The nation as a political vacuum

In Chapter 5, young people’s consideration of politics was discussed. To write here of the nation as a ‘political vacuum’ is not to imply that these young people in the ‘new European’ states were uninterested in the political: as will be shown, many had an intense concern for and knowledge of the political life of their country, but they were often highly critical of those engaged in political processes. Their sense of the civic life of their country did not positively contribute to their identification with their nation: among many of them it tended rather to create a sense of estrangement or detachment from the political process. This was expressed by some as a lack of agency and of disengagement from political processes, and by others as a call to action in the future.