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

Autor	DAHL Viktor AMNA Erik BANAJI Shakuntala LANDBERG Monique ŠEREK Jan RIBEIRO Norberto BEILMANN Mai PAVLOPOULOS Vassilis ZANI Bruna
Organisation	Fakulta sociálních studií Masarykovy univerzity
Year	2018
Research type	paper in Journal
Annotation	Political participation is one of the most studied aspects of the contemporary development of western democracies. A recent trend focuses the lack of political participation among younger generations. At the same time, the last decades have also witnessed a growth in the share of young European Union (EU) citizens who express alienation, and distrust toward social and political institutions at the national as well as the European level. By studying young people across different countries of the EU, the current study aims to examine if youths’ political passivity is better explained by political apathy or alienation. Our analyses are based on a comparative survey data collected by the Catch-EyoU project comprising approximately 4 454 late adolescents assembled from eight member countries of the EU. Results from logistic regressions predicting non-voting from apathy and alienation support the idea that political passivity is best understood as the result of political apathy. Moreover, it seems that the underlying separator of apathetic and alienated youths is cognitive awareness of political life. These results are discussed in relation to potentially built-in paradoxes of apathy present in efficient and well-functional welfare-state democracies.
Keywords	political passivity; political apathy; political alienation; youths; European Union
Research type	unrepeated research, quantitative , comparative research
Start date
End date
Obor	AN Psychology
Email	serek@fss.muni.cz
Availability	available after payment
Link	http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2017.1404985
Research location	Ne, po zaplacení
Organisation	Fakulta sociálních studií Masarykovy univerzity
Organisation web	fss.muni.cz
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