More than Apathy, Less than Participation: Deconstructing Negative Feelings Towards Politics Among Young Italians

Young people are often portrayed as politically apathetic, yet recent sociological research invites a more nuanced understanding of their relationship with the political sphere. Among many young Italians, the dominant sentiment is not indifference but disillusionment - an affectively charged response to a political field experienced as unresponsive, exclusionary, and existentially distant. This sense of distance constitutes a powerful vector of depoliticisation, eroding not only trust in institutions but also the perceived meaningfulness of politics itself. This paper examines how external political inefficacy - a perceived inability of the political system to respond to citizens’ needs - shapes this process of depoliticization. Rather than merely inhibiting participation, inefficacy works as a generative force in the formation of negative orientations toward mainstream politics: it structures the meanings young people attribute to “politics,” frames their emotional and cognitive stance toward institutions, and contributes to the gradual withdrawal from conventional political imaginaries. Drawing on 93 in-depth interviews conducted within the PRIN project Postgen – Generational Gap and Post-Ideological Politics in Italy, the analysis focuses on a specific segment of “ordinary” youth—the so-called “excluded middle”—who are neither activists nor fully disengaged. These young adults display a basic competency in reading political dynamics, yet articulate a form of critical distance marked by distrust, frustration, and a felt separation from institutional politics. Their negative feelings emerge not as apathy but as a situated response to a system perceived as impermeable and disconnected from everyday experiences. The qualitative evidence shows that external political inefficacy is central to understanding youth disillusionment as a process of depoliticization: a withdrawal not from the desire for collective agency, but from a political sphere that has ceased to appear viable, responsive, or meaningful. This reframing challenges dominant narratives of youth disengagement by highlighting affective, interpretive, and experiential dimensions that precede and structure any behavioural choice regarding participation.