Politička participacija mladih i politika prema mladima: Hrvatska u europskom kontekstu
Political Participation of young People and Youth Policy: Croatia in the European Context

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses and compares political participation of young people in Europe and Croatia, and the basic components of the existing youth-related policies. The data show that young Europeans, as well as young Croats, are underrepresented in the traditional political institutions and processes. Since the developed European states find such a state of affairs detrimental for the future of representative democracy, one of the priorities of national youth-related policies is to enhance their political commitment and social integration. In Croatia, the national youth policy has only recently been adopted by the highest governing bodies and its effects will be noticeable in several years. Croatia belongs to the majority of European countries in which young people are viewed as a resource, but at the same time to the minority of the countries with a recently established institutional infrastructure with a view to systematically deal with the problems of young people and to coordinate activities in the implementation of the youth policy. The author also discusses the problem of the differences among the definitions of the age bracket for the population of young people in official statistics, research and European youth-oriented policies. Based on research findings, the author proposes raising the upper age limit in the definition of young people as a social group from today’s standard 25 to 30 years of age.

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