A New Political Generation? The Effect of the Economic Crisis on Political Involvement in Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain

This paper examines whether a new political generation is emerging as a consequence of the economic crisis that started in 2008. Building on political socialization theories, we expect that a context of changing economic and political conditions will affect how young people are shaping their relationship to the political system. In order to test this expectation, we analyse the evolution of levels of political involvement of different generations in four countries: Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Despite the harsh consequences of the Great Recession for young people in all four countries (i.e. youth unemployment) we expect that the economic consequences have been mediated by country specific political contexts. The comparison between Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain takes into account this phenomenon. Instability, a common pattern in the Italian or Greek party system, provided the opportunity to channel discontent to the Parliament by means of new protest parties. In the meantime, in Spain the discontent was first channelled by a long wave of protests which started with an unprecedented protest movement, the Indignados and the party system did not reflect the political crisis until the European elections of 2014 and the general elections of 2015. In Portugal protests were not as extended (in time and affluence) as in Spain. Our hypothesis is that the different political contexts mediated how young people shaped the relationship to politics. Previous analysis of Eurobarometer data since the 80s to 2015 provides first evidence of the impact that economic and political disruptions have had in changing young people’s political involvement. Furthermore, by analyzing differences amongst the countries in Southern Europe our evidence suggests that the economy alone is insufficient to explain the emergence of new political generations. How young cohorts react to a changing environment is mediated by country-specific political factors.