Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5613/rzs.44.1.1
Political Influence and Values as Determinants of Political Trust among Youth in Croatia
Anja Gvozdanović
orcid.org/0000-0002-1213-5928
; Institute for Social Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This paper deals with determinants of political trust of youth, a social group both politically marginalized and distanced from political life. The empirical data was collected in 2012 on a representative national sample of 1500 young people (14 to 27 years old) in Croatia. The sample was stratified based on gender, age and size of county and place of residence. The tested hypotheses stem from current Croatian and foreign studies of political trust so the main assumption is that the trust towards political institutions is significantly formed by a set of political values (interest in politics, self-expression values and political preference) and evaluation of political system's democratic functioning (perception of political influence). The analysis shows that support for self-expression values significantly decreases and voting for the ruling party coalition (during the survey in 2012) increases political trust, while interest in political affairs is not significantly related thereto. The variables of perception of political influence represent relatively stronger predictors than the set of political values, and it significantly and positively correlates with political trust. The potential of sociodemographic variables to form political trust turned out to be very low.
Keywords
political trust; youth; political influence; political values, Croatia
Hrčak ID:
132054
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2014.
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