South Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014

dc.contributor.authorMattes, Robert
dc.contributor.authorRichmond, Samantha
dc.coverage.spatialSouth Africaen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2014-10-01T13:18:44Z
dc.date.available2014-10-01T13:18:44Z
dc.date.issued2014-07-09
dc.description.abstractSouth Africans hold – often simultaneously – contradictory beliefs about young people and politics. On one hand, driven largely by a romanticized memory of Soweto and the street battles of the 1980s, many people see the youth as the primary catalyst of activism and political change. On the other hand, driven by continuing media depictions of youth unemployment, township protests and the antics of the ANC Youth League, a wide range of commentators routinely experience “moral panics” about the apparent “crisis” of the youth and their corrosive effect on the country’s political culture. In this report, we review a wide range of longitudinal survey data spanning the first two decades of democracy and find that there are indeed a series of real problems with South Africa’s political culture, particularly in the area of citizenship. At the same time, these data clearly show that these problems are largely not peculiar to young people. Across a range of different indicators, we find consistently that there are no, or relatively minor, age profiles to most dimensions of South African political culture.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationMattes, R., & Richmond, S. (2014). <i>South Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014</i> (CSSR Working Paper Series ; 338). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Democracy in Africa Research Unit. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7905en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationMattes, Robert, and Samantha Richmond <i>South Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014.</i> CSSR Working Paper Series ; 338. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Democracy in Africa Research Unit, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7905en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationMattes, R. & S. Richmond. 2014. South Africa’s Youth and Political Participation, 1994-2014. Cape Town: Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.isbn978-1-77011-325-1en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Working Paper AU - Mattes, Robert AU - Richmond, Samantha AB - South Africans hold – often simultaneously – contradictory beliefs about young people and politics. On one hand, driven largely by a romanticized memory of Soweto and the street battles of the 1980s, many people see the youth as the primary catalyst of activism and political change. On the other hand, driven by continuing media depictions of youth unemployment, township protests and the antics of the ANC Youth League, a wide range of commentators routinely experience “moral panics” about the apparent “crisis” of the youth and their corrosive effect on the country’s political culture. In this report, we review a wide range of longitudinal survey data spanning the first two decades of democracy and find that there are indeed a series of real problems with South Africa’s political culture, particularly in the area of citizenship. At the same time, these data clearly show that these problems are largely not peculiar to young people. Across a range of different indicators, we find consistently that there are no, or relatively minor, age profiles to most dimensions of South African political culture. DA - 2014-07-09 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - Youth KW - Political activity LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2014 SM - 978-1-77011-325-1 T1 - South Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014 TI - South Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014 UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7905 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/7905
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationMattes R, Richmond S. South Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014. 2014 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7905en_ZA
dc.languageengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDemocracy in Africa Research Uniten_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.relation.ispartofseriesCSSR Working Paper Series ; 338en_ZA
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectYouthen_ZA
dc.subjectPolitical activityen_ZA
dc.titleSouth Africa’s youth and political participation, 1994-2014en_ZA
dc.typeWorking Paperen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceWorking paperen_ZA
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