Political Participation of Young People: A Comparison between Swedish Students and International Students in Gothenburg

Abstract: A vast amount of literature has been dedicated to political participation of young people. How do young people perceive the political participation? Some argue that the decreasing participation of young people is balanced with increased political participation outside the traditional methods. Others warn of increase in disinterest in politics, which can affect the functioning of the democratic systems and institutions. Studies have been largely focused only on quantitative methods to try and explain the political participation of young people. This paper presents an analysis of data from three focus groups conducted in Gothenburg with 12 students. The students are European Union citizens from Sweden, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Spain, Germany and Austria. The study analyzes qualitatively the types of political participation young European Union citizens use, their motivations for political participation, their attitude towards the European Parliament elections and the factors that affect the political participation among young people. The study finds that the participants are engaged in politics and in political participation. Some of the participants use very often issue-oriented participation, such as political consumerism. The empirical data shows that the popular political consumerism among the participants does not link to low trust in government, as has been suggested in the existing literature. In contrast to what some other studies have suggested, I did not find evidence supporting increased focus on online participation than offline political participation among these young people. Regarding the European Parliament elections, the study supports the claims that European elections decrease the political participation. The data suggests that the participants in the discussions are less interested in European elections. However, there is not much support for the theory of European elections as “second-order” elections – theory that links the low political participation with the perceptions of the citizens that the European elections are less important than the national elections and less is at stake. The lack of knowledge and information are new factors that are possible explanations for the low participation in European elections and those factors should be further evaluated.