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Inequalities in Young Adults’ Electoral and Non-institutionalised Modes of Political Participation in Greece: Similar or Diverse Patterns?

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Youth and Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics ((PSYPP))

Abstract

This chapter examines inequalities in specific modes of non-institutionalised and electoral participation of Greek young adults in the context of the recent economic crisis. The Greek youth during the last five years was actively involved in different modes of non-institutionalised acts and an important segment participated in the parliamentary elections on the 20th September 2015 signifying their vibrant engagement into politics. Inequalities in youth political engagement are most evident for non-institutionalised individualised acts and are less clear for non-institutionalised protest-oriented and electoral participation. This chapter discusses the importance of taking into consideration the wider socio-economic conditions in understanding youth political participation inequalities. Although individual determinants are important in understanding potential inequalities in youth political participation in Greece, contextual conditions associated with the recent economic crisis might be decisive in mobilising a more heterogeneous young population to claim their rights through non-institutionalised protest-oriented acts and electoral politics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Institutionalised forms of political participation are organised by the political system and intend to influence the electoral and political matters directly (such as party membership, attending a political meeting, voting, contacting politicians, etc.), whereas non-institutionalised participation takes part outside political institutions and beyond party politics primarily influencing political matters indirectly (such as signing petitions, consumer boycotts, demonstrations, protests, etc.) (Marien et al. 2010).

  2. 2.

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC).

  3. 3.

    The centre-right “New Democracy” and the centre-left “Panhellenic Socialist Movement”.

  4. 4.

    The emergence of such an unexpected transformation in youth politics, among others, is traced to specific historical conditions in the post-dictatorial political regime which formed the genealogy of 2008 revolts as well as due to structural changes in the political systems governance primarily linked with neoliberalism (Johnston and Seferiades 2012; Vradis and Dalakoglou 2011).

  5. 5.

    Primarily due to the structural idiosyncrasies of the Greek labour market, the continued political instability and the budget constraints.

  6. 6.

    Greeks had to decide whether the government should accept (‘Yes’) or not (‘No’) the bailout conditions proposed jointly by the European Commission (EC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB).

  7. 7.

    Such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany.

  8. 8.

    Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) is 0.08 indicating sufficient items for each factor whereas Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity test is significant (p<0.01) satisfying the requirements for performing PCA (Bartlett 1950; Kaiser 1970).

  9. 9.

    The five-year timeline used as the main rationale of this chapter is to examine political participation inequalities in the context of the Greek crisis.

  10. 10.

    Responses in the specific categories are low; therefore, they are merged in the “Other” category.

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  1. Department of Sociology, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

    Stefania Kalogeraki

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  1. Stefania Kalogeraki
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Correspondence to Stefania Kalogeraki .

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  1. Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Marco Giugni

  2. School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Maria Grasso

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Kalogeraki, S. (2021). Inequalities in Young Adults’ Electoral and Non-institutionalised Modes of Political Participation in Greece: Similar or Diverse Patterns?. In: Giugni, M., Grasso, M. (eds) Youth and Politics in Times of Increasing Inequalities. Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63676-0_6

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