“You like become your opinion” : A study of how young people do politics in late modern society

There are shared opinions about how young people's participation in politics looks like today. Some studies show that young people's participation in party politics has been drastically reduced. Simultaneously, other studies show how young people are more politically interested today than in a long time. Thus, young people have a strong interest in politics, but participate to a lesser extent in party politics. Then where does young people's doing of politics go? The purpose of this study is to show how societal changes such as increased individualization and digitalization have come to influence how young people do politics today. In order to understand the changes that have taken place in what is considered to be politics and how politics is being practiced today, we need to take a step back and look at the major societal changes that have taken place in late modern society. Through a qualitative study based on interviews, this paper has sought answers to how today's young people are doing politics in late modern society and how it can explain the paradox of declining participation in party politics and at the same time increasing interest in politics. The result showed that young people's doing of politics today has come to be individualized, where much of the doing of politics is based on the individual and everyday life. Therefore, what was previously considered personal and non-political has come to be politicized. This politicization of the unpolitical has been done at the expense of the political which at the same time becomes more unpolitical for the young, and thus the low interest in the political system and to channel its political action through political parties. Digitalization has also contributed to the fact that this individual engagement can be exercised via social media which has become an important political arena for young people today. To a greater extent, the young citizen now wants to be a political actor of their own and to influence themselves directly in relation to society, rather than having their views represented by politicians. In this way, past private acts such as consuming less meat and one's own career choices are largely political actions in late modern society.