Political Attitudes of Fridays For Future Protesters: Consequences on Coalition Building Between the Climate Movement and Political Parties

The contemporary climate movement stresses the responsibility of global elites and decision makers. It is claimed, that politicians do not act according to former climate commitments. The movement and social movement organizations, like Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion calls for immediate action. Besides individual action and conscious consumption, the movement addresses demands to political decision makers on the European and global level. At the same time the movement is characterized by generational grievances. Young people emphasize that their generation have to bear the consequences of the climate crisis. The climate movement has an anti-establishment, anti-political character, as it blames the political elite for neglecting climate change. Protesters tend to distrust politicians, parties, governments and national parliaments. However, 92 per cent of those protesters, who were eligible to vote participated in the latest election prior to March 15 2019. The paper maps political attitudes of Fridays For Future protesters in ten European countries. The main aim of the research is to assess the possible electoral consequences of the contemporary climate mobilization in the light of the recent ‘crises of representation’ (Hutter, Kriesi and Lorenzini 2018). Do protesters have the anti-political, anti-establishment sentiments as the movement’s leaders statements indicate? What are the alliance formation opportunities of the climate movement in the political party arena? For the analysis data of the three waves of Fridays For Future protest survey will be used. To control the behavior of activists to the population data of the latest wave of European Values Survey will be used. By focusing on variables related to trust in institutions, political attitudes, electoral participation, party identification and the open question on the reason of protest participation the paper will bring important findings about the youngest generation of European climate activists.