Political Participation Canada and the USA

It is well acknowledged that young American citizens, as well as those in most comparable nations, are less likely to view voting as a civic obligation and to pay less attention to politics than earlier generations who have reached voting age.9. However, there is a significant distinction between

American observers regarding how best to handle

or even understand, the circumstances. Russell Dalton (2006), a colleague of Wattenberg's at the University of California, Irvine, challenges Wattenberg's gloomy assessment (2007), arguing that critics have overlooked the "good news" regarding young Americans' active citizenship. These "repertoires" of attitudes, such as "forming one's opinion," "supporting the worse-off," "understanding others," and "being active in voluntary associations," are examples of engaged citizenry. It is obvious that a method that uses these attitudes as indicators rather than emphasizing political attention—as Wattenberg and we do—will likely result in a more positive picture of youth political participation because it essentially invites respondents to present themselves in a positive light at no cost.

Furthermore, adopting this strategy has an institutional component that makes it particularly hard for comparison research. Requirements related to membership in volunteer or service organizations are frequently emphasized by American observers as a sign of political commitment. The issue is that the United States has strong institutionalized incentives in place, more so than other comparable nations like Canada10.11 Such participation is required rather than optional at many American universities and institutions. compared analyses of survey data pertaining to the questioning of youth about participation in such activities need to account for such institutional incentives, just as compared evaluations of voter turnout account for mandatory voting.12

Due to these factors, our study comparing youth in the US and Canada views membership in voluntary associations as a potential predictor of both traditional and non-conventional forms of political participation, similar to how media consumption, civic engagement, and party identification are treated as indicators of political participation. Consequently, it enables us to investigate potential disparities in the proportional impacts of voluntary group involvement on knowledgeable political engagement among youth in the two nations, as well as whether other elements - and consequently, approaches to addressing the issue - are more prominent in Canada as opposed to the US. The phrase "informed political participation" was purposefully chosen to highlight our emphasis on political engagement as a manifestation of educated political decision-making, as opposed to a reaction to institutionalized incentives. According to this viewpoint, forcing people to vote by threatening to fine them is ineffective if it just encourages ignorant voters to cast their ballots.

INFORMATION AND TECHNIQUES

The information examined in this research comes from two surveys—one carried out in the US and the other in Canada—that included about 60 common questions in 2006. The University of Maryland's CIRCLE, or Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, was responsible for the first. An earlier youth study was revised by its Civic and Political Health study (Keeter et al 2002).

In May 2006, a nationally representative sample of 1765 individuals14 residing in the continental United States—of whom 1209 were under 25—were interviewed over the phone.15 A similar methodology16 was used in September 2006 to conduct a poll with 477 respondents aged 26 and over and 877 respondents aged 25 and under in Canada. French was used for just over one-third (451) of the interviews.17 Three items about political knowledge were asked in the previous US survey. In the second phase, CIRCLE consented to include five additional questions that were chosen from my recommended list. These questions were intended to be appropriate for Canada as well as closely align with the six questions that were originally scheduled for the 2004 European Social Survey (ESS) second round.18 additionally comprised two of the three political knowledge CIRCLE questions.

OUTCOMES

Eight of the ensuing questions' possible right responses for American respondents and ten for Canadian respondents—seven of which are shared by both—were related to political knowledge. We use this total score out of seven as our primary measure of political expertise. (The list of questions is in the appendix.) The questions were either exactly the same or, in cases where the wording varied, fairly similar.

We start by contrasting young people in the US and Canada with those in the other countries as well as with those who are older than 25. CIRCLE has released a preliminary study of the US data, but the Canadian data is offered here for the first time. The report highlights the lack of political awareness, but it also highlights

the respondents' poor reported turnout, which is mostly attributed to skepticism, "a plurality says that the government

is "virtually invariably wasteful and inefficient... a significant decline in trust since 2002" (Lopez et al, 2006: 3-4).

However, the number of young Americans who cast ballots in 2004 exceeded that of 2000 and, in fact, all presidential elections since 1992.19 I argue that the important explanation is found elsewhere in the data: despite the fact that over two-thirds of respondents claimed to at least occasionally keep up with current events in politics and public affairs, the majority of respondents do not vote because they lack the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision.

The story is told by the figures in Table 1. There is a lack of political knowledge, particularly among youth. The means of the right answers, out of a possible score of 7, are 2.12 for young Americans and 2.89 for those over the age of 26. The mean correct answers for Canadian youth are 2.57, which is a somewhat higher score than the 2.93 mean for the 26 plus. (As we will show in Part IV below, generational dynamics among Quebeckers are substantially to blame for Canada's lower age gap than the United States. Stated differently, 42.4 percent of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 correctly answer 0 or 1 questions, compared to 31.7 percent of Canadians in the same age group and 29.9 percent of Americans aged 26 and beyond.