The Cognitive Mobilization Index: Crises and Political Generations (original) (raw)
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During the last decade, Spain has experienced, like other surrounding countries, a deep economic crisis accompanied by an unprecedented political and institutional crisis. This has led to a growing mistrust in institutions and a dissatisfaction with democracy, but also an increase in interest in politics, which implies an interesting change regarding other situations. Young people of the so-called 'crisis generation', who have socialized in a new and changing context, also participate in this process of change, and have moreover played a leading role in the public space. In order to analyze young people's politicization process, in this article we use data from the European Social Survey (rounds 1-7, from 2000 to 2014) and the Young People in Spain Survey (2016). We developed a typology of attitudes towards politics and identified, using discrete choice models, the demographic and socioeconomic profile of young people particularly dissatisfied with politics. Our results show that, although young people socialized in the context of the crisis are very critical of politics, instead of moving further away from democratic politics or rejecting it openly, in most cases they politicize their discontent. Even those most critical of the way in which democracy works in the country have a very participatory political behavior, both in forms of nonelectoral and electoral participation.
Psychologia: to periodiko tīs Ellīnikīs Psychologikīs Etaireias/Psychologia. To periodiko tīs Ellīnikīs Psychologikīs Etaireias, 2024
Political engagement Emotions Political interest Political participation Uncertainty Young citizens Political engagement (PE) is approached as a complex concept that incorporates cognitive, behavioural, and emotional aspects. This study aims to investigate the suggested typology of PE (partisan, apartisan, stand-by, apolitical, antipolitical), and to identify those variables (cognitive, emotional, behavioural) that contribute to the appearance of each type. Surveys are conducted in the UK, France, and Greece, as these countries both represent and experience different types of crises. Participants (N=1.005), from 18 to 35 years old, were classified into the types according to their self-positioning on PE typology. Five models of logistic regression were applied to our samples. The five types of PE were used as the criterion variables, whereas the emotional (emotions towards politics: enthusiasm, anxiety, aversion, disgust, disappointment, indifference; emotions towards crisis: fear/frustration, trust/optimism, anger/indignation), the cognitive (political interest: interest in politics, interest in societal issues), and the behavioural dimensions (political participation: non-digital political activism, activities of sociopolitical concerns, digital political activism, normative collective action, active political counter-argumentation, and pro-social activism) as predictors. Results showed that different forms of political interest, different repertoires of political behaviours, and different sets of emotions contribute to the appearance of each type of PE. Furthermore, PE types are interpreted through the complexity of modern societies. Especially for apolitical and anti-political types of engagement, discussion suggests that they could be considered as forms of political identities in postdemocratic societies of developing crises and uncertainty.
It is broadly accepted that in the last decades young generations have played an important role in the transformation of political participation patterns. However, some aspects in the nature of this change remain unclear: Quantitative studies have shown a decrease in political support and institutional participation of young people while some other works stress the increasing levels of non-conventional participation. Does this changes means that young people is more or less involved in social and political affaires? In the framework of the international economic crisis, the thought that governments and national political institutions are loosing sovereignty reinforces this institutional disaffection but, in the same time, this situation has been a source of political implication and mobilization particularly for young people as seen in the protest events that have taken place in 2011. Traditional survey indicators of political involvement reflect attitudes concerning traditional political objects like parties, politicians or institutions. Such indicators do not capture new forms of political involvement that are oriented more directly to the causes without the traditional mediation of political organizations or institutions. The paper analyzes a regional representative survey carried out just after the squares mobilization in Catalonia and including both traditional and new indicators about political involvement.
Precarious Voices? Types of " Political Citizens " and Repertoires of Action among European Youth
Partecipazione e Conflitto - PACO, 2016
In spite of cross national differences, one of the most relevant concerns for young European people nowadays, is represented by job insecurity. In this contribution, the authors aim to shed light on the triggering role of job precariousness and unemployment on individual repertoires of political actions among young people in three European cities (Lyon in France, Turin in Italy, Cologne in Germany). Theoretically , the paper addresses the existing limitations in the literature on precarious workers' political participation by proposing a new comprehensive framework which includes a broad set of actions, including in-stitutionalized and non-institutionalized forms of political action (e.g. petitions, public demonstrations, disruptive actions). Empirically, a quantitative descriptive technique-Latent Class Cluster Analysis (LCCA)-is deployed allowing to take into account different variables (e.g. socio-demographic conditions, educational attainment, age, employment status and political beliefs) to portray, for each city under analysis and for each " mode " of participation, a set of ideal-typical individual profiles.
Eppur si Muove! Young People, Issue Salience and Volatility in Nine European Countries
Government and Opposition, 2023
Political participation and party attachment in Western democracies have become more and more volatile. In turn, political campaigns seem increasingly dependent on shortterm discursive windows of opportunity opened by dynamic debates on issues such as migration, climate, employment and economic policies. Based on panel data from nine European countries, we investigate how patterns and changes in the materialist and postmaterialist concerns of respondents affect electoral turnout and party switching. By relating these variables, we aim to uncover whether and to what extent underlying concernsand thus short-term politicizationaccount for short-term patterns of electoral volatility. We pay special attention to young respondents, who are often framed as being particularly dynamic and less bound to traditional political loyalties. Our findings offer insights into short-term change in discursive opportunities for political mobilization and broader democratic engagement.
Different patterns of young people's and adult's political participation depend on two types of causal factors (Bennet, 1997). On the one hand, there is a cohort effect that reflects different contexts in which the process of political socialization of each generation takes place. And therefore, there is a trend that explains stable differences between generations. On the other hand, there is also a life-cycle effect, and depending on this factor political participation patterns change as time passes, which leads to a convergence between generations. However, on an empirical level, it is very complex to distinguish the size of both effects when it comes to explaining differences in participation of young people and adults at a certain moment in time. This article makes a comparison using three waves of the EVS (European Value Survey) in 1980, 1990 and 2000. There are two objectives: First, comparing differences in patterns of participation of young people during the last three decades in Europe (cohort effect). In the second place, study evolution of the trajectories of political participation of young people in the three cohorts throughout time (life-cycle effect). Comparisons of these results will allow us to identify to what extent differences between cohorts are persistent (in which case, we will have to find the explanations in different contexts of political socialization) or, on the contrary, if there is convergence between cohorts (in that case, explaining factors will be found in the processes of transition from youth to adulthood).
Intersections, 2019
While people have an influence on current political decisions, and as ordinary citizens represent the basis for political participation, depicting such political engagement in an empirical/practical way creates a concerning amount of methodological questions. Data obtained via the European Social Survey Round 1-7 offers the opportunity to outline and broaden the picture in terms of the personal (demographic and psychological) features of individuals who participate in politics to a greater or lesser degree. Participants from the seven rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS) were divided into three groups: higher, medium, and lower political participation (α = 0.642). A Scale of Political Participation was created based on 'yes' answers. It was found that those individuals who were female or had a lower level of education participated less, while older people were more politically participative than younger people. The psychological profile of these groups differs in terms of preferred values: attitudes, satisfaction, trust in people, and institutions.
Eppur si Muove! Young People, Issue Salience and Volatility in Nine European Countries
Government and Opposition, 2023
Political participation and party attachment in Western democracies have become more and more volatile. In turn, political campaigns seem increasingly dependent on shortterm discursive windows of opportunity opened by dynamic debates on issues such as migration, climate, employment and economic policies. Based on panel data from nine European countries, we investigate how patterns and changes in the materialist and postmaterialist concerns of respondents affect electoral turnout and party switching. By relating these variables, we aim to uncover whether and to what extent underlying concernsand thus short-term politicizationaccount for short-term patterns of electoral volatility. We pay special attention to young respondents, who are often framed as being particularly dynamic and less bound to traditional political loyalties. Our findings offer insights into short-term change in discursive opportunities for political mobilization and broader democratic engagement.
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-019-00136-5 The economic crisis starting in 2008, also known as the Great Recession, has led to rising unemployment and shrinking GDP across Europe. About 10 years since its onset, there is great variation in the economic conditions of different countries in Europe. As citizens still struggle to cope with the effects of the economic crisis, attention has been drawn to the potential social and political effects of the recession. The experience of economic difficulty can certainly be understood to generate grievances which people may seek to redress through political action. Particularly during periods of economic challenges, macroeconomic conditions might fail to meet expectations resulting in feelings of deprivation and dissatisfaction. In this way, economic crises may provide the political space and motivations for the mobilization of various groups. Particularly in those countries worst hit by the crisis, large protests took place as European governments were blamed for the negative economic context. Protest parties have also been able to attract large proportions of electoral support across the continent. Moreover, in several countries the economic crisis was linked in with pre-existing political crisis, broadening critiques to the entire political system and fostering requests for “real democracy now” such as with Spain’s Indignados movement...