Patterns of civic participation among politically active students in Hungary

Abstract

The article aims to describe common characteristics of politically active college and university students in Hungary and to give an insight into their divergent values, ideologies and motivations. First, we identify their participation in different forms of political action. Then we use a 'phenomenological', intrinsic approach that is able to understand the “voice” of young people based on the suggestions of former research that young people`s political communities influence their willingness to participate. We found that direct forms of participation are the key to understanding the political participation of the university students and we conclude that their political way of thinking and their consequent political action may be determined by three political communities in the long term. Keywords: political participation, young people, political identities