YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

Youth political participation, social engagement, and extremism  173 Macedo et al. (2005: 32) emphasize that political participation and the improvement of democratic processes concern not only issues of the quantity and quality of political participation, but also of equality. This diverts attention to the question of who is involved, as people may be more or less inclined to participate in the political process due to certain personality traits. Verba et al. (1995) raise very important questions that help us understand why people do not participate: because they cannot (lack of resources), because they do not want to (lack of psychological engagement), or because no one has told them to participate (lack of net- works to gain members). These issues can be addressed from various perspectives of socio-economics, socialization, and psychology. We will focus primarily on the psychological aspects of participation. Political knowledge is inextricably linked to the quality of participation, but it also affects quantity. Those who knowmore about politics are also more involved, be it in electoral politics or other types of political activi- ty (Smets and Van Ham, 2013: 355; Macedo et al., 2005: 32). Those who have more political knowledge have more consistent political views, and obtain and process information better, and furthermore their individual interests are more related to the proposed political solutions (Popkin et al., 2007). Politically savvy citizens are also less likely to rely on simple slogans, when making decisions (Macedo et al., 2005: 35). Political knowledge is very unevenly distributed among the population, with the socio-economic differences among adults quickly becoming apparent among children as well. These gaps in knowledge point to consequent inequality in political participation (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1997). In general, young people report that they do not understand politics very well, which of course has a negative effect on their political participa- tion. Over 50%of themdisagreed or completely disagreedwith the claim “I understand politics”. This is supported by the finding that less than a quarter of young people report an understanding of politics. It is none- theless gratifying that the level of understanding increased significantly between 2010 and 2020; however, it remains very low.