Anti-party sentiment among young adults

Abstract

The study seeks to explore antipartyism in Western Europe. Particularly, it focuses on the extent to which the young adults differ from their elders in terms of trust in parties in fourteen West European countries. Pooled data, based on the European Social Survey 2006/2007, is employed and analyzed by means of ordinary least squares multiple regression. The other socio-economic background variables of the model, as well as the political background, interpersonal trust and the country of origin, are controlled in order to isolate the effect of age. The analysis shows that trust in parties of 18–30 year olds is, on average, significantly higher than in the rest of the population which contradicts the assumptions of the post-modernization theory and the empirical fact that electoral participation among West European young adults is constantly decreasing. Thus, the article suggests that antipartyism and political participation should be seen as distinct processes at different birth cohorts and perhaps also at different stages of the lifecycle.