ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. Political Participation
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1553307
This article is part of the Research TopicThe challenges of youth representation: normative perspectives and empirical evidenceView all articles
A future of authoritarian citizens? Explaining why young Spanish are losing faith in democracy
Provisionally accepted
- Rey Juan Carlos University, Móstoles, Spain
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This article examines why Spanish young people exhibit lower levels of diffuse support for democracy. While youth in previous decades showed stronger democratic commitment, support for authoritarian rule is now increasing among today’s younger generations. Building on a theoretical discussion, we propose three hypotheses to explain why young people support the democratic regime less than other age groups: political ideology, the influence of radical right parties, and the role of social media in spreading discourses that normalize authoritarian values. Using data from the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research, our analysis highlights the relevance of young people who place themselves at the center of the ideological spectrum in understanding this decline in democratic support. We also explore the presence of a gender gap in democratic attitudes—given its relevance in other contemporary attitudinal and behavioral shifts—but find no evidence of such a gap.
Keywords: Young people, Diffuse support, Democracy, authoritarian rule, political culture
Received: 30 Dec 2024; Accepted: 11 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lorente and Jiménez-Bravo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Javier Lorente, Rey Juan Carlos University, Móstoles, Spain
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.