Political trust is by many thought to be an important factor for a society to work efficiently, due in part to trust in political institutions being a motivator for citizens to abide by rules and laws. Political trust is also thought to have an impact on voter turnout, according to some of the previous research. This correlation, however, is debated among researchers. This paper takes off from previous research regarding how voter turnout is impacted by different factors and specifically how voter turnout among young people is impacted. Previous research shows that voter turnout can be impacted by numerous factors on the individual as well as the aggregated level. Gender, age, and level of education are seen as some of the factors for voter turnout on the individual level, whereas the size of the population and proportional representation are seen as some of the factors for voter turnout on the aggregated level. Moreover, specifically voter turnout among young people is well-studied due to the generally lower turnout of this group. Previous research has shown how education and political interest, among other factors, might impact voter turnout among young people. This paper also rests on previous research of political trust in general and political trust as a factor for voter turnout. As mentioned above, the correlation between political trust and voter turnout is somewhat disputed, with some research showing strong correlation and other studies showing no evidence of such correlation. In this paper we therefore aim to study whether political trust, meaning trust for political institutions, has an impact on voter turnout among young people between the ages of 20–26. The term political institutions in this paper include the Swedish Parliament, the Swedish Government and the Swedish political parties represented in the parliament. The method in this study is quantitative, using cross tabulation to analyse the relationship between political trust and voter turnout among young people. The data on which the analysis is based are gathered from the results of the longitudinal research program Political Socialization Program by YeS (Youth & Society), Örebro university. The results suggests that young people have quite high levels of trust with over half of the respondents expressing very high or quite high levels of trust for all three of the political institutions. The results also show that the young people of this population have more trust toward the Swedish Parliament than to the Swedish Government and the political parties. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that low or no trust in each of the political institutions might correlate to a lower voter turnout on the individual level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:du-42013 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Wetterberg, Matilda, Wästborn, Victoria |
| Publisher | Högskolan Dalarna, Statsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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