Explaining young people’s political participation in a time of austerity

What is it about?

Recent trends suggest that young people today are becoming progressively more disillusioned with democratic politics in austerity Britain. They are significantly less likely to vote than older adults, and they are much less likely to vote than were previous youth generations. At the same time, they seem rather attracted to different types of politics, such as protests, demonstrations and using social media to have their say. But how do we explain these trends? In this paper, we consider the effectiveness of a range of different theories which have been developed to try and help us understand young people's interest in different types of politic action, and we focus in particular on the theory of postmaterialism first developed by Ronald Inglehart.

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Why is it important?

Young people are often criticised for not voting in elections. But they are interested in getting involved in politics in other ways that they feel are more relevant and more effective - and they often support quite radical political actions. Using postmaterialist theory, our research shows that young people are not anti-democratic. Instead, they are interested in politics and supportive of democracy, but they feel let down by the way that politics usually works in this country. Our findings also suggest that politicians can help to persuade young people that voting and getting involved in politics matters. To do this, they need to listen carefully to the views of young people and to create new and exciting ways for today’s youth to participate in decision-making.

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