Young People, Political Participation and Trust in Britain BY MATT HENN AND NICK FOARD

Young people in Britain are often characterised as disconnected from the formal political process and from democratic institutions. Certainly their rate of abstention in general election contests over the last decade has led to concerns amongst the political classes that they have a disaffection from politics that is deeply entrenched and more so than was the case with previous youth generations, and may in the future become habit-forming. In this article, we consider the results from an online national survey of 1,025 British 18 year olds conducted in 2011, and compare these with the results from a similar study conducted by one of the authors in 2002. In doing so, our aim is to assess the extent to which young people’s levels of political engagement have changed over the course of the intervening years, and if so, how they have changed. The results from this comparison indicate that, contrary to popular wisdom, today’s generation of young people are interested in political affairs, and they are keen to play a more active role in the political process. However, their recent experience of their first general election in 2010 has left them feeling frustrated. Indeed, our study has revealed a considerable aversion to formal, professional politics which is as deep today as it was for the predecessor 2002 youth cohort. Over the past decade, there has been growing anxiety within government circles that people in Britain are becoming increasingly disengaged from the formal political process and from democratic institutions (Ministry of Justice, 2007). This concern has come to the fore largely as a consequence of the recent decline in voter participation rates. For instance, election turnout has taken a steep turn downwards, most notably at the landmark General Election of 2001 when only 59% of the eligible electorate voted. Although voter turnout at subsequent general elections has increased marginally to 61% in 2005, and then to 65% in 2010, these figures should be put into context by comparing them with previous general election outcomes where electoral participation was 75% in 1987, 78% in 1992, and 71% in 1997 (Electoral Commission, 2005). 2 Young people in Britain are even less likely to participate in elections than are their older contemporaries. In support of an apparent generational turnout gap, Franklin (2004) has conducted an extensive international analysis of electoral trends and concluded that age in Britain as in many other countries is a significant predictor of turnout. Certainly, only 39% of eligible 18 to 24 year olds voted at the General Election in 2001, falling further to 37% in 2005 (Electoral Commission, 2005). Turnout within this group increased to 44% in 2010 (Ipsos MORI, 2010), and this small shift upwards in youth voting may reflect the different context of that particular contest which had an appeal that was markedly different to previous general elections. Topics that young people could relate to had largely been discussed on the periphery in previous election campaigns, but in 2010 university tuition fees formed a key campaign issue, and in doing so provided something with which young people could differentiate the political parties. This choice was likely compounded by the fact that first time voters, who had only known a Labour government for most of their living memory, were being told by the polls that a real opportunity to instigate change was presenting itself. However, the youth turnout in 2010 remains well below the national average, and suggests that a large majority of those young people who registered to vote opted not to do so. It is also a significantly lower turnout rate than estimated in earlier elections, when it was reported as 66% in 1987 (Swaddle and Heath, 1992), 61% in 1992 (Butler and Kavanagh, 1997), and 68% in 1997 (Jowell and Park, 1998). It is not just in terms of election turnout that young people are differentiated from older contemporaries. The principal theme to emerge out of the existing research into the general field of young people and politics is that this generation has been characterised as dissatisfied with, and alienated from, the political process (Henn et al., 2005; Kimberlee, 2002; Wattenburg, 2002). Furthermore, many studies conclude that young people have comparatively lower-levels of political knowledge than their older contemporaries (Pattie et al., 2004), and have a distinct lack of interest in (formal) politics (Park, 2004). Compared with older adults, they are less likely to be politically active (The Electoral Commission and The Hansard Society, 2007), display comparatively weaker commitments to political parties (Clarke et al., 2004; Tilley, 2003), and are less likely to be members of such organisations (Whiteley and Seyd, 2002; Sloam, 2007). Indeed, the message from many such studies is that young people’s levels of political participation in general are in decline, and at a somewhat more rapid rate than is the case for older adults and also for previous youth cohorts (Russell et al., 2002). Moreover, young people have been differentiated from wider society in terms of their political views they are considered to be less conservative than older contemporaries, highly disillusioned with the operation of politics, and more sceptical of politicians (Henn et al., 2005; Pattie et al., 2004). Furthermore, there is evidence that young people’s disengagement from politics is more pronounced than it was for previous youth cohorts (Park, 1995; Kimberlee, 2002). By way of contrast, a number of recent studies have suggested that whilst young people may have little interest in formal politics, this does not signal a disengagement from all forms of politics, per se. Instead, research indicates that this group do take part in differing forms of 1 Given that data suggest that many young people do not register to vote in the first place (Russell et al., 2002), this figure probably over-estimates the actual turnout rate for young people.