ABSTRACT
Political participation is frequently seen as the lifeblood of democracy. Research suggests that there are generational differences in political participation: younger post-material generations refrain from hierarchical traditional political activities, instead opting for direct forms of involvement, while older generations who consider electoral participation a citizen duty are more active in political institutions. However, there is a lack of comprehensive overviews of generational participatory differences that also include the young generations who have only recently become politically mature. This chapter provides an overview of generational participation in Finland from 2007 to 2019 in nine political activities. Additionally, differences across generations in the associations between political attitudes and participation are explored. The results show that generational differences were of minor importance for traditional activities, but more pronounced for newer political activities such as online participation and signing citizens’ initiatives. Moreover, the results suggest that the generations use different political activities for very different purposes and that instead of the degree of institutionalization of a political activity or post-material values, other factors, such as the ease of use and online availability, appear to be important for younger generations’ political activity.
