Author: Alexandra Seehaus
Co-Authors ⁄ Presenters: Prof. Vera Trappmann, Dr. Jule-Marie Lorenzen, Denis Neumann
Towards political disenchantment and populism? Consequences of precarious working and living conditions in the case of young Germans
Our contribution broaches the issue of young people’s living and working conditions, who are confronted with prolonged times for studies and vocational training as well as tendencies of labour market flexibilisation and destandardisation of employment. While having to cope with these developments, young people are also increasingly and disproportionately often affected by precarious or insecure working conditions as atypical employment, low pay and fixed-term contracts. Transitions between these forms are not only becoming more common but also more precarious as failure can lead to disintegration and denial of social and material recognition – thus, threatening to cause social descent.
In this context we ask how young people deal with their experiences and present their different ways to cope with precarity. In particular, we are interested in the consequences of political working and living conditions on political participation and opinion formation of young people. Though holding political attitudes and expressing various forms of criticism we find strong scepticism or indifference towards party politics as well as little interest in political engagement. Given the rising right-wing populism and ongoing debates about migration policies in the public debate we inquire on the relation between experiences of uncertainty and lacking control over one’s one life course and the construction of a threat from the outside.
Our material drawing on every day life experiences and political attitudes of our interviewees shows that social boundaries drawn in reference to right-wing populism relate to questions of distributive justice and recognition in the context of precarious working and living conditions.
The empirical basis of our contribution consists of a survey with 1000 young people below the age of 30 years and 60 narrative-biographical interviews with the same age group conducted by the „Prework“ project, which examines in how far precarious working and living conditions influence emerging forms of social, class and political consciousness in a German-Polish comparative perspective.