Erik Amna

E R I K A M N Å Y O U T H & S O C I E T Y

Ö R E B R O U N I V E R S I T Y , S W E D E N

P R E S E N T A T I O N A T T H E C I T I Z E N S H I P L E A R N I N G S E M I N A R

P O N T I F I C I A U N I V E R S I D A D C A T Ó L I C A D E C H I L E S A N T I A G O , 2 7 . I I I . 2 0 1 5

How the Development of Civic Engagement Challenge Theory

Getting heard and being listened to

� All over the world, we can ¡  Listen to their music and their lyrics ¡  Look at their artistic works in public

�  and even beneath, inside and beyond their anti-political feelings of hate, distrust, disenchantment �  also when embedded into seemingly individualistic solo

performances �  There is a cry by many youths to be heard, included and

responded adequately to

How can civic engagement be understood?

�  Weakened participation in traditional forms such as

parties, youth branches and membership-based CSOs

�  Decreased voter turnout �  Increased political distrust �  Widening gaps of inequality �  … particularly among young people

Scholarly disagreements

•  Concept of ‘political participation’

•  Implications for (representative) democracy

Pessimists

�  Democracies are severly threatened � Young people’s avoidance of traditional

political activity constitutes a problem: ¡  Fewer and fewer will re-present them ¡  Fewer and fewer want to be re-presented by anyone

Optimists

� No crisis, just changed modes of engagement �  Interest and civic engagement are stable

� Political consumption, Internet and ad hoc-actions widen the participatory repertoire � Even if they don’t compensate for the youths’

absence in political parties and youth branches ¡ Youths create new venues for political involvement

and helps democracies to survive

Our general research idea

�  Let’s try to understand how civic engagement –attitudes, feeling, values, skills and behaviour– develops throughout adolescence and early adulthood!

POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION PROGRAM (PSP) AT ÖREBRO UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN

2009-2016

Youth & Society (YeS)

Theoretical aims

1.  Conceptualize young people as active agents 2.  Integrate different contexts of everyday life 3.  Take the ongoing changes in different contexts seriously 4.  Conceptualize political participation broadly 5.  Take a longitudinal perspective 6.  Focus on processes and mechanisms rather than

correlations 7.  Disentangle general socialization from specific ‘civic’

experiences when explaining differences in civic engagement

8.  Develop new theoretical explanations of political socialization

(Amnå, Ekström, Kerr & Stattin, 2009)

PSP’s Multidisciplinary Staff Joint instrument and theory development by developmental psychology, media and communication, and political science

�  Professors/Steering Group

¡  Erik Amnå, Mats Ekström, Margaret Kerr†, Håkan Stattin, �  Associate Professors

¡  Maarten van Zalk, Metin Özdemir �  Post docs

¡  Ali Abdelzadeh, Sevgi Bayram-Özdemir, Viktor Dahl , Yunhwan Kim, Silvia Russo, Adam Shehata, Sofia Sohl

�  Doctoral student ¡  Oula Hussein

�  External collaborators ¡  Jennifer Fitzgerald (Colorado), Connie Flanagan and Mike Xenox

(Wisconsin), Markus Prior (Princeton), Joakim Ekman (Södertörn), Behzad Fallazadeh (Heidelberg), Maria Ojala and Pär Zetterberg (Uppsala)

Samples

�  A city of 130,000 inhabitants, similar to Sweden on immigration rate, income level, unemployment rate. ¡  Strategically selected schools ¡  Random selection of those who left school

�  13-30 year olds ¡  1 000 individuals in each of the five cohorts ¡  + 2 of their best friends (snowball) ¡  + their parents (in seven languages)

�  Incentives ¡  classes for 2 scheduled lessons ($120) ¡  individuals after school ($30)

�  Paper and web

(Amnå, Ekström, Kerr & Stattin 2009, 2015)

Five findings to share with you

1.  How political interest develops over time 2.  When parents mean most 3.  How Internet use affects citizen norms 4.  Citizen participation as a two-dimensional concept 5.  Why political interest not always or everywhere

translates into political participation

1. How interest develops over time

(Russo & Stattin, submitted)

Theoretical implications

1.  By the age of 20, PI as stable as during adulthood 2.  PI starts to crystallize as early as the age of 16 – and it’s

steeper between 16 and 18 than between 13 and 15. 3.  The impressionable years are – not between late

adolescence and young adulthood – but at the years of early adolescence (and possibly even before)

4.  PI develops in two directions – increasing and decreasing. 5.  Policy implications:

1.  What are the potential obstacles preventing youth to cultivating their interest over time?

2.  If interventions should be done, teachers, parents, and role models of other kinds should intervene between 13 and 15. N.B. Youths seem to drive their own civic development far more than theories have suggested!

(Russo & Stattin, submitted)

2. When do parents mean most?

�  Many (incl. us) have assumed that it is when kids stay with their parents, parents mean most to them.

�  Instead, we find that is at the beginning of their twenties kids talk most to their parents about news in general but also about political and societal affairs.

(Stattin, Hussein and Kim, submitted)

1.9 2

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Mean levels of Discussion with parents


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

The percentage of persons who reported ”Often” or ”Now and then” on the question about dicussing “Poli&cs or societal issues”

%


Political Discussion

with Colleagues


with Parents


with Colleagues


with Parents

e

e

WAVE I WAVE II

.39***/.27***/.28***

.18**/.30***/.23***

.32***/.18*/.41***

.54***/.60***/.60***

.19**/.26***/.20***

.04n.s./-.05n.s./.07n.s.


Apparently, the older young persons are, the more often they talk with their parents

about society and politics.

And these discussions increase the discussions with others.

Discussions do not stop by late

adolescence!


Overall, it seems as if…

�  Over the ages from 13 to 28 young people increasingly talk to their parents about societal and political issues.

�  Talking to their peers does not seem to replace discussions with parents about.

�  From 13 to 28, young people become increasingly interested in society and politics.

�  Their own interest drives their discussions with parents. But the other way around is also true: Talking to parents stimulate these persons’ interest.


We want to highligt

�  Parents play an important socializing role for young people's political development, but they have not received appropriate research attention after adolescence.

�  Physical proximity to parents seemingly does not matter much when it comes to societal and political discussions with their parents. A better determinant may be psychological proximity after young people leave home.

�  Alternative socialization agents seemingly do not replace parents.

�  Future studies should focus on the "content" of parent—youth discussion.


3. How Internet use affects citizen norms

�  News and information are central in political socialization.

�  But, not all social media facilities – such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging – enable forms of social interaction and creative production that have an overall positive impact on young people's public orientation.

(Ekström. Shehata and Olsson, 2013; Shehata, Ekström and Olsson, submitted)

(Ekström, Shehata and Olsson, submitted)

Diverse impact of media use

�  Traditional news media use primarily contributes to

the development of DC qualities – such as political knowledge and political trust

�  Creative online media use promotes AC qualities – such as cause-oriented online and offline activism as well as internal efficacy

(Ekström. Shehata and Olsson, 2013; Shehata, Ekström and Olsson, submitted)

4. Political engagement consists of two dimensions

�  Participation cannot be fully understood without an understanding of its opposite: passivity

�  While participation has been researched in various aspects, political passivity has been ignored as a multi-dimensional phenomenon

�  Passivity deserves attention separately from political un-engagement

�  Distinguish between ‘civics’ and the specific ‘politics’: ¡  …ways in which ordinary citizens try to influence the political

decision-making process �  Combining political interest and political

participation led to a new typology (Amnå, 2010; Ekman and Amnå, 2012)

Non-partici-pation

Civil participation (Latent political

participation)

Manifest political participation

Act

ive

(a

nti-

poli

tica

l)

Pas

sive

(a

-pol

itic

al)

Involvement (attention)

Civic

engagement (action)

Formal political

participation

Activism

(extra-parliamentary participation)

Legal Illegal I n d i v i d u a l f o r m s

Non

votin

g N

ews a

void

ance

D

isaf

fect

ion

Non

votin

g Pa

ssiv

ity

Uni

nter

est

Political interest

Activities based on societal and political interest

Electoral participation and contacts

Extra-parliamentary actions; signing petitions

Politically motivated unlawful acts

C o l l e c t i v e f o r m s

Ref

lect

ed n

on-

polit

ical

lif

esty

le

Non

-ref

lect

ed

non-

polit

ical

lif

esty

le

Life-style related political acts

Community work

Membership in parties, trade unions, associations

Network based acts, NSM, strikes

Demonstration, riots, guerilla knitting, occupations

(Amnå and Ekman, 2014)



Can we trust the standbyers’ promises to get engaged ‘when needed’

What if it is all about young people’s ‘lip-service’ to please politically correct

settings/researchers?

(Amnå, Abdelzadehh and Kim, submitted)

Amnå, Abdelzadeh, Ekman and Kim,submitted

Standby citizens

¡  Citizens who are disposed to act, knowledgeable, efficacious, competent

¡  They have positive feelings for politics ¡  They have made plans for themselves including a future

political engagement ¡  In every aspect, they are closer to the active ones than to the

unengaged and the disillusioned ¡  If they move, the move significantly to the active group – and

not to any of the other groups ¡  At the individual level, the reasons for stepping in seem to be a

decreased satisfaction with democracy


5. Why does not interest always and everywhere translate into participation?

�  Theory suggests that political interest drives political participation.

�  However, we know both for individuals and for societies that interest are substantially higher than participation.

�  So, how can the discrepancy be explained. ¡  Individual factors about identity, personality and efficacy ¡  Political factors regarding the qualities of democracy and the

trustworthiness and responsiveness of political institutions

Political explanations of ‘passivity’

�  Two alternative sources (Gamson, 1984) ¡  Trust ¡  Distrust

�  The Standby Citizen-concept builds upon the former assumption ¡  Does the very qualities of a country’s democracy ironically hamper

citizens to not step in? �  Hyp.: The shares of standby citizens correlate with the

quality of democracy and government ¡  Measurements: democracy index, perceptions of corruption,

inclusiveness, and government functioning �  A cross-country analysis using data from European Social

Survey (ESS)

Percentage of Standby citizens in full and flawed European democracies

(Amnå, Abdelzadeh, Ekman and Kim, submitted)

In (other) words

(Amnå, Abdelzadeh, Ekman and Kim, 2014)

�  Positive correlations between shares of standby citizens and almost all measures of maturity of democracy

�  So, standby citizens are not exactly ¡  Schudson´s (1996) ‘monitorial citizens’ (content but

sceptical), ¡  Norris’ (1999) ‘critical citizens’ (rather active than passive), ¡  Hibbing and Theiss-More’s (2002) citizens of a ‘stealth

democracy’ (lacking a trust in politicians), ¡  Barnes’ et al (1978) ‘spectators’ (passivated and disinterested

by distanced political institutions). �  Rather, standbyers support the system due to favourable

evaluations of the democratic and governmental qualities of the current political regime

What will this take us normatively?

�  Is the development of the Standbyer phenomenon ¡  A failure of a democratic development in the light of the Active

Citizenship (Pessimism)? ¡  A reservoir for a democracy that will be used for avoiding crisis

(Optimism)? �  So far we have showed that even in short term young

standbyers in one mature democracy seem to actually step in when their satisfaction with the democracy decrease

�  Yet, I wouldn’t dare to trust the standbyers. They (we?) may step in too late, when anti-democratic forces already have grown too strong to defeat.

Welcome to follow and join us!

!

Youth & Society (YeS): http://www.oru.se/yes

[email protected]

3/30/15 45

Thanks for your attention!

Ideals of a good democracy

�  Representative democracy (Schumpeter, 1942) ¡  Voting is everything ¡  Citizen apathy is functional for the system

�  Participatory democracy (Pateman, 1970) ¡  A strong democracy = high political participation also in

between elections �  Deliberative democracy (Dryzek, 2007)

¡  Participation is not enough, it is the quality of the discussions that matters

¡  Participatory budgeting (Pateman, 2012)

Erik Amna

Education

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