Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T17:38:57.217Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why Young Americans Hate Politics, and What We Should Do about It

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Stephen E. Bennett
Stephen E. Bennett*
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On the final day of her American Government class last spring, one of my wife's students approached her and said, “You're a really great teacher. It's too bad you're teaching this subject. I hate politics.” The young man had begun the course getting D's and F's, but gradually raised his grades to B's. Clearly he was diving into the work, but the dislike of politics that he brought into the course remained.

Professor Linda Bennett's experience at Wittenberg University typifies what many people tell me and my observations confirm. Today's young Americans on and off campus have a visceral dislike of politics, and it is expressed in many ways.

Like many Americans over 30, young people do not trust politicians, believing many to be corrupt and self-serving. Large percentages think government is unresponsive to people like themselves, and that government is too much in thrall to well-organized special interest groups. The 1994 National Election Study found, for example, that 77% of Americans under 30 said they trusted the Federal government to do the right thing only “some of the time” or “none of the time”; 79% thought that Washington was run to benefit just “a few big interests looking out for themselves”; and 54% believed that “quite a few” of the people in government are crooked. (Among those over 30, 79% said they did not trust the government in Washington to do the right thing; 80% thought it benefitted just a few big interests; and 51% said that quite a few people in government were crooked.) Large portions of young Americans do not think that they have any political clout or that national politicians are solicitous of their opinions.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 47 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

The title is taken from Dionne (1991). Although I agree that many Americans, young and old, “hate” politics, I disagree with the reasons he offers. There may be a segment of the populace still living in the 1960s, but most young Americans today find that period dead and gone. Moreover, other than a portion of the political and journalistic elite, most Americans over 30 have moved beyond the 1960s.

References

Almond, Gabriel A., and Verba, Sidney. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Iyengar, Shanto. 1996. Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin R. 1992. An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics of Education and the Future of America. New York: Ballantine.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin R., and Battistoni, Richard M., eds. 1993. Education for Democracy. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.Google Scholar
Brintnall, Michael. 1996. “Job Prospects for Political Scientists: Placement Experience in 1995.” PS: Political Science & Politics 29:210–15.Google Scholar
Converse, Philip E., with Niemi, Richard G.. 1971. “Non-voting among Young Adults in the United States.” In Political Parties and Political Behavior, eds. Crotty, William J., Freeman, Donald M., and Gatlin, Douglas S.. Second ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Delli Carpini, Michael X. 1986. Stability and Change in American Politics: The Coming of Age of the Generation of the 1960s. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
DiBiaggio, John. 1996. “Getting the Next Generation of Voters to Go to the Polls.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. 27 September, p. B5.Google Scholar
Dionne, E. J. Jr., 1991. Why Americans Hate Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Easton, David E., and Dennis, Jack. 1969. Children and the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Fallows, James. 1996. Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Greenstein, Fred I. 1969. Children and Politics. Revised ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Higher Education Research Institute. N.D. “The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1995. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.Google Scholar
Janowitz, Morris. 1983. The Reconstruction of Patriotism: Education for Civic Consciousness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Key, V. O. Jr., 1949. Southern Politics. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Merriam, Charles E. 1931. The Making of Citizens: A Comparative Study of Methods of Civic Training. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Patterson, Thomas E. 1993. Out of Order. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center. 1996. “TV News Viewership Declines: Fall Off Greater for Young Adults and Computer Users.” Washington, DC: Pew Research Center for The People & The Press. 13 May.Google Scholar
Rademacher, Eric M., and Bennett, Stephen E. 1996. “Political Interest and Information among Generation X.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Sabato, Larry J. 1993. Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Shea, Christopher. 1995. “Disengaged Freshmen.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. 13 January, p. A29.Google Scholar
Somit, Albert, and Tanenhaus, Joseph. 1967. The Development of American Political Science: From Burgess to Behavioralism. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Stein, Benjamin. 1983. “Valley Girls View the World.” Public Opinion 6(4):18–19.Google Scholar
U.S. News & World Report. 1996. “Pick One: A Shopping Mall or a Voting Booth.” 10 June, p. 11.Google Scholar