from an EU funded MYPLACE survey in 14 European countries revealed that 42%
of the respondents aged 16 to 24 reported to have interest in politics (Tatalovic,
2015). Thus, it can be argued that the youth are not a politically apathetic generation
but might be disengaged from the traditional political system and formal political
participation.
Consequently, political participation became more than just traditional
political activities such as voting. It adopted diverse activities such as people being
members of different organisations, participating in a cultural organistion or
activities, signing petitions, contacting politicians, protesting, etc (Bourne, 2010).
With the changing nature of political actions, new forms of political participation
have emerged and it is claimed that the youth engage more in politics through the
new political activities as young people nowadays are very different from their
parents’ generation (Norris, 2003;Spannring et al, 2008; Kestila-Kekkonen, 2009;
Bauman, 2011; Sloam, 2016).
One research area that requires better theorising and testing is what are the
predictors of youth engagement in Europe, especially differentiating between formal
and informal political activities. Therefore, the research questions addressed in this
paper are: What are the socio-demographic factors and contextual predictors of
political participation among young people? Is political participation among young
people determined by socio-demographic factors or by contextual factors, or is it
universal in any democracy? What is the relationship between these predictors and
formal and informal modes of participation among young people?
This paper seeks to address the variations of youth participation across Europe.
It proceeds in four sections. First, I set up theoretical expectations of youth political
participation. Second, I introduce a new data set of Eurobarometer survey (No. 375)
on young people aged 15 to 30 from 28 European countries asked about their forms of
political participation. Third, regression analysis of socio-demographic and contextual
factors and formal and informal participation is applied controlling for countries to
establish relationships and differences between age groups. In the fourth and fifth
section, the analyses reveal that while social and educational factors (at individual
level) matter, individuals living in different countries (for example advanced and new
democracies) which have specific demographic characteristics mater, and this
structures patterns of participation among young people in Europe, with variations
within each EU country and with mostly distinctive differences in levels of
participation in formal versus informal politics.
Young people’s engagement in politics
There is a debate about youth participation falling in crisis (Putnam, 2000;
Stoker. 2006; Fieldhouse et al, 2007). Many studies reveal that there is a tremendous
and worrying decline in young people’s participation in politics, especially when it
comes to voting. Yet, some of the recent studies show that young people are not
apathetic and disengaged, but they have turned to alternative forms of political
engagement such as protesting, demonstrating, being part of organisations, signing
petitions, volunteering, and engaging online (Norris, 2003; Spannring et al, 2008;
Sloam, 2016).
The youth are often seen as ‘disengaged’, ‘alienated’, and apathetic when it
comes to political engagement. Fieldhouse et al (2007) presents one of the original
substantial theoretical statements on this line of arguments based on the declining
turnout of young people. Indeed, there is tremendous value in repeated studies on
youth disengagement in single countries such as Britain. The British Social Attitudes
report (2015) also revealed an important statement about the declining youth turnout
as in 2013 only 57% of the respondents felt they have the duty to vote compared to
76% in 1987. For example, it can be clearly recognised that there has been a long-
term decline in young people’s involvement in elections in most of the European
Union countries (O’ Toole et al, 2003). These results are in sync with the conventional
wisdom that youth are disengaged from the political system (Wring, Henn and
Weinsten, 1999).
Controversy, in important work, Norris (2002; 2003) highlights active youth
engagement in respect to alternative forms of political participation and supports the
recent theoretical claim that young people are not ebbed away in apathy but they are
choosing other forms of politics that are not traditional and seem more meaningful to
them (Spannring et al, 2008; Sloam, 2013). When it comes to the ‘non traditional’
forms of participation, young people are more likely to get involved than their
parents and grandparents (Norris, 2003). These theoretical expectations are forming
the new generation of research on young people’s participation in politics. One
organising idea here is that young people feel excluded from the traditional political
system (O’ Toole, Marsh and Jones, 2003) resulting in recent changes in the way they
can engage in politics (Harries, Wyn and Younes, 2010; Henn and Foard, 2012; Sloam,
2013).
Despite the growing interest in youth political participation, relatively little
scholarly attention has been paid to differences in youth participation across
countries (Norris, 2003; Spannring, 2008; Dalton, 2009; Sloam, 2013; 2016). There is
not enough research on how young people’s participation in politics varies between
countries. In this paper I identify a conceptualisation that socio-demographic and
contextual factors are crucial to youth engagement drawn from different theoretical
traditions of research that focus attention on these predictors.
The role of age, social class, education and gender is widely acknowledged
(Verba et al, 1995; Stolle and Hooghe, 2009; Vecchione and Caprara, 2009; Cainzos
and Voces, 2010). Social class and educational history appear to be crucial predictors
of political engagement (Tenn, 2007; Sloam, 2012; Holmes and Manning, 2013).
Especially, when it comes to young participation in politics, education and social class
have most bearing on young people’s political engagement (Henn and Foard, 2014).
Remarkably, another line of argument that is prominent is that the length of time a
person has been in full-time education appears to have huge impact on political
participation (Flanagan et al, 2012). However, there is a little research on such
patterns in young people’s political engagement, therefore I test if the above
mentioned findings hold when it comes to youth participation in Europe in formal and
informal politics.
The idea that contextual factors can cause differences in youth participation is
studied in recent years (Fieldhouse, Tannmer, and Russel, 2007; Grimm and
Pilkington, 2015; Soler-i-Marti and Ferrer-Fons, 2015; Sloam, 2016). Political context
matters when it comes to engagement in politics (Grasso, 2016). It is plausible to
suggest that growing up in a certain context and environment would make young
people become politically engaged or disengaged depending on their cultural settings
(Snell, 2010). Therefore, it is important to contextualise young people’s politics
(Torney-Purta, 2008) and a main expectation of this paper is that there will be
potential differences between democracies in terms of youth political involvement.
An existing argument in the literature that is prominent is that participation will be
lower in post-communist countries compared to established democracies when it
comes to traditional politics (Barnes, 2004; Bernhagen and Marsh, 2007; Letki, 2013),
which is tested in this paper.
The above discussions offer a mixed set of expectations and explanations of
youth engagement in politics. On one hand, we would expect young people to be
disengaged and alienated from the traditional forms of politics. Equally, there is an
expectation that young people may be active in new forms of political activities. My
expectation on these theoretical claims is summarised in the following hypothesis:
H1: Young people engage more in informal versus formal politics.
Theoretical arguments claim that socio-demographic factors have a significant
influence on political participation (Parry et al.,1992; Brady, 1995; Verba et al, 1995;
Stolle and Hooghe, 2009; Vecchione and Caprara, 2009; Cainzos and Voces, 2010;
Henn and Foard, 2014). In order to test whether this is the case among young people
from different EU countries, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H2: Higher levels of education are associated with higher levels of youth
engagement.
H3: Higher socio-economic status is associated with higher levels of youth
engagement.
In order to test the assumption that people engage more in advanced
democracies controlling for young people, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H4: Young people are more engaged in advanced democracies compared to new
democracies.
Finally, I test an expectation that in newly established democracies, young
people would be more active in new forms of political participation compared to
advanced democracies. I, therefore, propose the following hypothesis:
H5: Young people are more engaged with informal politics in new
democracies compared to in advanced democracies.
Researchers typically have analysed youth participation on a national level, but
have not considered the cross-national level. There are expectations that
participation varies between individual countries and between a diverse range of
political activities (Sloam, 2016). However, the current existing studies of youth
participation say little about the potential differences between countries and
individuals. Therefore, my novel theoretical and empirical contribution will be to
argue that while social and educational factors (at individual level) matter,
individuals living in different countries (e.g. advanced and new democracies) which
have specific demographic characteristics mater, and this will structure patterns of
participation among young people.
Data and Methods
This paper draws upon data from the Eurobarometer (2013, No. 375)
comparative survey on youth engagement: a dataset consisting of 13,427 respondents
across 27 members of EU countries and Croatia1, allowing a cross-national comparison
of young people’s predictors of political engagement. The dataset contains only young
respondents which is the targeted age cohort of this study, consisting of 13,427
respondents aged 15 to 30. The survey’s aim was to analyse young EU citizens’
participation in society, organisations, political parties, and participation in elections
at local, regional and national level. The limitation of this data is that it does not
represent the full population. Clearly, it would have been preferable to study and
analyse a broader range of age groups, but the data available from the Eurobarometer
survey does allow us to compare how people differ in terms of diverse age groups and
compare and contrast for instance 18 year olds with 30 year olds, and allow for a
meaningful comparison for the purpose of this study and the testing of the
hypotheses.
Survey questions and variables
The existing secondary data from the Eurobarometer 375 survey was used as
different questions we asked related to young people’s participation in politics,
allowing to grasp whether or not their socio-demographic and contextual
characteristics are potential measures of engagement.
Firstly, the Eurobarometer 375 survey employed individual questions including
introductory questions related to age, gender, and nationality. The socio-demographic
characteristics of the respondents were measured through questions regarding at
what age the respondents left school, their highest level of education, and their
1 When the survey was carried out, Croatia was not a member of the European Union; it became a member on 1st July 2013.
current occupation. There is no cross-national standard question about social class,
which is a limitation as it would have allowed testing the theoretical claims reviewed
in this paper. Clearly, as the data is from a study of young people, the ‘occupation’
question is not necessarily most accurate for determining social class patterns of a
respondent, as the majority of answers to this question are ‘still in education’, but all
of the answers to the “What is your occupation?” question were grouped in different
categories formulating the social class independent variable as explained later in the
following paragraphs. It is important to acknowledge that there is no income
question, which prohibits the use of an income measure in the analysis. However,
with age, education and social class included in the analysis, the lack of income
measure does not constitute a significant problem within the confines of the
Eurobarometer data and the age groups.
The Eurobarometer survey asked about young people’s participation in a range
of activities with questions related to both formal and informal modes of political
participation. However, some of the questions regarding political participation were
not used as determinants for the dependent variables due to the structure of the
questions being Likert scale. The survey questions used to construct the dependent
variables of this study are categorised as formal vs. informal activities in Table 1. To
assess and test the hypotheses, three dependent variables were formulated related to
political participation including formal, informal, and general (informal + formal)
political participation. All dependent variables are derived using a binary measure of
whether or not someone had participated in a particular activity from the
Eurobarometer 375 questionnaire (see Table 1). The variable “formal” reflects
whether a person has participated in traditional political activities, where in this
paper, a formal political activity means voting and being a member of a political
party; respectively, the variable “informal” reflects engagement in informal political
activities, where in this paper “informal” political activities are viewed as being a
member of different organisations (listed below). For the purpose of comparative
analyses, an additional dependent variable of general political participation was
constructed that considers whether or not overall participation varies combining the
above-mentioned two dependent variables.
Derived variables: Original indicators:
Formal political participation
Has voted in past three years Has participated in a political party
Informal political participation
Has participated in: Community organisation Youth club, leisure-time club or any kind of youth organisation A cultural organisation A political organisation or a political party A local organisation aimed at improving your local community An organisation active in the domain of climate change/environmental issues An organisation promoting human rights or global development Any other non-governmental organisation
Table 1 Coding for dependent variables
The influences of socio-demographic characteristics are often considered as
important explanatory variables for political engagement in previous studies (Ten,
2007; Furlong and Cartmel, 2012; Holmes and Manning, 2013). However, there is by
comparison, little research evidences that offer conclusions on socio-demographic
factors as crucial predictors of youth engagement in politics (Flanagen et al, 2012;
Henn and Foard, 2014), and especially acknowledging differences between
engagement in both formal and informal political activities. Therefore, I examine
whether socio-demographic factors are crucial in structuring youth political
participation in both formal and informal politics. To test for the effect of socio-
demographic factors on youth participation, separate variables are composed. I
include a categorical variable for education that indexes whether or not respondents
are still in education and when have they left school. In order to consider the effects
of social class on youth participation, I created a social class variable recoded as a
categorical one including values for lower class, middle class, higher class,
respondents who are not working, and respondents who are still in education. The
data for this variable was mapped with the NS-SEC (National Statistics Socio-economic
Classification) Analytic classes and the ABC1 demographic (Demographic
classifications in the UK).
I also include new and old democracy variables in order to test whether age of
democracy is influential and a predictor when it comes to youth participation in EU
countries and test the assumption that youth political participation varies within
different democracies and individual countries. Countries that fall under the category
of “new democracy” were identified using Dunn’s (2005) and Muhlberger and Paine’s
(1993) studies where new democracies are considered to be EU countries that became
democracies post 1988, which includes 11 countries (past communist countries and
countries that used to belong to the Soviet Union). As advanced democracies are
considered EU countries that became democracies post-1945 and pre-1988, which
includes 17 countries. In the literature, those classified as emerging democracies in
Europe in 1970 (Portugal, and Spain) are now classified as established ones for the
purpose of this study, they feature in the “advanced democracy” category.
Analysis
It is suggested that youth participation varies across countries, thus a person
from country A with socio-demographic characteristics A1 A2 and A3 might actively
participate in formal politics, but a person from country B with the same socio-
demographic characteristics might be actively engaged in informal activities and
totally disengaged from the traditional forms of participation. To determine what
shapes youth engagement in formal and informal political participation, and to
identify the crucial predictors associated with youth engagement in politics, a binary
logistic regression is applied.
The theoretical arguments reviewed in this study suggest that socio-
demographic factors such as gender, age, education and social class have an impact
on the political participation of an individual (Verba et al, 1995; Stolle and Hooghe,
2009; Cainzos and Voces, 2010; Henn and Foard, 2014). The statistical analyses of the
data test whether or not these theoretical claims hold in regards to the
Eurobarometer 375 survey data including a series of already defined categorical
variables in the regression analysis. In addition, the theoretical model of this study
suggests that there is a significant relationship between contextual factors and young
people’s political participation. It is proposed that age of democracy has a crucial
impact on young people’s engagement in politics in different European countries,
which is tested using binary regression and models are run for general, formal and
informal political participation and assess whether or not there are differences in
young people’s participations’ predictors when it comes to formal and informal
political participation (Lieberman, 2005). The binary regression also tests what
predicts political engagement among young people by employing different socio-
demographic and contextual factors and analysing the relationship between them and
the dependent variables.
Results: Young people’s engagement in politics and socio-demographic
determinants
The decline of youth participation in politics has been discussed above. Several
authors suggested that young people are disengaged and alienated from the
traditional forms of political participation (Russell, 2004; Stoker, 2006; Hay, 2007).
However, a descriptive bar chart that demonstrates the Eurobarometer data in terms
of level of participation across EU countries reveals that youth participation in politics
varies across countries (see Figure 1).
Figure 1 Level of participation across EU countries
Although, the descriptive analyses show various levels of youth participation
across countries, it is important to check if this refers to engagement in traditional
forms of politics or in informal political activities as numerous authors have claimed
that Generation Y are not apathetic but have orientated towards new forms of
political engagement (Norris, 2003; Spannring et al, 2008; Sloam, 2013). Therefore,
binary regression is used to investigate and explore the differences across different
forms of youth political engagement. Moreover, the regression analysis allows
developing models that assess what are the determinants for formal, informal and
general political engagement among young people in the EU countries. The regression
models also explain why some individuals are more politically engaged than others by
looking at country-level factors as determinants for engagement.
Firstly, I look at political participation in different activities as a function of
age and run a descriptive analysis to determine what does the data tell us initially
about young people’s participation in formal and informal political activities.
It is important to note that general descriptive analysis suggested that the
respondents from the Eurobarometer study participate more in formal politics than in
informal with 60% compared to 54%. One feature of this data set is that it only
includes respondents aged 15 to 30 which can be viewed as limitation because it does
not provide an opportunity for comparison across the age groups of the whole
population. However, it is possible to differentiate between younger and older
respondents in the sample, therefore a new variable “age” was created to
differentiate young people age with one category being “15 to 23 year olds” and
another one being “24 to 30 year olds”. I run a descriptive analysis to check whether
or not there are variations in young people’s engagement depending on their age and
as seen in Figure 2, the results indicate that the “15 to 23” age group engage more in
informal politics than respondents aged 24 to 30 (58% compared to 49%). Not
surprisingly, the respondents aged 24 to 30 engage more in formal politics than
respondents aged 15 to 23 (78% compared to 44%).
Figure 2 Proportion of respondents from different age group participating in formal
compared to informal politics
Socio-demographic predictors of political engagement among young people
In line with earlier studies (Verba et al, 1995; Stolle and Hooghe, 2009;
Vecchione and Caprara, 2009; Cainzos and Voces, 2010), a common trend that
emerged is that socio-demographic factors are important predictors of political
engagement. To test these theoretical claims and to either reject or confirm H1, H2
and H3, I modeled participation using binary logistic regression as a function of age,
social class, and education, controlling for countries.
As the descriptive analysis above suggests, there are some important differences
within age groups when it comes to different levels and forms of political
participation of the youth. Therefore, the models are firstly presented with a reduced
set of variables, which allows to observe what is the effect of adding “age” to the
models as it is expected that age makes a significant difference to participation.
Table 2 Formal Political Participation: Age Base Regression Model controlling for countries
As Table 2 suggests, the base model featuring only “age” as a predictor of
youth engagement reveals that respondents aged 24 to 30 are nearly 5 times more
likely to participate in formal political activities than the reference category (young
people aged 15 to 23); and they are 28% less likely to get involved in informal political
participation than respondents aged 15 to 23. As expected, age is statistically
significantly associated with higher levels of participation in traditional political
activities than older cohorts. Table 2 indicates that there is an inverse relationship
between age and informal politics because as a respondent gets older, the odds of
them participating in informal political activities decreases which suggests that the
younger a person is, the more likely they are to be involved in informal political
activities which confirms Hypothesis 1.
Variables
Formal Political
Participation
Informal Political Participation
Coef Coef
Age (15-‐23)
Age (24-‐30)
Reference
4.752**
Reference
0.719**
* p<0.05 ** p<0.01
To check if this finding is still robust once I control for other socio-demographic
factors, social class and education are added to the regression models. It is suggested
and expected that participation equals to a function of age plus a series of socio-
demographic predictors controlling for countries, where Model 1 refers to formal
political participation which includes voting and being member of a political party;
and Model 2 refers to informal participation in politics consisting of participation in
different organisations (defined earlier in this paper); and Model 3 refers to general
political participation (see Table 3). Focusing on the socio-demographic predictors,
the following paragraph reveals the results from the binary logistic regressions
commenting on how much does education matter and how much does social class
matters when it comes to predicting young people’s engagement in formal and
informal political activities in EU countries (see Table 3). In all of the three regression
models, I control for country fixed effects, the results are reported in Table 3 but the
full regression analyses are available in supplemental materials (Appendix).
Table 3 Regression models' results: Model 1 (general participation), Model 2 (formal participation), Model 3 (informal
participation
Political Participation
Variables Model 1
General Political Participation
Model 2 Formal
Political Participation
Model 3 Informal Political
Participation
Age (15-23) Reference Reference Reference
Age (24-30) 1.855**
(0.108)
2.924**
(0.143)
0.914
(0.043)
Education : left education
at 18 or before Reference Reference Reference
Left education at 19 or
above
2.094**
(0.155)
2.297**
(0.155)
1.344**
(0.086)
Still in education 1.813**
(0.173)
1.276**
(0.109)
1.880*
(0.156)
Lower social class Reference Reference Reference
Middle social class 1.079
(0.089)
1.330**
(0.094)
1.044
(0.064)
Higher social class 1.383**
(0.155)
1.511**
(0.142)
1.465**
(0.113)
Still in education 0.956
(0.090)
0.757**
(0.060)
1.140
(0.088)
Not Working 0. 731**
(0.058)
0.869*
(0.062)
0.683*
(0.045)
Cons 3.127532
(0.505)
0.759
(0.097)
1.189
(0.142)
*p<0.05 **p<0.01
The results from the regression suggest that both education and social class
have a positive and significant effect in all modes of participation as seen in Table 3.
This characterization supports the findings from earlier studies (Verba et al, 1995;
Stolle and Hooghe, 2009; Vecchione and Caprara, 2009; Cainzos and Voces, 2010;
Henn and Foard, 2014).
Education
Education plays a crucial role in determining political participation. Having left
education at 19 or above leads to an increase of around 2.3 in the odds of
participating in formal political activities than a person who has left school at 18 or
below. These findings denote an important distinction that the longer a person has
stayed in education; the more likely they are to engage in formal political activities.
In order to compare this finding with informal political participation, I look at Model 2
that suggests that a person who left education at 19 or above is 34% more likely to
participate in informal politics than someone who left education at 18 or below.
Moreover, if a person is still in education, they are 81% more likely to take part in
political participation than a respondent who left school at 18 or above. In order to
differentiate between different forms of political participation and the socio-
demographic predictors, it is important to note that the regression analysis reveal the
effect of a respondent still being in education is stronger on informal politics than
formal politics (88% and 27%, respectively).
Education as a social predictor of general, formal and informal political
engagement appears to be statistically significant (p<0.01). These results provide
strong support for the expectation summarised in the second Hypothesis (H2) that
higher levels of education are associated with higher levels of youth engagement.
Social class
The analysis of the Eurobarometer data using binary regression, reported in
Table 4 and 5 reveal that there are some statistically significant variations in effects
of social class across formal and informal participation of the youth. The odds of a
non-working person to be involved in any form of political activity decreases by 27% in
comparison to a lower class person. The analyses for formal and informal participation
suggest similar result and imply that respondents who are not working are less likely
to participate in formal and informal politics. To be more specific, the odds of a
respondent who is not working to participate in formal politics decreases by 13% in
comparison to a lower class respondent; moreover, a respondent who is not working is
32% less likely to engage in informal politics than a lower class respondent, with these
results from the general and informal political participation models being statistically
significant at the 1% level (p<0.01).
Respondents from higher class are significantly more likely to participate in
politics than their counterparts from a lower social class (to be exact, a respondent
from a higher social class is about 40% more likely to participate in politics than a
respondent from a lower class). This implies that, as predicted, higher social class is
associated with higher levels of youth engagement confirming Hypothesis 3 (H3).
Results: Young people’s engagement in democracies
For the purpose of this study, each of the 28 EU countries from the data set
was classified as either new or advanced democracy where democracies established
before 1988 were classified as “advanced” and the post-communist countries were
recorded as “new”. To test whether contextual predictors are significant to youth
participation in politics, two new dichotomous variables are derived: new democracy
and old democracy that were included in the regression models; and then the model
suggested that participation is defined as a function of age and the other socio-
demographic predictors plus age of democracy, controlling for countries. Therefore,
the effect of age of democracy on youth engagement is presented in Table 4, where
age of democracy variable is added to the regression models.
Political Participation
Variables Model 1
General Political Participation
Model 2 Formal
Political Participation
Model 3 Informal Political
Participation
Age (15-23) Reference Reference Reference
Age (24-30) 1.855**
(0.108)
2.924**
(0.143)
0.914
(0.043)
Education : left education
at 18 or before Reference Reference Reference
Left education at 19 or
above
2.094**
(0.155)
2.297**
(0.155)
1.344**
(0.086)
Still in education 1.813***
(0.174)
1.276***
(0.109)
1.880***
(0.156)
Lower social class Reference Reference Reference
Middle social class 1.079
(0.089)
1.330**
(0.094)
1.044
(0.064)
Higher social class 1.383**
(0.155)
1.511**
(0.142)
1.465**
(0.113)
Still in education 0.956
(0.091)
0.757***
(0.060)
1.140*
(0.088)
Not Working 0.731**
(0.058)
0.869*
(0.062)
0.683**
(0.045)
Old democracy Reference Reference Reference
New Democracy 0.527**
(0.093)
1.107
(0.161)
0.377**
(0.050)
Cons 3.127532
(0.505)
0.75852
(0.097)
1.1891
(0.142)
*p<0.05 **p<0.01
Table 4 Regression models' results: Model 1 (general participation), Model 2 (formal participation), Model 3 (informal
participation
In comparison to the previous regression models, it is obvious that there is only
change in the odds ratios of countries that are classified as new democracies which
predicts that age of democracy is a predictor of youth participation across EU
countries.
The existing literature predicts that contextual factors are crucial and cause
differences in young people’s engagement in politics (Fieldhouse, Tannmer, and
Russel, 2007; Grimm and Pilkington, 2015; Soler-i-Marti and Ferrer-Fons, 2015;
Grasso, 2016; Sloam, 2016). In line with that, the results of the regression models
featuring the age of democracy variables, suggest that political engagement among
young people varies within different ages of democracies. Young Europeans who live
in one of the newly established democracy are 47% less likely to be politically
engaged than a person in an established democracy. Tellingly, this characterisation
supports the findings from earlier studies that participation is lower is post-communist
countries compared to established democracies (Bernhagen and Marsh, 2007; Letki,
2013). This broadly confirms H4 that predicts that the youth are more politically
engaged in established democracies. However, this pattern is not a uniform one as
the results from the regression models controlling for countries reveal that there are
some statistically significant variations in levels of youth engagement across different
established democracies. For instance, the results indicate that political engagement
is low in the UK, which is also evident in previous studies reporting that the
Generation Y in Britain is very disengaged from politics, especially when it comes to
traditional forms of politics (Russell, 2004; Henn, 2012). Young people in Britain are
51% less likely to vote or be a member of a political party compared to respondents
from the reference category (France). The UK respondents have lowest levels of
participation in politics across the EU countries together with Cyprus, Hungary, and
Lithuania, being about 50% less likely to participate in politics in comparison to
France. Respondents from new democracies are 62% less likely to engage in informal
politics than respondents from advanced democracies, which does not uphold the
assumptions proposed in H5 and contradictory to H5 suggest that young people are
more engaged in informal politics in advanced democracies compared to new
democracies.
As results reveal, youth engagement in politics varies significantly across the
different European countries and across forms of participation and age of democracy.
It is interesting to note that countries with low levels of engagement in formal politics
(Germany, Luxemburg, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria
with odds ratios below 1) have higher level of engagement in informal politics (with
odds ratios over 12). It appears that countries with high ratios of youth participation in
formal activities (Belgium, Netherland, Latvia) also have very high ratios of
participation in informal activities (ranging from 1.3 up to 1.7).
Although some scholars and previous studies suggest and find some evidence
that new democracies are not that politically active as advanced democracies (Letki,
2003; Bernhagen and Marsh, 2007), the results from the regression analysis indicates
the opposite for some of the countries. For instance, a respondent from Latvia is 1.4
times more likely to participate in general politics than a respondent from France.
2 All of the countries’ odds ratios are in relation to the reference category: France.
Conclusion
Youth participation matters and the problem of youth disengagement continues
to be a major issue facing contemporary democracies. We need to understand what
determines young people’s engagement in politics. Most scholars have analysed the
issue of political engagement among young people in a single country only, but this
study adds contribution to a comparative research on young people’s engagement in
politics.
The overarching aim of this study was to investigate the determinants of
political participation among young people, and to explore the relationship between
socio-demographic factors, contextual factors and formal and informal political
participation. The results of the binary regression represented a sample of 13,427
young respondents from 28 different European countries.
Referring back to the research questions posed at the beginning, the regression
results suggested that the socio-demographic factors that predict political
participation among young people are age, education and social class, which is in
consistent with the previous studies (Vecchione and Caprara, 2009; Stolle and
Hooghe, 2009; Henn and Foard, 2014). In terms of the contextual predictors of
political participation among young people, there are differences between countries
and especially new and old democracies. It is suggested based on the binary
regression results that political participation among young people is determined by
the socio-demographic characteristics of an individual as well as the contextual
characteristics of the country they live in. The regression models suggest that
political participation among young people is not universal in any democracy but
varies within different types of democracy and individual countries. In addition, the
results from the regression models indicate that there are statistically significant
differences in the relationships between the socio-demographic and contextual
predictors in formal and informal modes of political participation among young
people.
Overall, the study found out that respondents who are aged 15 to 23 are more
likely to participate in informal politics, and engage more in politics in advanced
democracies. The analyses also reveal a strong a statistically and substantially
importance that a higher social class and a higher education are associated with
higher political participation. Respondents from higher social class participate more in
politics than respondents from lower social class. Respondents who are not working
are less likely to engage in any form of politics than respondents who are in
education. And respondents who are still in education are more engaged in informal
versus formal politics.
Some of the main findings suggested that a respondent who is aged 24 to 30 is
2.9 times more likely to participate in formal politics than a respondent aged 18 to 23
which indicates that the older the person is, the more likely they are to vote and
participate in any kind of formal politics. The regression results also suggested that
the longer a person has stayed in education, the more likely they are to participate in
formal politics which is consistent with previous studies’ findings (Henn and Foard,
2014; Flanagan et al, 2012). Moreover, if a person is still in education, they are more
likely to engage in any form of political participation (a respondent who is still in
education is 81% more likely to be politically engaged than a respondent who has left
education at 18 or below). And a respondent from a higher social class is 1.4 times
more likely to participate in any form of politics than a respondent who is from a
lower social class.
Although some scholars and previous studies suggest and find some evidence
that new democracies are not that politically active as advanced democracies (Letki,
2003; Bernhagen and Marsh, 2007), the results from the regression analysis indicates
the opposite for some of the countries. For instance, a respondent from Latvia is 1.4
times more likely to participate in politics than a respondent from France. However,
voting is a habit and respondents who live in advanced democracies engage more in
formal politics than respondents from new democracies.
The results from the regression models suggest that a young person from a EU
country with the following characteristics: aged 24 to 30, left school at 19 or above,
have a higher social class and live in a country that is an advanced democracy is more
likely to participate in formal politics.
This paper leads to questions for future research on the topic of youth
participation that may include countries outside Europe which will allow a superior
and more sustainable comparison to be made; as well as include older people in order
to compare different types of political participation and analyse further age as a
determinant.
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Appendix
Political Participation (without “newdemocracy” variable)
Variables General Political
Participation
Formal
Political
Participation
Informal
Political
Participation
Age (15-23) Reference Reference Reference
Age (24-30) 1.855**
(0.108)
2.924**
(0.143)
0.914
(0.043)
Education : left education
at 18 or before Reference Reference Reference
Left education at 19 or
above
2.094**
(0.155)
2.297**
(0.155)
1.344**
(0.086)
Still in education 1.813**
(0.173)
1.276**
(0.109)
1.880*
(0.156)
Lower social class Reference Reference Reference
Middle social class 1.079
(0.089)
1.330**
(0.094)
1.044
(0.064)
Higher social class 1.383**
(0.155)
1.511**
(0.142)
1.465**
(0.113)
Still in education 0.956
(0.090)
0.757**
(0.060)
1.140
(0.088)
Not Working 0. 731**
(0.058)
0.869*
(0.062)
0.683*
(0.045)
France Reference Reference Reference
Belgium 1.197
(0.240)
1.787**
(0.268)
1.165
(0.158)
Netherlands 1.565
(0.329)*
1.136
(0.163)
1.730**
(0.248)
Germany 0.647*
(0.116)
0.769
(0.109)
1.041
(0.140)
Italy 0.781
(0.145)
1.643**
(0.249)
0.505**
(0.067)
Luxemburg 0.663*
(0.135)
0.580**
(0.095)
1.355
(0.217)
Denmark 1.120
(0.218)
0.922
(0.130)
1.242
(0.171)
Ireland 1.356
(0.278)
0.783
(0.112)
1.841**
(0.263)
United Kingdom 0.484**
(0.084)
0.291**
(0.042)
0.957
(0.128)
Greece 0.741
(0.137)
1.154
(0.169)
0.565**
(0.074)
Spain 0.846
(0.158)
0.958
(0.138)
0.906
(0.120)
Portugal 0.512**
(0.090)
0.591**
(0.085)
0.788
(0.104)
Finland 0.673*
(0.123)
1.095
(0.158)
0.740*
(0.098)
Sweden 0.709
(0.130)
0.629**
(0.090)
1.245
(0.172)
Austria 0.732
(0.134)
1.205
(0.175)
0.941
(0.125)
Cyprus 0.365**
(0.069)
0.895
(0.148)
0.275**
(0.043)
Czech Republic 0.535**
(0.096)
0.838
(0.122)
0.617**
(0.081)
Estonia 0.334**
(0.057)
0.474**
(0.068)
0.362**
(0.048)
Hungary 0.222**
(0.037)
0.302**
(0.044)
0.355**
(0.047)
Latvia 0.747
(0.139)
1.156
(0.171)
0.505**
(0.066)
Lithuania 0.302**
(0.052)
0.490**
(0.071)
0.311**
(0.042)
Malta 2.476**
(0.671)
3.130**
(0.571)
0.598**
(0.091)
Poland 0.328**
(0.056)
0.597**
(0.087)
0.356**
(0.048)
Slovakia 0.498**
(0.883)
0.578**
(0.083)
0.657**
(0.086)
Slovenia 0.612**
(0.111)
1.116
(0.164)
0.572**
(0.075)
Bulgaria 0.385**
(0.067)
0.639**
(0.092)
0.382**
(0.051)
Romania 0.531**
(0.093)
1.004
(0.145)
0.352**
(0.047)
Croatia 0.527**
(0.093)
1.107
(0.161)
0.377**
(0.050)
Cons 3.127532
(0.505)
0.759
(0.097)
1.189
(0.142)
*p<0.05 **p<0.01
Political Participation (with “newdemocracy” variable
Variables General Political
Participation
Formal
Political
Participation
Informal
Political
Participation
Age (15-23) Reference Reference Reference
Age (24-30) 1.855**
(0.108)
2.924**
(0.143)
0.914
(0.043)
Education : left education
at 18 or before Reference Reference Reference
Left education at 19 or
above
2.094**
(0.155)
2.297**
(0.155)
1.344**
(0.086)
Still in education 1.813***
(0.174)
1.276***
(0.109)
1.880***
(0.156)
Lower social class Reference Reference Reference
Middle social class 1.079
(0.089)
1.330**
(0.094)
1.044
(0.064)
Higher social class 1.383**
(0.155)
1.511**
(0.142)
1.465**
(0.113)
Still in education 0.956
(0.091)
0.757***
(0.060)
1.140*
(0.088)
Not Working 0.731**
(0.058)
0.869*
(0.062)
0.683**
(0.045)
Old democracy Reference Reference Reference
New Democracy 0.527**
(0.093)
1.107
(0.161)
0.377**
(0.050)
France Reference Reference Reference
Belgium 1.197
(0.241)
1.787**
(0.268)
1.165
(0.158)
Netherlands 1.565**
(0.329)
1.136
(0.163)
1.730**
(0.248)
Germany 0.647*
(0.116)
0.769
(0.109)
1.040
(0.140)
Italy 0.781
(0.146)
1.643**
(0.249)
0.505**
(0.067)
Luxemburg 0.663*
(0.136)
0.580**
(0.095)
1.355
(0.217)
Denmark 1.120
(0.219)
0.922
(0.130)
1.241
(0.171)
Ireland 1.356
(0.279)
0.783
(0.112)
1.841**
(0.263)
United Kingdom 0.484**
(0.084)
0.291**
(0.042)
0.957
(0.128)
Greece 0.741
(0.137)
1.154
(0.169)
0.565**
(0.074)
Spain 0.846
(0.159)
0.958
(0.138)
0.906
(0.120)
Portugal 0.512**
(0.090)
0.590**
(0.085)
0.788
(0.104)
Finland 0.673*
(0.124)
1.095
(0.158)
0.740*
(0.098)
Sweden 0.709
(0.130)
0.629**
(0.090)
1.245
(0.172)
Austria 0.732
(0.134)
1.205
(0.175)
0.941
(0.125)
Cyprus 0.365**
(0.069)
0.895
(0.148)
0.275**
(0.043)
Czech Republic 1.015
(0.163)
0.757
(0.110)
1.640**
(0.215)
Estonia 0.633**
(0.096)
0.428**
(0.062)
0.962
(0.127)
Hungary 0.421**
(0.062)
0.273**
(0.039)
0.942
(0.125)
Latvia 1.417*
(0.239)
1.045
(0.155)
1.342*
(0.176)
Lithuania 0.572**
(0.087)
0.443**
(0.064)
0.825
(0.111)
Malta 2.476**
(0.672)
3.130**
(0.571)
0.598**
(0.091)
Poland 0.623**
(0.095)
0.539**
(0.079)
0.945
(0.127)
Slovakia 0.944
(0.149)
0.522**
(0.075)
1.744**
(0.227)
Slovenia 1.160
(0.191)
1.009
(0.148)
1.519**
(0.199)
Bulgaria 0.730*
(0.112)
0.577**
(0.083)
1.015
(0.135)
Romania 1.008
(0.157)
0.908
(0.131)
0.934
(0.124)
Croatia Omitted Omitted Omitted
Cons 3.127532
(0.505)
0.75852
(0.097)
1.1891
(0.142)
*p<0.05 **p<0.01