ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes recent studies about the political competence of European young people. It answers two questions how is European political competence operationalized? What are the most powerful explanatory variables? The chapter identifies a limited number of relevant dependent and independent variables for future cross-national comparative European political socialization research. The term "European" refers to the European Community (EC) or the European Union (EU); and EP refers to the European Parliament. Considerable differences in political knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors have been found between adults and young people. Various investigations showed a strong correlation between the level of education and national political competence. Multivariate analysis is needed to discover the relative explanatory power of the named independent variables. A cross-national longitudinal panel study applying multivariate analysis is obviously needed when aiming to explain long-term developments in European political orientations.
