The Origins of Adolescents' Involvement in Illegal Political Activities: a Function of Demographic Background, Political Dissatisfaction, Affective Commitment, or Political Communication?

In: Politics, culture and socialization: research, theory, methods, book reviews, Band 4, Heft 2, S. 201-225

Abstract

Although great steps have been made to understand young peoples' political participation in general, one dimension that remains understudied is involvement in illegal political activity. With data for 2,012 Swedish teenagers, surveyed annually for two years, this study begins to bridge this gap by examining the extent to which demographic background, political dissatisfaction, affective commitment, and political communication explain adolescents' involvement in subsequent illegal political activity. Analyses confirmed that boys were more inclined than girls to illegal political activity, as were adolescents with higher levels of perceived lack of system responsiveness. When in simultaneous examination with these two factors, affective commitments and political communication did not predict involvement in illegal political activity at the second measurement. In sum, findings suggested that gender and dissatisfaction explain the origins of adolescents' use of illegal political activity. Adapted from the source document.