Introduction

Abstract

Young people’s political participation in Western democracies has received a great deal of attention in recent years, judging by the amount of editorial, academic and institutional attention to the matter, there is widespread concern about how young people relate to democratic institutions. For example, the European Union announced its commitment to promoting active citizenship and recommended that member states should include civic education in schools.¹ Many initiatives have been organized by national electoral commissions, parties and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to lure first-time voters to the poll with entertaining activities like ‘Rock the Vote’ (e.g. IDEA, 1999; Ellis, Gratschew, Pammett, and Thicsscn, 2006; Lcvine and Youniss, 2006; Dubnick, 2003). Scholarly attention is also abundant, and has produced an increasing number of studies examining young people’s participation and attitudes toward the political system. The outcomes range from a general revival of political socialization studies intended to update our understanding of the origins and development of political orientations (see, for instance, Galston, 2001; Sapiro, 2004; Keating, Benton, and Kerr, 2011; Abendschön, 2013) to much more specific examinations of the profile of young party activists (Gross and Young, 2008; Bruter and Harrison, 2009a, b) or the potential of youth organizations (see McFarland, 2006; Roholf, Hildreth, and Baizerman, 2009) and new technologies (for a review, see Boulianne, 2009) to politically mobilize young citizens.