• 1 The Electoral Commission, Scottish Independence Referendum. Report on the
• 2 Lynn Bennie, James Mitchell & Rob Johns, “Recruited by referendum: party membership in the SNP and (...)
• 3 One month after the referendum, the SNP membership rose from 25,642 to 93,045 members. See The Elec (...)
• 4 James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie & Rob Johns, “Referendum as platform: the SNP and Scottish Green member (...)
• 5 The Greens and the SNP.
• 6 Lynn Bennie, James Mitchell & Rob Johns, “Parties, movements and the 2014 Scottish independence ref (...)

1Young people are often regarded as distant from politics, either by older generations, the media, scholars, or young people themselves. Yet, on 18 September 2014, 75 per cent of Scottish people aged 16 and 17 went to the polls in order to vote for or against Scottish independence.1 While young people are usually seen as disinterested in politics, why were so many young Scots interested in the 2014 Scottish referendum? James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie and Rob Johns have studied Scottish people’s participation in politics at that time. They show that it led to party membership surges,2 especially in the Scottish National Party (SNP),3 the biggest pro-independence political party in Scotland, and, to a lesser extent, in the Green Party, a pro-independence party too. For them, the referendum was a “platform”4 for political parties that enabled them to recruit members: “new members were attracted to party membership because of an unusually long and high-profile campaign publicising the two parties’5 policies and ideas – primarily but not only independence”.6 Given Mitchell, Bennie and Johns’ findings and the significant proportion of young Scots who voted in the 2014 independence referendum, it is worth examining the role played by the question of Scottish independence in party membership amongst young people in particular. Before doing so, it is necessary to introduce the context of the referendum and the issue of young people’s participation.

• 7 Edwige Camp-Pietrain, “La participation au référendum de 2014 en Écosse : un sursaut démocratique”, (...)
• 8 This will be explained further in the present paper.
• 9 Edwige Camp-Pietrain, op.cit.
• 10 The Electoral Commission, 2014, op.cit.
• 11 Edwige Camp-Pietrain, op.cit.

2Edwige Camp-Pietrain7 highlights young people’s interest in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. She states that the minimum voting age at 168 and the campaign targeting young Scots fueled their “enthusiasm”9 about the referendum. The media and talks with relatives as well as information at school were significant elements of the referendum campaign among young people. She therefore specifies that according to the Electoral Commission,10 “63 per cent of the young people aged 16 and 17 saw one element of the campaign targeting them”.11

• 12 Lindsay Paterson, “Independence is not Going Away: The Importance of Education and Birth Cohorts”, (...)

3More recently, Lindsay Paterson shed light on an “association of independence with youth”.12 He examined Scottish Social Attitudes Surveys by ScotCen from 1999 onwards about people aged 18 and over (except in 2016: 16 and over) and argued for a cohort effect with regards to independence:

• 14 BBC, 2015.

4This is in line with the findings of researchers who were part of the Scottish Referendum Study. They show that the age group that voted mostly for independence in 2014 was the group of people aged 25 to 29, whereas the people who were 70 and over voted mostly against independence.14 Paterson also notes that young people could be a key part of the population in a hypothetical, second independence referendum:

• 16 Jan Eichhorn & Christine Hübner, “Votes-at-16 in Scotland. 2014-2021” report, 2021.
• 17 Ibid.
• 18 As was noted earlier, the Scottish Green Party also gained members, among whom young members, thank (...)

5Last but not least, as pointed out by Camp-Pietrain, the lowering of the voting age to 16 may be another reason why so many young Scots went to polling stations on 18 September 2014. Young people’s electoral participation is an issue in the United Kingdom, as in many other Western democracies. In 2004, the Power Commission established by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation started to explore the non-participation of young people in General elections. In its final report published two years later, the Commission proposed to lower the voting age to 16. It happened in Scotland in 2014, when the Scottish Parliament allowed young Scots aged 16 and 17 to vote in the independence referendum. The 16 and 17-year-olds are still enfranchised in Scotland today. Interestingly, Jan Eichhorn and Christine Hübner16 found that lowering the voting age to 16 had long lasting positive consequences on electoral participation among young Scottish people. Indeed, they observed that “young people who benefited from the lowering of the voting age to 16 in Scotland were more likely to turn out to vote in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections than young people who were first eligible to vote in an election aged 18 or older”.17 Amongst those young people who go to vote more than people enfranchised at 18 years of age, there could be new party members. Indeed, as it seems that young Scots may be more interested in voting, elections might lead some of them to get interested in political parties and, consequently, in party membership. This led me to carry out a study focusing on the members of the YSI (Young Scots for Independence) and SNP Students, the youth and student wings of the SNP.18

• 19 Emilie van Haute, “Party Membership: An Understudied Mode of Political Participation”, in Emilie va (...)
• 20 Matthew Lamb, Young Conservatives, Young Socialists and the Great Youth Abstention: Youth Participa (...)
• 21 William Cross & Lisa Young, “Factors Influencing the Decision of the Young Politically Engaged to J (...)
• 22 Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, “Tomorrow’s Leaders? Understanding the Involvement of Young Party (...)
• 23 Regina Weber, “Political participation of young people in political parties. A literature review of (...)
• 24 Marc Hooghe, Dietlind Stolle & Patrick Stouthuysen, “Head Start in Politics: The Recruitment Functi (...)
• 25 Emily Rainsford, “Young people and political parties”, in Andrew Mycock & Jonathan Tonge (eds), Bey (...)
• 26 Lynn Bennie & Andrew Russell, “Radical or Compliant? Young Party Members in Britain”, Paper prepare (...)

7Youth party membership is understudied. This might be explained in two ways. First, party membership has been declining since the end of the 20th century. Hence, probably, scholars’ lack of interest in party membership studies. “[U]ntil recently, scholars have not devoted much attention”19 to it: Emilie van Haute’s comment about that gap in the literature is even more true when it comes to the party membership of young people. As a second explanation, it may be assumed that this is understudied because young people are usually regarded as disinterested in politics. That political apathy is often characterised by young people’s lack of trust in politicians and politics more generally speaking. This might explain why they are underrepresented in party membership studies. In the past decades, only a few studies have been conducted. Four models were built by Lamb,20 Cross and Young,21 Bruter and Harrison,22 and Weber.23 Other studies were carried out by Hooghe et al.,24 Rainsford,25 and Bennie and Russell.26

• 27 Independent variables “are typically thought of as being the cause, and dependent variables are oft (...)
• 28 Regina Weber, op.cit., 2018, 5.
• 29 Ibid., 5-6.
• 30 Emily Rainsford, op.cit., 2017, 22.
• 31 Ibid.

8In his PhD thesis, Matthew Lamb analysed youth membership of the British Conservative Party and Labour Party. He got 537 responses to his questionnaire, from people aged between 18 and 25: 255 from the Conservatives and 282 from Labour. In Canada, William Cross and Lisa Young conducted a youth party membership study in three political parties between November 2003 and February 2004. 39 per cent of the 3,962 young members of the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Québécois that they had contacted responded to their mail survey. They were aged from 18 to 25. The researchers examined four independent27 variables: socio-demographics, socialisation, young people’s use of media and their attitudes towards political parties. In 2009, Michael Bruter and Sarah Harrison published their own study. They built a three-dimensional model. Their comparative survey examines the young members of 15 political parties across Europe. In the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Norway and Hungary, 2,919 of young party members aged between 18 and 25 responded to their survey and 519 were interviewed. In 2012, Lynn Bennie and Andrew Russell analysed young British party members thanks to the existing data about the membership of British political parties. Five years later, in 2017, Regina Weber built a fourth explanatory model of youth party membership. She conducted an online survey amongst the young members of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). 4,006 people under the age of 36 responded to the survey. She tested several variables to see whether they influence youth party membership: “working”, “child”,28 “education”, “joinage”, “union”, “parentsmember”, “beforeactive”, and “activeseek”.29 Her multi-level analysis of SPD youth membership leads to a comprehensive understanding of the factors that play a decisive role in young people’s decision to join the German party. In the same year, in the United Kingdom, Emily Rainsford did research on the young members of Conservative Future, Young Labour/Labour Students and Liberal Youth, as well as the British Youth Council (BYC) and the National Union of Students (NUS). 450 people aged from 16 to 30 were surveyed. She tested one dependent variable – “political activism in different political organisations”30 – and four independent variables – “civic and political skills, mobilisation, civic and political attitudes, and motivations”.31

• 32 William Cross & Lisa Young, op.cit., 9.
• 33 Lynn Bennie & Andrew Russell, op.cit., 6.
• 34 Emily Rainsford, op.cit., 2017, 20.
• 35 See Tim Bale, Paul Webb & Monica Poletti, “Grassroots. Britain’s party members: who they are, what (...)

9Thanks to the studies they conducted, youth party membership scholars agree on several points. The first one is socio-demographics. They conclude that a majority of young party members are male: 78.8 per cent in Lamb’s study, 53 per cent in Cross and Young’s study,32 68.2 per cent in Bennie and Russel’s survey33 and 71 per cent in the study conducted by Rainsford.34 Those results are congruent with the analyses of party members’ profiles regardless of their age.35

• 36 See Matthew Lamb, op.cit. & Regina Weber, op.cit.
• 37 See Tim Bale, Paul Webb & Monica Poletti, op.cit.

10When it comes to socio-economic resources, the average young member is usually educated or well-educated.36 It is, again, in line with party membership studies regardless of age.37

• 38 Peter B. Clark & James Q. Wilson, “Incentive Systems: A Theory of Organizations”, Administrative Sc (...)
• 39 James Q. Wilson, op.cit.
• 40 Lamb’s study is quite interesting as it sheds light on both incentives and disincentives to join a (...)
• 41 Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, “Tomorrow’s Leaders? Understanding the Involvement of Young Party (...)
• 42 Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, “Tomorrow’s Leaders? Understanding the Involvement of Young Party (...)
• 43 Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, The Future of our democracies: Young party members in Europe, op.c (...)

11Basing their arguments on the analysis of incentives and motivations, scholars created categories of young party members and models of youth party membership. These models were mainly inspired by Clark and Wilson’s research and/or Whiteley and Seyd’s General Incentives Model (GIM). In the 1990s, Whiteley and Seyd argued that people join a political party for material, social or ideological reasons. Also, they noted that the incentives that push them to do so are either individual (“selective”) or collective. The General Incentives Model itself was inspired by Clark and Wilson’s work.38 In the 1960s and 1970s, Clark and Wilson theorised that there are three types of incentives for political participation: “material” – money, for example, “solidary” – the social dimension of political participation, and “purposive” – people’s ideology for example.39 In 2002, Lamb40 concluded that a majority of young people join Labour and the Conservative Party for altruistic reasons. Seven years later, after basing their research on Clark and Wilson’s work, Bruter and Harrison41 identify three types of young party members, each depending on the kinds of incentives that lead young people to join: moral-minded, social-minded and professional-minded party members. First, for Bruter and Harrison, young moral-minded party members join a political party for ideological reasons. In their study, they are the largest group of young members, meaning that ideology is the most significant factor influencing the young people studied to join. Bruter and Harrison also note that moral-minded members are the most devoted to their party and the most active. Second, they argue that social-minded members make the decision to become party members so as to meet new people and make friends. Hence the social dimension of their party membership. They conclude that they are the least devoted to their party and the least active. They add that their party career tends to be short: they are likely to leave their political party after some time. Finally, Bruter and Harrison show that professional-minded members join for career reasons. They note: “the professional dimension revolves around a desire to achieve positions and honors, become a politician, and derive money or material benefits from party membership.”.42 This type of young party members is likely to be quite active and devoted to their party, particularly in campaigns and elections. Finally, when it comes to the time when young people become party members, Bruter and Harrison conclude that they usually join after having thought of it for some time or in the aftermath of an event. They say that young people become members of political parties “often [at] a catalytic moment”43. The present paper will examine those ideas with the study of Scottish National Party (SNP) youth party membership and the Scottish independence referendum further down.

• 44 The macro level deals with society, usually referring to societal and governmental structures; the (...)
• 45 See Ronald Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Pub (...)
• 46 Sarah Pickard, Politics, Protest and Young People. Political Participation and Dissent in 21st Cent (...)
• 47 Regina Weber, op.cit., 2017, 391.
• 48 Ibid., 388.
• 49 Simon Verba & Norman H. Nie, Participation in America: Social Equality and Political Democracy. New (...)

12Regina Weber’s model is three-dimensional too. Studying party membership of the SPD in Germany, she highlights three categories of young party members: the Take All group, the Ideologists and the Reluctant members. The first type of young party members joined for moral, social and professional reasons altogether. The second category is motivated by moral and social reasons. As for the Reluctant members, they joined the SPD for more vague reasons. Her study highlights that a majority of young people join the SPD for ideological reasons, which is in line with Bruter and Harrison’s work. Her typology insists on a relationship between incentives and individual resources. She explores the moral, social and professional motivations for young people to become SPD members. First, she examines young people’s political participation at the macro, meso and micro levels44. At the macro level, Weber argues that individualisation and post-materialism45 due to industrialisation make young people less interested in traditional politics, namely voting, campaigning, party membership… Instead, young people get interested in single, post-materialist issues like ecology, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism… These views are shared by scholars like Sarah Pickard46 who posits that young generations do participate in politics but in different, less traditional ways than before. Weber says: “these changes make it more difficult for parties to attract young people, especially as many parties developed across cleavages along materialist topics, such as the divide between capital and labour”.47 At the meso level, she insists on the decline of party membership in Western democracies since the 1950s. She also suggests that the professionalisation of political parties may make it harder for parties to recruit young people. At the micro level, Weber analyses youth party membership via individual resources: “time, money, and skills”.48 Her work is thus inspired by the socioeconomic model explaining political participation in the studies by Brady, Verba, Schlozman and Nie.49 To sum up, Regina Weber shows that young people in Germany join the SPD both for personal reasons (incentives) and according to their resources. At the micro level, she identifies three kinds of individual resources for party membership: time (young people tend to have more free time to devote to a party compared to older people with a family and a job), money (the more money and education young people have, the more likely they are to join a political party), and civic skills. For her, skills are related to education and socialisation through family, friends, school, or social networks generally speaking. Through this socialisation, young people get knowledge and civic skills enabling them to engage in politics and become party members. With regard to education, she finds that the longer their education is, the less young people are likely to be motivated by professional incentives. Besides, if less educated, the young members of the SPD tend to be motivated by heterogenous incentives. What is more, when members join early, their motivations are clearer than the motivations of older members. Regarding the “union” variable, she shows that the young SPD members who were union members before joining the party are likely to consider moral-ideological and social incentives as important. Overall, Weber’s research is robust and quite helpful to understand youth party membership. It could nonetheless have been even more comprehensive if she had carried out interviews to add to her quantitative survey.

• 50 Bert Klandermans, “The Demand and Supply of Participation: Social Psychological Correlates of Parti (...)
• 51 Emily Rainsford, op.cit., 2017, 7.

13Still in 2017 in the UK, Emily Rainsford examines young people’s motivations to join political organisations. She builds on Bert Klanderman’s political participation theory,50 who identified three types of motivations: instrumental, identity and ideological motivations. Rainsford explains that “the instrumental motivations derive from the rational choice perspective where the participant wants to gain some benefit from participating, the identity motivations are related to a sense of collective identity, the ideological measures relate to moral reasoning”.51 With her study, she highlights that the members of youth factions and the British Youth Council are less instrumentally- and ideologically-motivated than young demonstrators. Rainsford’s research is helpful to understand young people’s motivations to join political organisations. It could have been even more useful if she had carried out interviews to complement her quantitative analysis.

• 52 For example, they talk about politics, vote or participate in demonstrations.

14It is important to note that all the models that were built before the present study shed light on the significant role played by political socialisation in youth party membership. As political socialisation means that young people are in contact with politics, it comes as no surprise that those who participate in politics, like young activists, are likely to join a party. This is what Rainsford noted in 2017. For her, British young people who participate in politics52 tend to join a political organisation. Similarly, in Germany, Weber concludes that political activism pushes young people to become party members.

• 53 William Cross & Lisa Young, op.cit., 10.
• 54 Ibid., 11.
• 55 Ibid., 12-13.

15Family, friends and school are decisive vehicles for political socialisation amongst young people. Cross and Young argue that this socialisation is the most significant factor explaining young Canadians’ party membership. 62 per cent of the respondents have at least one of their parents involved with a political party.53 In the same way, 50 per cent of them were recruited by a family member.54 The two scholars also conclude that young Canadians are more likely to become party members when they attend civics related to politics at school or university. For them, it seems to make young people see political parties as efficient tools to change things in society.55 Parental influence plays the most significant role in young Canadians’ decision to join a party, but it appears that political socialisation via education is also decisive.

• 56 Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, op.cit., The Future of our democracies: Young party members in Eur (...)
• 57 Ibid., 46.
• 58 Ibid., 228.

16When it comes to political socialisation, Bruter and Harrison identify three main “paths to membership”:56 “A ‘motorway’ via family transmission, and two other important roads via friends, and through other organisations such as unions (be they trade unions or student unions) or pressure groups.”57 They specify that those three routes are often interrelated. Hence the idea that, as in Cross and Young’s analysis, political socialisation plays a significant role in young people’s decision to join a political party. Interestingly, Bruter and Harrison add that when young people are influenced to join by relatives, they become party members by either imitating – positive way of joining – or opposing – negative way of joining – family members and/or friends.58 In other words, they choose to join either the same party as their relatives and/or friends or an opponent.

• 59 Matthew Lamb, op.cit., 198.

17The political socialisation process through family, friends and/or school may be a reason why the young people who join parties are interested in politics and have positive views of political parties. In his thesis, Lamb notes: “the average member is interested in politics and feels strong attachment to a particular political party. He or she believes in their party's policies, dislikes the policies of their political opponents and might be considering a career in politics.”59 In the same way, Cross and Young argue that young Canadian party members have positive views of political parties. Contrary to a majority of young people, who seem to have distrusted political parties for several decades, they believe in parties as efficient organisations to change things in society. This is congruent with Rainsford’s findings almost ten years later: she concludes that in political parties, the members of youth factions that she studied tend to have good opinions of politics and politicians.

• 60 Jan Eichhorn & Christine Hübner, op.cit., 1.

18Finally, the role played by political socialisation is also highlighted by Eicchorn and Hübner when it comes to voting. In their report about votes at 16 in Scotland, they argue: “Young people’s political engagement between 16 and 31 is strongly impacted by their family contexts and circles of friends.”60 The present study will test political socialisation as a variable influencing SNP youth membership further down.

• 61 Interestingly, young members are less likely than non-members to use the Internet to get informatio (...)

19Before doing so, it must be noted that some additional findings complement the conclusions that were just presented. Cross and Young posit that young people’s use of the media also influences their party membership. They show that young party members are likely to use the media in order to get political information.61 In a way, this is logical: young party members are supposed to be interested in politics, so the fact that they look for information about politics in the media comes as no surprise.

• 62 These studies do not build new youth party membership models.
• 63 Marc Hooghe & Dietlind Stolle, op.cit., 200.

20A few other studies on young party members were carried out.62 In 2004, Marc Hooghe, Dietlind Stolle and Patrick Stouthuysen published a survey on Belgian city councillors. They got 672 questionnaires in 32 municipalities in the region of Flanders. They shed light on the “recruitment function”63 of youth wings as they noticed that councillors who had been youth wings’ members started their political careers earlier than others.

• 64 Lynn Bennie & Andrew Russell, op.cit., 7.
• 65 Ibid., 15.

21In 2012, Bennie and Russel noted that the youngest members of British political parties were the most active.64 Basing their analysis on Mitchell et al.’s study, they highlighted that in the SNP, the young members were “the most committed to independence”.65 Those points are tested further down in this paper thanks to the study conducted from 2018 to 2020.

• 66 Contrary to the researcher’s interpretation of interviewees’ answers, which may be subjective and p (...)
• 67 I sent them the link towards the webpage of the survey by email and in direct messages on social me (...)
• 68 A total of 82 young party members responded. 53 questionnaires were completed entirely. 38 were sub (...)

26To test the existing models explaining youth party membership and the hypotheses that have just been presented, this paper focuses on the period running from 2012 – the start of the Scottish independence referendum campaign – to 2020 – the year when the last data for this research were collected. Empirical research was conducted from 2018 to 2020. I either contacted the YSI and SNP Students under study via social media and emails or I met them at SNP annual conferences in June 2018 in Aberdeen, October 2018 in Glasgow and May 2019 in Edinburgh. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I interviewed some members via phone and video calls in March 2020. I used both quantitative and qualitative methods. This allowed for specific and significant conclusions. So as to get a precise understanding of young people’s reasons and motivations for joining the SNP, in-depth interviews with young SNP members were conducted first. 25 young people were interviewed. Given that the analysis of qualitative research might be subjective, data were analysed quantitatively as well.66 At least, I could compare the results of the online survey with what young SNP members told me during interviews. An online questionnaire was thus sent to the YSI and SNP Students.67 It tested the variables usually examined by youth party membership scholars as well as those related to the issue of Scottish independence and national identity. The following variables were thus tested: socio-economic resources, political socialisation, interest in politics, interest in the party, party membership benefits, career plans, Scottish independence, Scottishness and Britishness. 3868 young SNP members responded to the questionnaire. This is a relatively disappointing and frustrating rate. I expected to get about 100 responses in order to draw significant conclusions. But it must be noted that just a few members were active in the youth and student wings of the party when the study was conducted. For instance, at SNP annual conferences, I often met the same young people. There were about 30 of them, which is close to the number of respondents to the online questionnaire.

• 69 See Scott Fitzgerald, “Middle Classes”, 2012, DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0093, accessed on Nove (...)
• 70 Claire Breniaux, Young Scottish National Party (SNP) Members’ National Identity and Party Membershi (...)
• 71 Ibid., 151.
• 72 See Tim Bale, Paul Webb and Monica Poletti, op.cit.
• 73 James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie & Rob Johns, The Scottish National Party: Transition to Power. Oxford: (...)
• 74 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 153.
• 75 Ibid., 156.
• 76 See Tim Bale, Paul Webb & Monica Poletti, op.cit.
• 77 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 159.
• 78 Ibid., 161.
• 79 See Weber, op.cit., 2018. Weber states that given their age, young people usually do not have a job (...)

30At the micro level of analysis, the results align with the existing literature on youth party membership. A majority of the young party members who were part of the study are male, from the middle class69 and they are or were university students. To be more specific, 70 per cent of the interviewees70 and 72 per cent of the online respondents71 were male. This is congruent with the youth party membership studies presented in the first part of this paper, as well as studies of party membership regardless of members’ age.72 When it comes to all SNP members, regardless of their age, the results are in line with Mitchell et al.’s findings.73 Regarding social class, the present research finds that a majority of young SNP members say they belong to the middle class. This is the case for 55 per cent of the interviewees74 and 58 per cent of the survey respondents.75 This, again, correlates with the other youth party membership studies and the literature on party membership in general.76 When it comes to education, 88 per cent of the interviewees77 and 92 per cent of the online survey respondents78 were or had been university students. Once more, it is congruent with the literature on party membership and youth party membership. With regards to free time and family obligations, Weber’s conclusions79 are confirmed: only one of the young SNP members interviewed had children and nobody amongst the survey respondents. Hence their free time to devote to party activism.

• 80 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 186.
• 81 Question wording: “Are your parents politically involved?”.
• 82 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 187.
• 83 Question wording: “Do your parents often talk about politics?”.
• 84 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 188.
• 85 Question wording: “Are your parents…
  – engaged in politics?
  – supporters of a political party?
  – me (...)
• 86 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 188.
• 87 Ibid., 190.
• 88 Question wording: “What party are your parents involved with?
  – Scottish National Party
  – Scottish (...)
• 89 See William Cross & Lisa Young, op.cit., Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, op.cit., Regina Weber, op (...)
• 90 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 192.

31This research also shows that political socialisation is a significant independent variable in the SNP youth membership analysis. 63 per cent of the interviewees80 had parents involved with politics81 and 62 per cent82 had parents who talked about politics at home.83 The parents of 82 per cent of the online respondents84 participated in politics.85 Even more significantly, the parents of 66 per cent of the survey respondents86 were political party members. Amongst them, 55 per cent87 were SNP members.88 Thus, it may be argued that family plays a role in young people’s decision to join the SNP. This aligns, again, with the existing literature on youth party membership.89 In the same way, a majority of the young SNP members who were part of the study had been in contact with politics via friends. 87 per cent of the online survey respondents had friends who were party members and 58 per cent had friends who were SNP members too.90

• 91 See William Cross & Lisa Young, op.cit.
• 92 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 194.
• 93 Question wording: “How did you get interested in politics?
  – Family
  – University
  – Friends
  – Media (...)
• 94 Ibid., 196.
• 95 Question wording: “How did you get interested in the political party of which you are a member?
  – F (...)
• 96 Scottish independence referendum.
• 97 James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie & Rob Johns, op.cit.
• 98 Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, op.cit., 228.

32As shown in the first part of this paper, before joining a political party, young people may get interested in politics in various ways. Family and friends may pass on this interest in politics, but the literature on youth party membership adds that the media is also a vehicle for political socialisation amongst young people.91 82 per cent of the survey respondents92 got interested in politics93 thanks to the Scottish independence referendum campaign. Similarly, 71 per cent of them94 got interested in the SNP95 thanks to IndyRef.96 Several interviewees said that they got interested in the referendum thanks to the internet and, more particularly, social media. This reinforces the previous youth party membership studies, especially the one conducted by Cross and Young. It also suggests that major political events like an independence referendum trigger youth party membership – at least, this was the case for Scotland. It confirms Mitchell, Bennie and Johns’ arguments.97 It strengthens Bruter and Harrison’s conclusions too when they argue that young people become party members “often [at] a catalytic moment”.98 For YSI and SNP Students, this “catalytic moment” was the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.

• 99 See Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison, op.cit.
• 100 Regina Weber, op.cit.

33In terms of ideology, the results of the present study show that young people’s beliefs in equality, social justice and fairness, play a part in their decision to join the SNP. Given that the party believes in social democracy, this comes as no surprise. It aligns with the literature on youth party membership, particularly with Bruter and Harrison’s findings about the young moral-minded party members99 and Weber’s work100 presented previously in this paper.

• 101 Question wording: “What benefits do you gain from your party membership?
  – New friends
  – Girlfriend (...)
• 102 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 201.
• 103 Ibid., 204.
• 104 Ibid., 205.

34Even though party membership benefits are not the most significant reason why young people join the SNP, it seems that they nonetheless play a role in their membership. Making friends is the benefit that comes first for 89 per cent of the respondents.101 Having interesting debates and doing a moral or civic duty come second and third: 84 per cent and 71 per cent.102 When it comes to career plans, 82 per cent of the interviewees plan to start a political career someday;103 63 per cent of the respondents wish to become politicians.104

• 105 For further details regarding national identity in my research, see Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 314-4 (...)
• 106 The present research was done before Labour’s victory in the 2024 General election. The new British (...)
• 107 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 331.
• 108 Ibid., 332.
• 109 The Moreno scale or Moreno Question was established by Luis Moreno and explores Scottish people’s s (...)
• 110 See Claire Breniaux, op.cit.
• 111 About the relationship between national identity, constitutional preferences and party support in S (...)

35Finally, though it is not the focus of the present paper, national identity105 was also identified as a variable accounting for SNP youth party membership at the micro level. Indeed, thanks to the analysis of the interviews and the online survey, it may be said that young SNP members’ version of their national identity correlates with their views of an independent Scotland. They define Scottishness with values like social justice, fairness, equality. And they campaign for a social-democratic, independent Scotland, opposed to a Conservative UK.106 When I asked them why they wanted Scotland to become independent, a majority of them responded that it was to free their nation from the yield of the Conservative British government, in the name of the same values with which they defined Scottishness. Their sense of national identity and their wish for independence thus seem to go hand in hand. Besides, 88 per cent of the interviewees107 and 90 per cent of the survey respondents108 do not feel British according to the Moreno scale.109 Even though they told me that they do not want Scottish independence for identity reasons – they do not feel British but this is not why they joined the SNP – their national identity, in the socio-political sense of the term, not in an ethno-cultural sense,110does seem to play a part in their political engagement.111

• 112 The scheme, that was launched in 2019, aimed at helping first time buyers with up to £25,000 to buy (...)
• 113 Parents can receive a box with essentials for their newborn babies.
• 114 For instance, in 2020, she wished a happy new year to the young members of her party on Twitter: “H (...)
• 115 In October 2020, she assured Scottish children that Santa would bring their presents for Christmas (...)
• 116 On Instagram, several posts by Yousaf were directed at young people and, more especially, at the me (...)
• 117 The second and third largest political parties in terms of seats in the Scottish Parliament.
• 118 Numbers confirm this hypothesis: on social media, the SNP is the party whose proportion of young fo (...)
• 119 The Gender Recognition (Scotland) Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 22 December 2022. I (...)

36At the meso level of analysis, it may be argued that the SNP might be good at recruiting young members, for two reasons especially. Some of their policies benefit young people in particular. For example, free university tuition fees, the First Home Fund112 and Scotland’s Baby Box113 might make some young Scots think the SNP cares about their generation. In that sense, the party might appeal to them. Also, the SNP interact with young people via social media. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the party and First Minister of Scotland from 2014 to 2023, was rather good at communicating with young people on social media.114 Plus, she appeared to be close to young people.115 The fact that a 38-year-old man, Humza Yousaf, was the new leader of the party from 2023 to 2024, might have reinforced the SNP’s attractiveness for young people. He was backed by a majority of the young members of the organisation and is a former member of its youth wing (as Nicola Sturgeon was). Like Sturgeon, Yousaf used social media. He seemed willing to highlight that the SNP and the Scottish government care about young people.116 A comparison between Yousaf’s Instagram account and those of Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross, the leaders of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives in the same period,117 shows that posts about young people and parties’ youth wings were much more frequent in Yousaf’s account than in Ross’ and Sarwar’s. It might be assumed that the SNP are therefore more appealing in young people’s minds than Labour and the Conservatives.118 Finally, the SNP work on issues about which young people are likely to be concerned: the fight against climate change (Sturgeon), phasing out fossil fuels (Yousaf), and gender equality119 for example.

• 120 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 224.
• 121 Ibid., 230.
• 122 James Mitchell, Lynn Bennie & Rob Johns, op.cit., 2021.

37At the macro level of analysis, it is Scottish independence which plays a role in young people’s decision to become SNP members. It is the main motivation for joining. 64 per cent of the interviewees120 and 76 per cent of the survey respondents121 identified the independence of Scotland as the only reason – or the main reason – why they got involved with the SNP. This suggests again that major political events like an independence referendum may be catalysts for youth party membership. In Scotland, it confirms Mitchell, Bennie and Johns’ arguments about ScotIndyRef as a “platform for the parties to advertise their objectives on the constitution and other policy areas and thus attract new recruits”.122

• 123 See Breniaux, op.cit., 39.

38All the findings introduced above lead to an explanatory model of SNP youth membership.123

• 124 Even though this study focuses on young SNP members, it should be noted that the Scottish independe (...)
• 125 Claire Breniaux, op.cit., 217, 219.
• 126 Ibid., 218.
• 127 See Jan Eichhorn & Christine Hübner, op.cit.
• 128 See Mitchell, Bennie and Johns’ argument that the referendum was a “platform” for political parties (...)

40The fact that the independence referendum was a trigger that pushed young people to join the SNP124 is confirmed by their time of joining. The majority of the interviewees and survey respondents joined the SNP in 2014, after the referendum.125 Also, the online survey shows that the average YSI member was 17 in 2014.126 This suggests a vote at 16 effect. Lowering the voting age to 16 has led to a high turnout amongst 16 and 17-year-olds and a higher electoral participation of that part of the population in the elections afterwards, compared to young people who were enfranchised at 18.127 It seems that it also triggered some of these young people to join the SNP. Given that they were allowed to vote, they probably got interested in Scottish politics and political parties.128 The relationship between vote at 16 and SNP youth party membership is still to explore.

• 129 This was the initial goal of the present study but it was quite difficult to reach young members of (...)

42This work is thus congruent with the existing literature on youth party membership and the models that were previously built. With national independence as an independent variable at the macro level of analysis – and, to a lesser extent, with national identity and values as variables influencing youth party membership at the micro level, it adds to them too. It also paves the way for future research. It would be interesting to compare the reasons for joining the SNP between the members of different ages to see whether they converge or diverge. Also, a robust comparative study of young party members in Scotland could be conducted.129 It would be possible to see whether the conclusions above are confirmed and whether young people’s reasons for joining a Scottish political party converge or diverge from one party to another. It would notably test Scottish independence – or status quo between Scotland and the rest of the UK – as a variable playing a major part in youth party membership. Such a comparison could also be made between young party members in different nations in the world. This would help to see whether political context and major national events and issues – like Scottish independence – are a fundamental catalyst for youth party membership in other countries. Comparing young party members in Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia – where there are separatist movements too – would be instructive. The issue of independence as a variable influencing youth party membership would be tested further.