Representative Institutions and Young People in Southern Europe

Since the start of the financial crisis, young people have become one of the most affected social groups. Especially in Southern Europe, young people’s unemployment rates are soaring. However, whether there have been changes in the relationship between young people and representative institutions during the years of the crisis is yet to be investigated. In this paper, we propose to compare different aspects of this relationship in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. More specifically, we propose to analyse the changing political attitudes of young people towards democratic institutions, young people’s preference for unconventional or conventional forms of participation and the changing voting patterns of young people. This study will therefore allow us to examine whether the financial crisis has contributed to the appearance of an electoral “generational cleavage” in politics among southern European countries. This point will be addressed using National Election Studies and the European Social Survey.