Radical Futures: Youth, Politics and Activism in Contemporary Europe

Radical Futures? Youth, Politics and Activism in Contemporary Europe features a collection of articles originating from MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement), which has mapped the relationship between political heritage, forms and levels of civic and political engagement of young people in Europe, and their potential receptivity to radical and populist political agendas.

• Explores the meanings of activism among young people engaged in a range of organisations and movements
• Draws on new primary data sets from 14 countries collected under a common research design by the authors
• Challenges claims of rising ‘apathy’ among young people as well as counter-claims that their participation has simply shifted to ‘informal’ activities
• Makes critical interventions into theory underpinning the fields of youth studies, democratic theory and participation, memory studies, and far right studies

Hilary Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK. She has been coordinator of a number of large, collaborative research projects including the FP7 MYPLACE project. She has published widely on youth and on post-socialist societies including recently co-authoring Punk in Russia: Cultural Mutation from the ‘Useless’ to the ‘Moronic’ (2014) and Russia’s Skinheads: Exploring and Rethinking Subcultural Lives (2010). 

Gary Pollock is Professor and Head of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Focused on youth research for more than 20 years, Pollock’s current interests are in utilizing survey data to examine young people in society in terms of their social and political outlook as well as their employment and family trajectories. He is co-editor of Young People in Risk Society (2002).

Acknowledgements vii

Series editor’s acknowledgements viii

‘Politics are bollocks’: youth, politics and activism in contemporary Europe 1
Hilary Pilkington and Gary Pollock

Part One: Footprints: political heritage and political socialization

Making sense of the ‘difficult’ past: transmission of political heritage and memory-work among young people across Europe 36
Anton Popov and Dušan Deák

Memory transmission and political socialization in post-socialist Hungary 53
Domonkos Sik

Political discussions with family and friends: exploring the impact of political distance 72
Klaus Levinsen and Carsten Yndigegn

Part Two: The end of politics? Rethinking youth activism

Youth participation in context: the impact of youth transition regimes on political action strategies in Europe 92
Roger Soler-i-Martí and Mariona Ferrer-Fons

Two worlds of participation: young people and politics in Germany 118
Britta Busse, Alexandra Hashem-Wangler and Jochen Tholen

Populism, ideology and contradiction: mapping young people’s political views 141
Gary Pollock, Tom Brock and Mark Ellison

The madness that is the world: young activists’ emotional reasoning and their participation in a local Occupy movement 167
Phil Mizen

Part Three: A turn to the radical right?

Support for far right ideology and anti-migrant attitudes among youth in Europe: A comparative analysis 183
Inta Mieriᶇa and Ilze Koroᶅeva

‘Loud and proud’: youth and the politics of silencing 206
Robert Grimm and Hilary Pilkington

Golden Dawn, austerity and young people: the rise of fascist extremism among young people in contemporary Greek society 231
Alexandra Koronaiou, Evangelos Lagos, Alexandros Sakellariou, Stelios Kymionis and Irini Chiotaki-Poulou

Notes on contributors 250

Index 257