A Generational Approach to Modelling Youth’s Engagement in Politics

Abstract

Youth in contemporary Anglo-Saxon democracies are less engaged in politics than their adult counterparts. To explain why, this study adopts a generational approach to modelling youth’s engagement in politics. Contemporary youth are characterised by progressive individualist values of democratisation and individualism that respond to the instability and uncertainty of late modernity. Linear regressions are used on datasets extracted from the World Values Survey for four study countries – Australia, the USA, Britain and New Zealand. The results show that the conventional civic engagement model no longer explains why contemporary youth are statistically less engaged in politics than adults. The index of progressive individualism developed in this study, however, does diminish the impact of age in determining variation in political engagement. Although further research is needed to confirm progressive individualism is a generational characteristic of contemporary youth, this study advocates for increased flexibility in the practice of politics to reflect the lived experience of young citizens in late modernity.