The Short-Term Biographical Consequences of Youth Political Participation

• In Event: 20263 - Recent Advances in Social Movement Research

Abstract

Works on the personal and biographical consequences of social movements forms a relatively small but substantial body of literature. These refer to effects on the life-course of individuals who have participated in movement activities, due at least in part to involvement in those activities. In general, these studies converge in suggesting that activism has a strong effect both on the political and personal lives of the subjects. Previous research in this field has focused on long-term effects sometimes spanning overall decades, most often focusing on highly committed activists of the American New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the same time, however, only seldom scholars have resorted to panel data, most often relying on qualitative interviews and follow-up studies which are subject to the problem relating to retrospectivity. This paper investigates the short-term effects of involvement in protest activities on the political life of young people. The main research questions guiding our analysis are the following: To what extent does the involvement of young people in political activities such protest activities, affect their political life? We examine political interest, political discussion, internal and external political efficacy, political values on both left-right and libertarian-authoritarian scales as well as environmental and party membership. We use an original two wave panel survey with the first wave from 2018 and the second 2019. We focus on young people aged between 18 and 34 years to understand how engaging in protest impacts on their political life. Since our data covers nine European countries (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK), we will also include a comparative dimension by inquiring into the cross-national differences in the patterns of short-term effects observed.

Authors

• Marco Giugni, University of Geneva

• Maria Grasso, Queen Mary University of London