Political Activity of Regional Youth

Abstract

Youth as a socio-demographic group is an important public resource. Today's youth in the near future will determine the mechanisms of governance of society, develop and direct both domestic and foreign policy of the state. But experts note the low level of trust of young people in state institutions, as well as the low level of involvement of young people in political life. One of the important tasks of the state youth policy of the country is to increase the level of political activity of young people by regional authorities. Therefore, the problem of low political activity of regional youth remains relevant today. Knowledge of the level of readiness of regional youth to participate in politics, identification of factors and conditions of low political activity of young people in the region is necessary to develop a regional strategy to increase the political activity of young people. This is what determined the authors of the applied sociological research by means of a questionnaire, in which 514 people took part. As a result of the study, it was revealed that young people do not attribute politics to the priorities of their interests, interest in politics is more situational than permanent, although young people are often ready to declare their interests, since they have a high level of professional and personal culture. The important factors and conditions of low political activity of young people include a low level of trust in political elites, while the level of readiness to participate in the political life of the region is high. This should be taken into account when developing a regional programms to increase the political activity of young people.

Acknowledgements
The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the EISS within the framework of the scientific project No. 21-011-31728 "Political thinking of young people in the Russian space of political choice and self-identification".