YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

176 Figure 4.2: I am interested in politics. 5% 10% 15% 25% 20% 30% Neither interested or not interested A little interested Not interested at all 24.2 18.0 25.9 23.5 6.7 1.0 Interested up to a point Very interested I don't know 0% Source: Mladina 2020 Another important factor in the psychological participation of young people is a sense of political power – the extent to which an individual believes that their participation can influence politics (Axford and Rosamond, 1997: 102). A sense of political power brings together different emotions, feelings, and aspects of human psychology that point to the extent of an individual’s belief that they can bring about change (ibid.). In essence, political efficacy is a dual concept, in which the internal sense of political power refers to the belief that an individual can influence poli- tics, while the external sense of power refers to the belief that politicians actually care about popular opinion (Nygård and Jakobsson, 2013 : 70). Smets and Van Ham (2013: 355) find that a sense of political efficacy, both internal and external, is positively associated with voter turnout. Young people in Slovenia believe that, in general, politicians do not con- cern themselves with the opinion of individuals, whichmeans that con- sequently popular political effectiveness in such a system is limited. Over 60% of them believe that politicians do not deal with individual opinions. It is also worrying that only approximately 15% of them disa- gree with such a statement and that politicians consider the opinions of individuals. The following indicator of political effectiveness addresses the influence of the individual who votes. Similar to the above variable, this case also shows that over 55% of respondents agree or completely