Political participation in late modernity among Norwegian youth: an individual choice or a statement of social class?

Abstract

Past research has established socioeconomic status as a major determinant of political participation. This explanation has been challenged by sociologists such as Giddens and Beck, who claim that politics in late modernity has become influenced by social class and family tradition to a lesser degree than politics in the traditional industrial society. The authors discuss whether it is reasonable to claim that the youth of today demonstrate an individualized mode of political action: Do we see a shift in young people's political repertoire from a formal towards a cause-oriented participation? Do cause-oriented activities to a higher degree than formal activities recruit participants from a broader social field? The analysis is based on a representative survey of Norwegians aged 16–19. It is argued that the new pattern of political participation is influenced by an ongoing process of individualization, whereas socioeconomic class plays a minor role in comparison with cultural resources in family and individual resources. However, the structural and cultural conditions influence the new political activities to a higher degree than the traditional forms. Long historical traditions involving Norwegian youth in ideological mass movements are presented as an explanation of this contradictory picture.

Keywords:

• politics
• social class

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Fredrik Engelstad, University of Oslo, the Youth research group at NOVA. and two anonymous referees for valuable comments.

Notes

1. Norris (2003, p. 4) distinguishes between political repertoires that are ‘cause-oriented’ and ‘citizen-oriented’. She defines ‘citizen-oriented’ activity primarily to elections and parties. In this article we do not use the term ‘citizen-oriented’. In view of the fact that our respondents are young people below voting age, this is a too-narrow understanding of formal political participation.

2. YiN is organized by Norwegian Social Research and has been supported financially by the Norwegian Research Council and several ministries.

3. Erikson and Goldthorpe (1992) separate one category named ‘Petty bourgeoisie’, which includes small proprietors with and without employees. In the YiN survey this group totally included 111 respondents, which is too small a number for carrying out good analyses. Hence, these were included in the lower service class (see also Bakken 2007).

4. One shelf-metre contains approximately 20 books.

5. The activities included the following: participation in a youth political party; participation in other political youth organizations; voting; using media coverage for a political cause; participation in political meetings; and demonstrations.

6. The following organizations were included: motor club; youth club; sports club; supporter club; 4H or similar; Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations; language (New Norwegian) association; brass band, choir or orchestra; animal husbandry (dogs, rabbits, fish, riding etc.); hobbies (stamp collecting, chess, painting, sketching etc.); scouts/guides; hunting or fishing; drama; or other organization or association.

7. The following categories have been deleted: political organizations, environmental organizations and temperance movements.

8. The predictive power (R ²) of Model 3 – after controlling for gender and age – increases from 11.9% to 12.1% when place of residence is included.

9. The predictive power (R ²) of Model 3 (after controlling for age and gender) increases only from 19.2% to 19.3% when place of residence is included.

10. This is represented by organizations that represented the linguistic interests of the so-called counter-culture and rural groups that pitted themselves against what was regarded as the unfair supremacy of the eastern establishment and that campaigned for greater local-level cultural and political autonomy (Tranvik and Selle 2007).