Youth Democratic Disengagement in Tunisia : A quantitative research

Abstract: This study aims to investigate why young people in Tunisia participate less in formal and informal politics than older people. First, I compare the participatory pattern of young people in six forms of political participation (voting, party membership, organization membership, campaign activity, protesting and attending meetings/signing petitions) to older Tunisians, with merged data from the Arab Barometers five waves (2012-2019). The data shows that young people indeed participate less than the older. To find out why, I rely on socio-economic, political-psychological and socialization theories. I examine the research problem through a logistic regression model with data from the Arab Barometers fourth wave (2016-2017), which considers key explanatory variables from the socioeconomic, political-psychological and socialization theories. The results show that the biggest obstacle for young people to participate in politics is their lack of socioeconomic resources. Furthermore, access to information through education, political news and social media seem to be the most substantial variables to stimulate political participation among young people in Tunisia.