Youth, Europeanization and Democratization: The Portuguese Case Study

This proposed article analyzes the relationship between Europeanization and Portuguese democracy consolidation as seen by the Portuguese Z Generation. In 2024, Portugal commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Carnation Revolution that marked the end of a 48-year duration dictatorship and the beginning of parliamentary democracy. One of the first government initiatives was to apply for EU membership, as a way of consolidating the newborn democracy. The Portuguese Z Generation's perspectives about the European Union's role in advancing Portuguese democracy will be examined in connection to the relationship between Europeanization and democratization in Portugal. The Portuguese Z Generation's standpoints about the European Union's role in advancing Portuguese democracy have not been explored by specialized literature. The relevance of younger generations in the establishment of a relationship between democratization and Europeanization is particularly underexplored. The Portuguese case illustrates such a literature gap. Existing literature on the historical and political association between Europeanization and democratization in Portugal adopts almost exclusively a top-down approach privileging the role of national elites and formal institutions in promoting such an articulation. There is a need for more studies adopting a bottom-up approach to address the relationship between Europeanization and democratization in Portugal. Our proposal builds on the theoretical framework of sociological institutionalism associated with a mixed-methods methodological approach, which will include surveys and e-survey methodologies, semi-structured interviews with college students and analytical narratives. The article discusses a group of particular variables identified by literature as being able to influence Portuguese Z Generation's perspectives about the European Union's contribution to further democratization. The article assesses how these variables may have an impact on the Portuguese Z Generation’s perceptions on the association between the European Union and democratic consolidation in Portugal. Those variables include Portuguese views on the European Union (Eurobarometer, 2021), the evolution of Portuguese tertiary education rates, and Portuguese students’ perspectives on the European Union. The goal is to critically identify correlations able to shed light on how the Portuguese Z Generation perceives the association between Europeanization and democratization in Portugal. The article answers the following underexplored research questions: i. How does the Portuguese Z Generation perceives the European Union's role in advancing Portuguese democracy? ii. What are the main variables influencing how the Portuguese Z Generation understands the European Union's role in furthering Portuguese democracy? The article argues that the Portuguese Z Generation's perspectives about the European Union's role in advancing Portuguese democracy are dependent on diverse variables that should be taken into consideration when devising governmental strategies to encourage the Europeanization of Portuguese youth.