Young people’s trust in institutions and their dispositions toward civic engagement since 2009

• In Event: Young people’s perceptions of issues related to global citizenship, environmental sustainability, diversity and civic engagement since 2009. Results from ICCS.

Proposal

Over the past decade there have been growing concerns regarding a worldwide “democratic recession” (Diamond, 2014), which have arisen due to a surge in authoritarian government practices as well as a considerable increase in populist movements that have started to erode established party systems and in some cases have challenged the stability of democratic systems (Boogards, 2017). Frequently, the success of populist movements and political leaders has been linked the increased alienation of citizens from civic institutions and in particular traditional political parties, and it is also regarded as a response to growing globalisation and migration (Hobolt, Anduiza, Carkoglu, Lutz & Sauger, 2016).
Growing political alienation of larger parts of the population in democratic societies (Schwartz, 2017; Stoker & Evans, 2014) is often regarded as an explanatory factor behind the surge in populism (Gidron & Hall, 2017). Economic and social developments have increasingly severed traditional bindings of people to society and its institutions, and increasingly individuals feel “left behind” and marginalised. In addition, increasing attention on scandals and corruption as well as personalisation of politics may provide further explanations for populist orientations (Fieschi & Heywood, 2004). Furthermore, negative emotions (such as feelings of anxiety and sadness) have been identified as drivers of populist voting choices (Rico, Guinjoan & Anduiza, 2017).
Over the past decades there have been growing concerns about low political participation among young people, as evidenced clearly by low voter turnout in many countries, which also goes along with a sense of being marginalised from the political process (see for example, Henn & Weinstein, 2006). There is also evidence of the existence of contradictory and often conflicting political viewpoints among young people that could be interpreted as expressions of views that draw on populist rhetoric (Pollock, Brock, & Ellison, 2015). In addition, research results have suggested generational shifts with young people increasingly putting politics of choice before politics of loyalties (Norris, 2004), with preferences for engagement related to new forms of engagement such as social media (Grasso, 2017).
This paper will focus on the links between students’ trust in civic institutions, civic knowledge and different types of current and expected civic engagement. It will compare patterns of changes in students’ trust in civic institutions and indicators of engagement across the two first cycles of ICCS. Furthermore, it will use multivariate analyses to assess the association between measures of trust and expected forms of engagement (electoral, active political, legal and illegal expressions of opinion), with a particular focus on the role of civic knowledge.
Analyses from both ICCS cycles have shown that trust tends to be associated with different types students’ expected engagement while civic knowledge is a positive predictor for expected electoral participation, but is negatively correlated with active political participation. Furthermore, students with higher levels of civic knowledge tend to be less inclined to trust civic institutions in those countries with higher indices of corruption.

Author

• Wolfram Schulz, Australian Council for Educational Research