Youth and organized politics ‑ a member study of the Swedish parliamentary parties' youth associations

The youth organizations of the political parties are the most important recruitment channel in politics. A large part of today’s leading politicians has started their political careers as members of one of the political youth wings. Youth organizations are also important for policy development and as representatives of young people's opinions.

Despite their important role, knowledge about them is limited. While there is extensive research on members of political parties, research on members of political youth wings is rare. The subject has received very limited attention from both the international scientific community in general and in Sweden in particular. Given that youth organizations are important both for the mother parties as policy developers and for securing future candidates for public office, and for democracy in general by engaging young people politically, this is unfortunate. In this project, we intend to increase our knowledge about this neglected group by studying young people's involvement in political youth wings.

More about the project

The purpose of the project is to increase our knowledge about the Swedish political parties' youth organizations. More specifically, the project aims to study the members of the organizations and answer the following questions:

• Who becomes a member of political youth organizations?
• Why do young people become members of political youth organizations?
• What do young people do as members of political youth organizations?

The main data of the project is a survey of all members of the political youth wings who have reached the age of 15.