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Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia

In many places around the world, young voters participate in politics at low rates. What factors might increase youth political participation? We investigate one possibility: exposure to a religious message that emphasizes the possibility of change through faithful action. We argue that this message...

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Autores principales: Sperber, Elizabeth, Kaaba, O’Brien, McClendon, Gwyneth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9059687/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35528046
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09794-2
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author Sperber, Elizabeth
Kaaba, O’Brien
McClendon, Gwyneth
author_facet Sperber, Elizabeth
Kaaba, O’Brien
McClendon, Gwyneth
author_sort Sperber, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description In many places around the world, young voters participate in politics at low rates. What factors might increase youth political participation? We investigate one possibility: exposure to a religious message that emphasizes the possibility of change through faithful action. We argue that this message, which is common in religious groups that attract large numbers of youth around the world, addresses several barriers to political participation by young voting-age adults. Working in collaboration with the major religious coalitions in Zambia, we randomly assigned young adults (18–35 years old) into civic engagement workshops. Identical informational material, based on pre-existing, non-partisan curricula, was presented in each workshop. Workshops then concluded with one of two randomly assigned, pre-recorded Christian motivational messages based on existing religious programming in Zambia. In some workshops, the concluding message emphasized a Christian obligation to work towards the greater good. In other workshops, the message emphasized the power of faith to make change in the world. We found that the power of faith message moved workshop participants to be more willing to participate in protest, to disavow political violence, and to criticize other people who choose not to participate, relative to pre-workshop measures and to an information-only condition. By contrast, the message focused on an obligation to the greater good did not change political participation, resulting in lower willingness to participate in politics than the power of faith message. We discuss implications for youth political participation and the study of religion and politics. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09794-2.
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spelling pubmed-90596872022-05-03 Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia Sperber, Elizabeth Kaaba, O’Brien McClendon, Gwyneth Polit Behav Original Paper In many places around the world, young voters participate in politics at low rates. What factors might increase youth political participation? We investigate one possibility: exposure to a religious message that emphasizes the possibility of change through faithful action. We argue that this message, which is common in religious groups that attract large numbers of youth around the world, addresses several barriers to political participation by young voting-age adults. Working in collaboration with the major religious coalitions in Zambia, we randomly assigned young adults (18–35 years old) into civic engagement workshops. Identical informational material, based on pre-existing, non-partisan curricula, was presented in each workshop. Workshops then concluded with one of two randomly assigned, pre-recorded Christian motivational messages based on existing religious programming in Zambia. In some workshops, the concluding message emphasized a Christian obligation to work towards the greater good. In other workshops, the message emphasized the power of faith to make change in the world. We found that the power of faith message moved workshop participants to be more willing to participate in protest, to disavow political violence, and to criticize other people who choose not to participate, relative to pre-workshop measures and to an information-only condition. By contrast, the message focused on an obligation to the greater good did not change political participation, resulting in lower willingness to participate in politics than the power of faith message. We discuss implications for youth political participation and the study of religion and politics. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-022-09794-2. Springer US 2022-04-30 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9059687/ /pubmed/35528046 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09794-2 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Sperber, Elizabeth
Kaaba, O’Brien
McClendon, Gwyneth
Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
title Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
title_full Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
title_fullStr Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
title_full_unstemmed Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
title_short Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
title_sort increasing youth political engagement with efficacy not obligation: evidence from a workshop-based experiment in zambia
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9059687/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35528046
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09794-2
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