Gamson’s Mistrustful-Efficacious Political Participation Hypothesis in Adolescents from 24 Countries.

Young people have played a prominent role in the global trend towards participation in protests to the detriment of more traditional forms of political involvement. In recent years younger generations have been not only the drivers and protagonists of the protest but often exceeded their more peaceful and “normalized” forms to make their demands heard. What drives the youngest to get involved in these highly disruptive actions? What differentiates them from those who opt for other moderate avenues of political action? How and to what extent can the interaction between individual characteristics and context radicalize young people?

William Gamson (1968) proposed that low institutional trust and high internal political efficacy are the optimal combination for political mobilization, including participation in protests and demonstrations. According to Gamson, mobilization against the government occurred primarily because of dissatisfaction with its performance but, at the same time, because they believed they could bring about social change through direct action. This paper follows this hypothesis, using the combination of institutional trust and political self-efficacy to generate typologies of “political participants” and assess the extent to which the expected pattern occurs considering different types of participation: conventional, disruptive and digital.

Using the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2022 - ICCS, around 80000 students from 24 countries participated, we evaluated Gamson’s Mistrustful-Efficacious Political Participation Hypothesis. In line with the expectations, preliminary results showed that efficacious students (trusting and distrustful) are more willing to participate in the different types. In contrast, students with lower levels of self-efficacy and distrust show less willingness to participate in all kinds. Additionally, relevant variations across countries are observed. Latin American students seem to be more radical in their view of participation, while developed countries do not.