ABSTRACT

Examining the participation of Millennials in Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK in progressive social movements, the self-identification as a precarious generation was in fact widespread. At the micro-level, student activism has been linked to specific characteristics of younger people, such as the availability of time and limited responsibilities, but also enthusiasm, idealism and exposure to new ideas. This chapter aims to restrict the analysis to four types of demonstrations in Italy: the traditional labour day demonstration, a typical anti-austerity protest, an anti-neoliberal type of protest, and finally, a new type of protest directly involving the younger generation. Research on political participation has long suggested that political participation increases with social centrality. In particular, young people’s participation has developed towards ‘engaged citizenship’ in volunteering as well as embedding activism in their everyday life. A different set of explanations for participation looks at embeddedness in social networks.