The post-austerity youth. Political attitudes and behavior

Abstract

The economic crisis transformed the way in which European citizens relate to politics in general but particularly affected young people. The crisis resulted in decreased levels of trust in political institutions and increased levels of political protest. But little attention has been paid to the post-crisis period. Ten years on, what are young people’s attitudes and behaviour? This article examines the potential long term consequences of the economic crisis on young people’s political interest, political trust and political participation. In examining political behaviour we use a classification of types of participants that allows us to compare young people to adults, and young people before, during and after the economic crisis. Empirically, we use a descriptive approach using survey data from the European Social Survey, covering a considerable period of time (2002-2016) and 16 European countries. The comparison is threefold: young people over time, young people to adults, and young people across countries. The results support the idea of the emergence of a post-crisis youth that is more engaged and participative than adults and young people before the crisis. However the results do not show radical differences among countries that were affected by the economic crisis in varying degrees.