The decline thesis proposes that political participation among young people has declined steadily and alarmingly since the 1960s. New research proposes that young people have not been simply abstaining from political participation but that they have been engaging in new or alternative forms of participation like demonstrating, signing petitions and expressing themselves politically in the market. This paper asks two questions---who are these alternative participators and what explains why they have turned to these new forms? The results indicate that young people engage with alternative forms of political participation more than they engage with more traditional forms like joining political parties and lobbying Congress. Furthermore, the results show that the theory of postmaterialism does explain in part what leads some young people to participate in these alternative forms more than others.

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