What determines young Europeans’ trust in political institutions—their direct democratic participation or their everyday experience with the welfare state? Broka (2026) investigates the structural and social foundations of youth political culture across the European Union, examining how institutional performance, social trust, and civic activism shape the political orientations of young adults aged 18 to 29.
While European youth policies have long prioritized socio-economic and civic inclusion, persistent vulnerabilities across critical welfare dimensions continue to delay transitions to financial independence and full citizenship. Drawing on longitudinal data from the European Social Survey (2002–2023) across the EU-28 countries, the author utilizes a theory-driven hierarchical multiple regression that progressively incorporates welfare state variables, interpersonal and social trust indicators, and measures of political power and civic activism to evaluate their relative explanatory power on political trust.
The empirical analysis reveals that satisfaction with welfare-state institutions serves as the single strongest predictor of youth political trust, accounting for 40.6% of the observed variance. Although young adults display relatively low levels of formal political participation, the results demonstrate that structural and institutional factors—specifically welfare satisfaction, social and interpersonal trust, and level of education—exert a substantially stronger influence on political trust than direct political activism. Ultimately, the study underscores that youth political culture is fundamentally multidimensional, shaped far less by conventional democratic procedures alone than by effective institutional delivery, social safety nets, and broader societal organization.
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Broka, A. (2026). Youth Political Culture in the European Union: Welfare Institutions, Political Trust, and Participation. Politics and Governance, 14, 11715. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.11715