Political Participation of Young People and Democracy in Europe: Literature Review and Overview of Quantitative International Databases; Working Paper for the 15 th Nordic Youth Research Symposium, 13-15 June 2022, Session 2, Civic Participation; Interim Report

Abstract

The promotion of democratic awareness and democratic values among young people in Europe is an important goal of European youth policy. In various documents on democracy and young people, European institutions assume that increased participation among young people results in strengthening a democratic Europe. Measuring democratic values and participation of young people is therefore a core element of European evidence-based policy, resulting in a massive body of studies that address statistical relationships between participation, democracy and young people. This brings up the question of how guiding concepts like participation, democratic attitude, political interest and civic citizenship are measured and are compared at the European level. This working paper is part of an ongoing research project to find answers to these questions and in this sense can give first or preliminary answers. The paper consists of two main parts. First, we present an overview of international databases and surveys on democracy and participation. Second, based on Systematic Literature Review (SLR), we analyse 78 recent studies, which use these data to draw conclusions on the relationship between democracy, participation and young people. With our paper, we want to contribute critically to the discussion on the comparability of data and studies on democracy and participation, as well as to the discussion on the relevance of these concepts and the conclusions drawn from them for European youth policy.