Political literacy of the youth: Evidences from Croatia

Both scholarship and the general public's opinion consider young people as detached from traditional forms of political practice, less interested in voting processes or in party politics. Although a plethora of public policies regarding education, labor market, housing or climate directly impact everyday life of young people, their participation in decision-making processes is much lower than previous generations’ involvement. Why is that so and what are the consequences of the current state of affairs? What are the competences necessary for an active involvement of the youth and how are they used and abused in practice? What are the attitudes of the youngest electoral body vis-a-vis political system in which they live, country's historical legacy and transnational human rights norms?

Starting point of this research is the term political literacy, defined as a set of political knowledge and skills combined with democratic values and attitudes. Participatory model of democratic governance, where the citizens are assigned a broad and active political and civic engagement, is conditioned by a high level of civic competences, gained through education and participatory practices like social movements, protests and similar. Hence, how can we measure the political literacy of the youngest citizens having the right to vote? What kind of external factors are influencing their attitudes and beliefs? What motivates them to take action? How do they perceive their own civic engagement?

The research presented in this special issue is the result of the three research cycles on political literacy and attitudes of the youth (2010, 2015 and 2021) performed in the Republic of Croatia. It aims to assess the political culture of the senior year high school students (average age 18), and analyzes political knowledge, attitudes, prejudices and values of the post-war generations growing up in democratic political system. The research on political literacy focuses also on discourse on human rights and civic education. Societal changes and acceptance of diversity are researched while having in mind previous body of literature on social distance and school curricula and initiatives regarding civic education.

Croatia represents an interesting laboratory environment as a country that in the last thirty years gained its independence, went through a war period in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia, transitioned to democracy and finally became an EU member state. Socio-political background of the past decade, which includes the achieved EU membership, but also backlashes in dealing with the past on one hand, and opening towards progressive democratic values on the other hand, impact and are reflected in the national-wide survey results.

This collection of articles borrows theoretical and methodological approaches from sociology, political science, memory and youth studies. Longitudinal approach allowed us to follow trends, points of convergence and divergence, and to speculate about the growing number of abstained informants. Moreover, examples of different social, political and historical events affecting the attitudes of the study participants, allow us to form conclusions that can address similar situations beyond the Croatian case-study. Internal political changes, although case specific, can be helpful in explaining categories such as regime change or democratic transition/consolidation. Similarly, especially salient is the positioning in global crisis, such as financial recession or precariousness of the youth work. What are the main responses of the youth to social crisis? Are those trends progressive or regressing compared to earlier cycles of survey?

Another lens with which we can observe the attitude is the historical legacy and post-war transition. Although the target group of this research was either born after the 1991–1995 Yugoslav wars (cycles 2015 and 2021), or was under three years old at the war's end (cycle 2010), the historical narrative and collective memory hold a strong communicative component through which the youth's attitudes are formed.

The article by Berto Šalaj, Anja Gvozdanović and Martina Horvat, opening the special issue in front of you, delves into analysis of political competence of Croatian secondary school students from a longitudinal perspective. The authors explored the correlation between level of political knowledge and attitudes on nationalism, authoritarianism and democratic activism in vocational and general education schools. Main questions and findings are touching upon the stratification of future (in)actve citizens, the need to establish a unique program of youth political education, and recommendations and observations regarding the development of a youth democratic political culture.

The second paper of this collection of works, written by Vlasta Ilišin and Nikola Baketa, takes on the two dimensions of the concept of political culture, namely political values and trust in institutions. Constitutional values, that is, values of the political and social order, intertwine, as authors show, with the characteristics of citizens’ political participation or their distancing from politics. Participation of the youth is reflected through their socialization patterns, affected with the possible democratic deficit and trends of losing trust in democratic institutions. This paper brings insights and discusses the causes of such trends.

The impact of political knowledge on general prejudices was explained by Jelena Matić Bojić and Kosta Bovan, as well as the effect that political socialization has on intergroup relations. The authors tested the hypothesis that political knowledge predicts intergroup attitudes, shedding thus light on political behavior of the youth, beyond geographical constraints of our case study. Being apolitical or having right-wing tendencies, as recent rising trends demonstrate throughout the European Union, falls within the interests of this paper. The authors offer and document the nature of right-wing authoritarianism and its role as prejudice precursor, and refine their findings according to the school programs and respective lacunas.

The last paper of this special issue, by Nebojša Blanuša and Ana Ljubojević, deals with a pertinent topic of historical legacy of a country that went through a relatively recent armed conflict. Processes of transmission of knowledge and memory are put into relation with ideology and political attitudes of the youth. The authors first demonstrate the need to overcome an oversimplified binary model of political postmemory and connect it subsequently to political attitudes, trust in political and social institutions and political knowledge.

All the articles’ data stem from the same data-set and communicate among each other thematically, while assuming different scientific perspectives to zoom in specific research questions related to the political culture of the youth. We have chosen to engage within the study with the last year high school students, as they represent the newest addition to the electoral body and are still included in the system of education. Moreover, following the debates about necessary school-system reforms, we were particularly careful in outlying the points of interest for the strengthening of democratic culture through education.

Finally, this research paves the path for the next cycle, planned for 2026, where the impact of the COVID pandemics will be assessed and compared to the previous findings. In addition, major immigration flux resulting from Croatia's access to the Eurozone might change the optics of prejudices, but also tolerance, respect and institutional values. We hope that this collection will be a valuable “litmus” tool for similar studies elsewhere in Europe and the rest of the world that can lead to a more systematic, comparative future perspectives.

At the very end the authors would like to express their gratitude to Dr Catherine Fagan from the University of Glasgow's School of Education for the enriching experience during the editing process of this special issue.