First
Results
The data collection phase of our project was completed in
June 2007. Nearly 3000 young members of fifteen different political parties
from six different countries took part in our mass survey, and over 500 of
them accepted to take part in in-depth facet to face interviews. More
details about the methodology used can be found here. We are now pleased to
provide you with the first results of our survey analysis. A list to
conference papers, publications, and other outputs, as well as further
results will be published soon. Do feel free to
contact us is you have any question!
Executive Summary
The project explores the motivations, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviour of young members of fifteen parties in six European democracies: UK, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, and Hungary. At a time when a large proportion of the public in general and of young citizens in particular are disenchanted with politics and likely to reject even the most basic acts of civic engagement, it explains why a large number of youngsters still decide to get involved in one of the most traditional form of political participation: party membership. The study uses a comparative survey of 2919 young party members aged 18-25, and in-depth interviews of over 500 of them. We show that young party members fit into three distinct categories: moral, social, and professional-minded members, who significantly differ in terms of their perceptions, preferences, behaviour, and desired future involvement, shedding unprecedented light upon the trajectories, attitudes, and political conceptions of tomorrow’s political leaders. Some of our main findings include:
PATHS OF MEMBERSHIP: Young party members usually join following one of four major paths: influence of the family, influence of friends, educational unionism, or the feeling of an inadequacy of their peers (young people, family, or people in general) in terms of their political involvement.
THREE TYPES OF YOUNG PARTY MEMBERS: Young party members join political parties on the basis of three main dimensions of incentives: moral, social, and professional. Each has a predominant ‘membership drive’, which will characterise him/her as a moral-minded, a social-minded, or a professional-minded young party member.
IMBALANCE: A dominant proportion of party members are moral-minded, a moderate proportion are social-minded, and the smaller (but still not negligible) section are professional-minded.
POLITICAL SYSTEM AND MEMBERSHIP INCENTIVES: The political system influences the dominant motivations of young party members. There are higher proportions of professional-minded members in systems where parties have a tradition of infiltration in the country’s daily and professional lives (such as Hungary), social-minded members are more numerous in countries with a pillarised tradition of party-based societies, associations, etc (such as Germany), and moral-minded members dominate in more confrontational or polarised party systems.
PARTY OBJECTIVES: When young party members are asked to prioritise between policy, vote, and office-seeking objectives, moral-minded members are most likely to emphasise policy-seeking objectives, and professional-minded members office-seeking objectives.
POLICY PRIORITIES: Moral minded members are most likely to strongly support radical policy change, professional minded members least so.
ACTIVISM: Professional-minded members are most active in terms of ‘electoralist’ party activities (trying to convince others, handing out flyers, or sticking posters), moral-minded members are most active in terms of radical activities (demonstrations or fighting other parties), and social-minded members are least active overall.
EFFICACY, SATISFACTION WITH PARTY POLITICS AND PERCEPTIONS OF PROFESSIONALISATION: Professional-minded members are the most efficacious, the most positive about the party’s organisation, and the most likely to think of politics as a profession. Social members are the most critical and least efficacious, whilst moral members are the least likely to think of politics as a professional activity.
FUTURE OF MEMBERSHIP: Social-minded members are the least certain about their overall future political activity. Moral-minded members are most likely to consider joining other organisations to pursue their moral objectives, and professional-minded members the least likely to do so but the most likely to seek positions of responsibility or elected functions in the future.
Detailed Results, Tables and Figures: CLICK HERE
If you would like more information about the first results of the project, follow this link, where you will find some detailed tables (figures will come later!) and explanations about what we have tried (and managed) to understand with this project... The tables are primarily of an 'academic' format and thus use traditional (yet relatively simple) statistical methods including regressions and comparisons of means, but we have provided some simple explanations and some even more basic crosstabs so that even people with an interest in the subject matter but no quantitative training whatsoever may understand at least some of what is going on...