青年的公民意識、政黨評價及投票參與

Young People’s Civic Consciousness, Party Evaluation and Voting

既有研究指出，個人的政治態度和參與習慣在其青少年時期逐漸形成，並對其未來的行為與態度有持久的影響。青年是國家的未來，選民的世代替換，青年也會在未來逐漸構成選民的主體，針對青年的政治參與及公民意識的探討有其意義與重要性。因此，本文的研究焦點聚焦於青年的政治態度及投票參與的探討，並進一步觀察政黨作為提供參與管道之一的角色，與青年的連結為何。在分析方法上，本文結合量化與質性資料，根據公民意識研究團隊在 2012 年與2016 年執行的調查資料，檢視青年與非青年在政治參與、公民意識和對政黨評價上，態度是否存在差異。本文研究發現，青年雖然在傳統性參與面向較年長群體低，但在意見表達以及公民意識上都比年長群體高，對於政黨的表現也持比較批判的態度。青年即使對政黨持有正面評價，仍比較不可能去投票，這可從訪談資料得知國內政黨提供與青年連結的平臺，但國內青年對政黨標籤仍有一定程度的抗拒，反而透過投入公民團體的活動來關注政治。

Studies have shown that individuals’ political attitudes and participations are gradually formed during their adolescence and have a lasting impact on their future behaviors and attitudes. As young people are the future of the country and are replacement voters, they will gradually constitute the bulk of the electorate in the future. Therefore, it is meaningful and important to explore the political participation and civic awareness of young people. This paper focuses on the topic of young people’s political attitudes and voting, and it further observes the role of political parties as one of the channels of participation and how they relate to young people. In terms of research method, this paper combines quantitative and qualitative data to examine whether there are differences in the attitudes of young people and non-young people on political participation, civic consciousness, and evaluation of political parties based on the survey data conducted by the civic consciousness research team in 2012 and 2016. This study finds that although young people are less engaged in traditionally political activities than older groups, they are more vocal and civically aware than older groups, more critical of political party performance, and indeed less likely to join political groups. Even if young people have positive opinions about political parties, they are still less likely to vote. In terms of qualitative results, this may also be related to the fact that although political parties provide a platform to connect with young people, the youth are still to some extent resistant to the party label and are more engaged in civic group activities.