2The following interview took place on November 18, 2022 at the University of Angers, France, where Roberto S. Foa was invited to give a conference on “Youth, Populism and the Reconnection with Democracy”.

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: In 2020, you published a major report on dissatisfaction with democracy. What was the starting point for this global survey?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: In recent years, there has been much discussion around younger generations and their degree of engagement with democracy. But that discussion has often been informed by preconceptions rather than solid facts. Hence, our initial aim was a very simple one – to gather and harmonise every survey that we could find from across the world in which people had been asked about their attitudes toward democracy, and then, use that to build the largest-ever dataset of global democratic beliefs and opinions, from the 1970s to the present day. With that, we could then finally provide an answer to the key questions of debate: are younger generations today more dissatisfied with democratic performance than in the past? If so, where is this the case and why? And what can be done to stop or reverse this trend?

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: Among the group of people most dissatisfied with democracy, your report shows that “young people’s faith in democratic politics is lower than any age group and millennials across the world are more disillusioned with democracy than Generation X or baby boomers were at the same age.” How do you explain this major discontent?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: An answer to that question is to be found by looking at how different regions and countries vary in the extent of their intergenerational divide. We find that not every part of the world shows an equal trend towards youth disillusionment with democracy. In East Asian countries, such as Japan or South Korea for example, there is no difference between how older and younger generations evaluate democratic performance. Meanwhile, in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe such as Poland, Romania and Hungary, younger generations are even more positive about democracy than their parents and grandparents.So, why is this the case? In our analysis, an important variable that could explain these differences appears to be intergenerational inequality in life outcomes. For example, in regions where youth unemployment is especially high relative to that among other age groups – in the countries of southern Europe and France for example following the eurozone crisis – we find a much larger intergenerational decline in levels of satisfaction with democracy. We also find that in countries where intergenerational wealth inequality is very high, and where young people experience great difficulty in securing a home or paying off student debts, a much larger intergenerational gap exists. On the other hand, in regions like Eastern Europe – where youth unemployment is in line with that of older groups, housing affordable, and younger generations possess vastly more life opportunities to work, travel, and enjoy themselves than their parents had ever known – the young are also the most optimistic about democracy and democratic performance.

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: Would you say that across the world, economic difficulties are the prime reason for young people’s discontent, or have you found other elements accounting for the disillusion?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: Yes, I believe economic difficulties are the main factor. In the United States, for example, according to data from the U.S. Federal Reserve millennials own just 3 per cent of the country’s wealth. By contrast, when baby boomers were at the same age, they owned about 21 per cent of national wealth. That is a huge gap – with significant life consequences for young people who are unable to save, own a home, start a family, or build a career.Beyond economic discontent, there are theories about other factors which might explain youth withdrawal from, and discontent with, democratic institutions. One theory that is quite popular, for example, is that of the “demographic tipping point” – which argues that because baby boomers outweigh millennials numerically, the latter are at a structural disadvantage in the democratic process, causing them to withdraw politically. However, evidence for this theory is inconsistent. On the one hand, it could help to explain youth disengagement in southern Europe, for example, in countries like Italy and Greece. On the other hand, however, countries where the demographic gap is widest – in Japan, for example, or in Germany – we didn’t find the same degree of evidence for youth disillusionment. Hence I still favour economic explanations as the main candidate.

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: What are the different ways in which this anger against democratic politics is expressed by young people?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: In my recent work with Yascha Mounk, we have classified this as a two-stage process. The first stage is what we have termed “democratic apathy”. That means that young people have become disillusioned with mainstream politics, and begun to withdraw from the democratic process, but not to support anti-system parties or candidates. The main manifestations of this phenomenon are therefore a decline in youth voter turnout, a decline in youth membership of political parties, and a decline in young people’s level of interest in politics and political debate. Democratic apathy was a major contribution to the outcome of the Brexit referendum in the UK or the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016. It was not that young people supported these outcomes, but simply that they could not be mobilised to oppose them.The second stage of the process is what we term “democratic antipathy”, which is when people are not simply disconnected from politics, but become re-mobilised by populist, anti-system parties and politicians who tap into their anger and frustration to support a radical overhaul of the political status quo. We see plenty of evidence of this across continental Europe, where younger generations are far more likely to support both left-wing populist challengers such as Syriza in Greece, the Movimento Cinque Stelle in Italy, or La France Insoumise, but also right-wing populist movements such as Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, the Alternative for Germany, or Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia. Here it is not just that young people have withdrawn from mainstream democratic politics, but have turned actively hostile to conventional political options and hence become supportive to politicians that seek fundamental change to the political system.

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: What are the main criticisms young people address against democracy?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: The most important thing to understand about democratic discontent today – and populist agitation on the whole – is that it offers no clearly formulated ideological alternative to representative, liberal democracy. That is very different, say, from the 1930s or the 1960s, when fascism or revolutionary socialism offered a coherent and concrete alternative. But today’s populist challengers are characterised mainly by what they oppose – and not by what they stand for.Accordingly, when researchers have fielded surveys of young people in Europe and asked what they would prefer as an alternative to the current democratic process, there is no single clear response. YouGov did such a poll in 2017, and when young people who agreed with the view that “other systems of government are better than democracy” were asked a follow-up question asking which systems they had in mind, the responses included everything from Singaporean-style technocracy, to one-party socialism, to direct democracy, to absolutist monarchy.Having said that, if we look at populist parties and movements in Europe today there are some common themes and concerns. Of these the main one is the view that mainstream politicians and parties are out of touch with ordinary citizen concerns, and hence too slow in addressing pressing issues such as regional inequality, an absence of life opportunities for young people, challenges in integrating migrants into society, and now the rising cost of living. Because populists characterise these issues as structural in nature – in particular due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union, or the inability of existing parties in some countries to form stable governments – that is why they propose radical measures such as withdrawal from the European Union, or in countries like Italy, a switch from a parliamentary to a presidential system of government.

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: In those countries which experienced a populist wave (UK, USA, Brazil, Italy), would you say that young people contributed to the populist victory?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: Yes - though not always in the same manner. If you look at the United Kingdom or the United States, the main factor among younger generations was “democratic apathy” – in short, the fact that young people in these countries did not turn out to vote in either the 2016 British referendum on leaving or remaining within the European Union, or the presidential election that year in the United States. Younger voters in these countries did not support populist politicians or policies in those elections, but allowed such outcomes to occur by virtue of their withdrawal from the political process.In countries such as Italy or Brazil, on the other hand, it is a very different story. Younger Italians have been far more likely to support populist challengers, such as the Movimento Cinque Stelle or Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, in contrast to older generations who stuck with Italy’s established and centrist mainstream parties. The populist breakthrough of 2018 was very much a product of millennial support for Luigi Di Maio’s M5S and Generation X support for Matteo Salvini’s Lega, each of which of course, were being led by politicians from these younger generational cohorts. The same is true of Brazil, where younger voters were more likely to back a populist outsider such as Jair Bolsonaro. It often surprises people in Europe or the United States to learn that in Brazil more than a third of young people now belong to the country’s soaring religiously evangelical protestant movement – a key demographic behind Bolsonaro’s 2018 victory.

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: It is difficult to say, because the 2022 midterm elections were not primarily a contest between populism and mainstream politics, but between moderate candidates from either party. I’m hesitant to draw the same conclusion because I think there were specific issues in this campaign – especially, that of access to abortion – which likely mobilised young people to vote for centrist politicians. Those people would otherwise have remained disconnected from politics, but were touched by a political issue that affected their lives personally in a way that brought them out to vote. Whether that can be sustained remains to be seen.

LAETITIA LANGLOIS: Is this discontent with democratic politics among young people a major threat for the future or on the other hand an opportunity to revitalise democracy?

ROBERTO STEFAN FOA: I try to be optimistic, so, I prefer to think of it as an opportunity. After all, in most western democracies where populist waves have occurred – the “Corbyn wave” in the 2017 United Kingdom general election, for example, or the 2015-9 Syriza government in Greece – we have seen young people’s membership of political parties rise, youth electoral turnout increase, and a re-engagement with democratic politics occur, all without destabilising the entire political system. Such mobilisations could, therefore, form part of the process of how democracy renews itself – allowing social frustrations to express themselves through fringe politics, and giving anti-system parties and movements a chance to grow and mature, including through experience in democratic office. The key factor is whether democratic systems have enough checks and balances in the form of an independent judiciary, constitution, press and civil society, to constrain populists from undermining liberal norms once in office – and instead, become forced to adapt themselves to the routine compromises of multiparty democratic life.I believe most parliamentary democracies in Europe are fairly safe in this regard – far more so than unstable presidential democracies in Latin America, Southeast Asia, or other parts of the global south, where these restraints are relatively weak by comparison. So in that sense, yes, I do think there is a chance for populism to renew western democracies once more.