Politiek activisme voor iedereen? – een onderzoek naar de verschillen in activisme naar leeftijdsfase en cohort.

Abstract

Abstract: This study researches the effects of age and cohort on political activism. Inspired by the apparent decline in youth participation, it aims to analyze whether activism is truly decrepit or if it are mere changes that can be ascribed to differences in cohorts and age. Derived from analysis of the current literature on political participation can be concluded that activism does not decline but that members of different generations and age periods participate in different ways. This result is also shown by the empirical data on political participation analyzed in this research, where it is measured by less conventional ways of participating. Using this new form of activism it seems to be correlated with cohort and age in a different way than conventional research shows: although the styles in which people participate change, it does not mean that the intensity of activism declines. This study distinguishes itself by its focus on alternative forms of activism, its longitudinal outset over a period of twenty years, the specific way it analyzes how both cohort- and age effects influence political activism and in its concentration on the Netherlands as area of study.