Activism and Protest Culture Among Young People in Romania

project funded by

2012

Study conducted by the IMAS Marketing and Polls (November - December 2011)

Mugurel Cﾄネinescu find out h is story!

a project developed on the initiative of

the fortress is in you

Motivation More than two decades after the fall of the Communist regime, the young find themselves yet again faced with the same old questions that the early postcommunism succeeded in burdening them with. As in the early 90's, when their legitimate desire for change and construction of a genuine political culture managed to bring them under the sticks of the mineworkers who came to safeguard the continuity of the crypto-communist political elites in the office, the young nowadays can only be left with an option to paraphrase Albert Hirschman: Exit, Voice or Loyalty?

Marius Stan has a Ph.D. in Political Science, is a researcher at IICCMER and a Spiritual Militia member since 2006

Whereas Miliţia Spirituală (Spiritual Militia) is an organisation that has ever since 2002 struggled to uncover, by their own means, cases of misuse of authority or institutional procedure flaws regardless on which part of the political stage and regardless of the symptoms, it cannot be more obvious that we choose – and it is a choice dictated by our civic consciousness, if you like – 'Voice' from the aforesaid paradigm!

Thus, our legitimate concern was to identify the degree of civicism naturally held by the young generations, the engine of the society in any normal community! Our message – represented symbolically by this real sociological research (!) – is simple: we are interested to see what the young nowadays know about essential concepts such as attitude, criticism, civicism, citizenships, citizens' participation. Their civic and political culture is after all the mark for our society as they are, as already argued, the present and the future of our nation.

However, the Spiritual Militia does not practice an abstract parade. The occupation of the Faculty of History for 100 hours in November last year cleared up many things to us. We can say we had our own investigation on the scene. We intended actually to, by sociological methods and techniques, document those impressions that had, ever since last year, led us to our own ascertainment.

Also, the Spiritual Militia construed such investigation as a win-win game! If our research had revealed a dark picture of young “subjects”, we wouldn't have anything left to do but to search for those means and triggers to resuscitate a sleeping part of the society. Nothing serious! If the results of our research had been more hopeful than expected in terms of the civic and attitude-related potential of these young people, our only solution would have been to seek the way to promote and encourage such potential. Nothing ostentatious! Whichever the case, everybody would have had and has something to gain. However, we must understand the professional diagnosis was absolutely necessary, as one cannot aspire to have the social body healed without having the pathology clearly established.

What happens in the University Square (as in many other cities around the country) for over one month now is not only the recovering of some places of the Romanian post-revolutionary civic memory, but also a profound (as much as desperate) reaction of the young people and of the citizens in various social layers to the incompetence and corruption that now more than ever characterise the political class (in general; the political power of the day – in particular). The undisputed technological advantage available nowadays to the essentially offended population is a sort of misfortune for the political as well as repressive, for-bonus-servant institutions.

People nowadays interact and get their information much easier than 20 years ago, on every social network there is: Facebook, Twitter etc. or by using any other state-of-the-art gadget. Yet the challenge is to see how we can use such technological patrimony to serve actual purposes and civic actions. There are ways waiting to be put to good use!

This sociological undertaking is intended to place the Spiritual Militia outside the common places paradigm, which has for a long time (unfortunately) infested the public discourse after 1989. Everyone seems to know how the citadel is; however, no one seems to know any longer how the citadel should be. This social disease we have been suffering from for 20 years can no longer be treated with „a little scolding”. Let's hit the nail on the head, let's put science and experiment to the use of praxis and leave the civic amateurism that seems to overwhelm us aside.

There are solutions for anything. All you need is good faith, a little conceptual rigor and action. Therefore, let us use our reason in order to save our souls from the dangers of social ataraxia!

* The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile

Political Culture and Protest in Romania In their famous study on the civic culture, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba identify three ideal types of political culture that vary according to the types of society in which they can be found. Thus, there is a parochial political culture, to be found in traditional political systems, in which political relations are not institutionalized; a dependent, or subject, political culture, in institutionalized political systems but that don't offer citizens the legal possibility to influence decision-making (citizens aren't even aware that they can influence decision-making); and, finally, a participative political culture, in which citizens are politically active agents and have the institutional instruments that allow them to influence decision-making. In this latter case only we can talk about a 'civic culture' in the true sense of the word.

What kind of political culture do we find in Romania? The constitutional possibility for citizens to influence decision-making formally exists; but this is all. Most of the times, there are not even institutionalized procedures to allow the expression of citizens' preferences on public policies. When laws and policies are initiated, the state brings them to public debate only formally: most of the time, the periods for debate are very short; the access of stakeholders is not guaranteed, and a more recent practice completely court-circuits the cycle of public consultation through the procedure of governmental accountability before the Parliament for certain laws.

Moreover, the awareness that citizens have the constitutional possibility to influence public policy is quite low in Romania. This is due to a rather short history of democratic practices before 1989, as well as to the small rate of success of this type of actions in the post-1989 period. The examples of civil society or public opinion pressure stopping the adoption of certain policies are extremely rare, if not nonexistent. Therefore, before speaking of a protest culture, we should notice that its very foundation, a culture of participation, is lacking in Romania.

Ruxandra Ivan is a lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science UB and a Spiritual Militia member since 2010

Thirdly, one cannot honestly affirm that Romania is completely emancipated from the remainders of a parochial political culture. The importance of clan relations and of informal networks for social promotion, the personalization of power and of institutions are signs of pre-modern mental structures. Political culture is, in Romania, a mixture of the three ideal-types described by Almond and Verba, which vary depending on the urban-rural cleavage, but also on the cleavage that separates formal, procedural democracy from substantial democracy.

Not surprisingly, therefore, that the idea of civic protest has not had too much success during the 20 years that followed the Romanian revolution. The great protest moments of the Romanian society have been the Revolution of 1989, the University Square in 1990 and, hopefully, University Square in 2012. We don't count here the arrivals of the minors, which, although a form of protest of a socio-professional category, cannot be considered civic protests. But these are exceptional moments, representing a peak of the public discontent, and are not part of a day-to-day normalcy of Romanian democratic life. Our society protests in the street only as a last resort solution, since contestation is not a frequent political practice in recent or more ancient history.

Which are the causes of this type of attitude? Is this the consequence of a political ethos in which the citizen considers him/herself as being subjected to the historical moment? Is it a consequence of repressive practices, combined with the efforts to recruit intellectual elites during communism? These are questions that underline the reflection in which our organization, Militia Spirituala, is engaged, as a premise of our actions and civic involvement.

Unfortunately, in the collective mentalities of our society, the idea of protest is not connected to civism. As the sociological study that we present here suggest, civic attitudes are rather associated with formal or informal rule-abiding, than with the idea of protest. However, there is more and more debate lately about „the culture of protest” or “civil disobedience”, and even more than this: there are signs that these attitudes gain terrain. The 100 hours occupation of the Faculty of History at the University of Bucharest or the protests in the University Square in Bucharest but also in other Romanian cities clearly show that things are advancing towards a consolidation of this type of culture. Convinced that our organization had an active contribution to the emergence of these issues in the Romanian public space, we are determined to continue to take part, in the future, to the diffusion and deepening of this type of civic attitude, which will only enrich the substantive content of Romanian democracy.

Why choose Mugurel Călinescu for the cover?

In the context of nowadays protests in Romania, I will tell a small story about courage and truth, about the purity of consciousness and the thrive for liberty. This story is about self sacrifice and how a single gesture can whipe the shame of apathy off the rest of us.

During the communist regime, there were no organized movements of contestation against the dictatorship in Romania, with a few exceptions: the armed resistance in the mountains at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, a few small peasant rebellion in Western Transilvania and Northern Moldavia during 1947-1949, the students' revolts in Timişoara, Bucharest, Cluj and Iaşi in 1956, the miners' rebellions in Valea Jiului in 1977, or the workers' rebellion in Braşov in November 1977.

When it existed, resistance in Romania was individual, unlike in the other communist countries in Europe, which managed to create trade unions, social or cultural resistance movements – particularly Poland and Czechoslovakia. Some of the most notorious opponents to the Romanian dictatorial regime are, in the 1980s, Vasile Paraschiv, Radu Tudoran, Doina Cornea, Radu Filipescu. The character we are talking about here is much less known, but his story is quite relevant: he is Mugur Călinescu, a 16 years-old pupil from Botoşani. This kid managed to put on fire the repressive structures of Botoşani as well as higher authorities in the autumn of 1981, and his deeds became known at the top of the Securitate, by the chief of this dreaded institution, Tudor Postelnicu.

Mihail Bumbeş is a founding member of Spiritual Militia - 2002 and a researcher at IICCMER

At 16 years old, Mugur Călinescu (10th grade pupil at the “A. T. Laurian” high school), influenced by Radio Free Europe broadcasts, painted night after night the walls of the buildings in Botoşani with messages and slogans such as:”We must be conscious of our role in society and say a determined 'no' to the state of affairs in our country”; “In Poland, people have acquired real liberty, they have free trade unions like 'Solidarity' and 'Rural Solidarity', which truly represent their rights, even though they have the same food supplies problems as we do”; “We want freedom”; “We want our rights to be respected”;”We cannot accept the pauperism and injustice in this country any longer”; “Citizens! Our country has a difficult economic situation. Foreign debt has reached 10 000 000 000 dollars, while the newspapers only present 'rose petals'”; “We want democracy”.

The rebellion of this teenager who defied, with crazy courage, the terror of the former Securitate has not been left without consequences. For several weeks, the local representatives of the Ministry of Interior, supported by the Militia (the name of the communist Police forces) and the Securitate from the neighboring county (Suceava) begun the “operation Billboard”, searching all through the county of Botoşani for the “terrorist” which attacked the values of the communist regime. A month later, Mugurel Călinescu was arrested by a patrol composed of a militia officer and a Securitate officer while writing a message on a billboard.

Hundreds of hours of investigation in the Securitate cells followed. A file of informative prosecution has been opened, under the codename “the Pupil”; there were school meetings to condemn the deeds of Mugurel Călinescu, as well as threats with school expel and the school of correction.

Two years after the beginning of the investigation, in November 1983, the revolted teenager was diagnosed with leukemia and, two years later, on February 14, 1985, he died in a hospital in Iaşi. The witnesses from that time testified, after 1990, that Mugurel Călinescu had been irradiated during the investigation with a substance that the Securitate officers put in the coffee he was obliged to drink.

After his mother filed a trial and won it in 2007, Mugurel was declared, post-mortem, a fighter against the totalitarian regime by the Commission for the Assessment of the Quality of Anti-Communist Resistance Fighter (CCCLRA) in 2008.

Killed by the Securitate during the former regime (and it really doesn’t matter whether or not the hypothesis of the irradiation holds), Mugurel Călinescu should be a standard setter for every young activist in Romania, a society confronted more and more acutely with the lack of role models. His story should be included in all history books, because it is a story about having a consciousness when all the other citizens seemed submerged in an endless sleep. Mugurel Călinescu is the real Anonymousof the '80s!

* The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile

CIVIC ACTIVISM AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS PROTEST AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE IN ROMANIA

project by

project funded by

november- december 2011

a project developed on the initiative of

the fortress is in you

2

CONTENTS FOREWORD. RESEARCH CONTEXT............................................................................................................................3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES .............................................................................................................................................5 RESULTS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ...................................................................................................8 SPARE TIME ..............................................................................................................................................................8 THINGS THAT MATTER IN LIFE..................................................................................................................................9 ETHICAL AND MORAL VALUES ............................................................................................................................... 10 THE SOCIAL NETWORK .......................................................................................................................................... 12 CONFIDENCE TOWARDS INSTITUTIONS ................................................................................................................ 15 CIVIC INVOLVEMENT AND ACTIVISM – CONCEPTUAL ASSOCIATIONS .................................................................. 16 SOCIAL REPRESENTATION OF PROTEST ................................................................................................................. 17 MOTIVATION OF PARTICIPATION IN PROTEST ACTIONS ....................................................................................... 19 SELF-PERCEIVED ROLE OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND STUDENTS IN THE SOCIETY ....................................................... 21 ASSOCIATION STRUCTURES AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM OF YOUNGSTERS ................................................................. 22 LEADERSHIP AND CIVIC INVOLVEMENT ................................................................................................................ 25 RESULTS OF THE QUANTITATIVE STUDY ............................................................................................ 27 PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE COUNTRY’S DIRECTION OF EVOLUTION ............................................................. 28 CONFIDENCE IN INSTITUTIONS.............................................................................................................................. 29 “A GOOD CITIZEN” ................................................................................................................................................. 31 CIVIC INVOLVEMENT ............................................................................................................................................. 33 VALUES .................................................................................................................................................................. 33 PROTEST ................................................................................................................................................................ 34 ASSOCIATION STRUCTURES ................................................................................................................................... 38 SOURCES OF INFORMATION.................................................................................................................................. 39 CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................................................................... 42

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FOREWORD. RESEARCH CONTEXT.

For two decades now, former socialist countries in Europe are facing multiple challenges of social and political nature. Maybe one of the least visible of those is the challenge of communication between the political class and the civil society – which includes here the entire social fabric, from individuals to the largest social organisations or institutions. We say this is one of the least visible challenges that post-communist states need to face, because, de jure, after the fall of the iron curtain, governments – under the obvious pressure of the emerging civil society – structured their own social dialogue and even political negotiation mechanisms, with the very purpose of enabling exchange of information between the society as a whole and the power structures.

Therefore, at a formal level at least, the issue of communication is solved, and debates on how to solve it no longer occupy the public space. But how does the communication take place, actually? What is the finality of the information exchange between politicians and members of the society, what actual power do citizens have when they negotiate with governments – and, last but not least, how can people change politics? For the time being, all these questions are but a too scarcely investigated side of dialogue and negotiation mechanisms and even of the social reality itself in Eastern Europe.

In Romania, post-December governments conducted dialogue with professional associations, trade unions and NGOs and – in a joined effort with the civil society – have made attempts as to establishing an institutional framework of communication procedures between state authorities and the citizens. How representative and how effective these procedures are, however, could only be determined within a wide endeavour towards researching contemporary social interactions, although clues could also be provided through examining some of the statistical indicators.

1

Most public opinion surveys indicate the fact that the Romanian population perceives things as going in the wrong direction.

In Romania, things are going in...

In a good direction

In a wrong direction

2007-01 2007-03 2007-05 2007-07 2007-09 2007-11 2008-01 2008-03 2008-05 2008-07 2008-09 2008-11 2009-01 2009-03 2009-05 2009-07 2009-09 2009-11 2010-01 2010-03 2010-05 2010-07 2010-09 2010-11 2011-01 2011-03 2011-05 2011-07 2011-09 2011-11

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

1

Source: IMAS Public Opinion Barometer („In general, when you think about how things are going in Romania, would you say that they are going in the right direction or in the wrong direction?”)

4 Starting with the second half of 2009 until today, a vast majority of people report themselves with pesimism when thinking about the country‟s evolution, continously scouring the trust in political structures and in communicational procedures between state and its citizens.

If we examine the evolution of one of the main indicators for welfare – gross domestic product – we could notice that within 2000-2008, Romania‟s GDP significantly increased, as starting with 2009 the same indicator decreased by 7.1%, as compared to previous year, indicating an economical contraction. The indicator‟s value for 2011 seems to register a slight increase, although it would be less probable to exceed 2%. 2012 begins under the auspices of a contraction prognosis for the entire market of countries within the European Community, while Romania finds itself in close economical relations with many of these countries.

Moreover, the discussion about economical indicators should be followed by a brief presentation of data regarding social indicators. Hence, altought the at-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers decreases between 2

2007-2010 from 24.8% in 2007 to 21.1% in 2010, examining the rate of population in jobless households by age groups shows that in 2010, as compared to 2009, poor become even poorer. The weight of children 0-17 y.o. in jobless households increases from 9.9% in 2009 to 10% in 2010, while the weight of adults aged 18 to 59 living in households with no active worker increases from 10.9% to 11%.

Implementing austerity measures starting with July 2010 brought an accelerated decrease of population‟s trust in policies structured by the Government. People‟s quality of life has been affected by the measure of reducing salary costs, among state institutions. At the same time, 2010 and 2011 ment tightening a series of conditions for granting social tranfers (financial assistance for heat, minimum guaranteed wage etc.)

This research intends to be a first step in this direction, by investigating the interest among young populations for civic activism and involvement in communication with state institutions and the political class.

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Source for presented indicators : Romanian National Institute of Statistics http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/Web_IDD_BD_ro/index.htm

5 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The main objective of this research is to describe how young people in the contemporary society understand civic activism and protest as a form of civic activism at a level of attitudes (i.e. conceptual, axiological and behavioural levels).

Operational goals of the sociological inquiry: •

to describe semantic associations of the concept of civic activism;

•

to describe the social perception on the concept of protest, and the associated meanings;

•

to reveal the role that young people in general and students especially perceive themselves as having in the society;

•

to probe on the level of civil involvement among young people;

•

to probe on the level of confidence among young people towards various institutions;

•

to identify the way in which the young person‟s social network (family, primary group), as well as the virtual social networks influence social activism.

In order to achieve the goals intended, the research implemented methods that are specific to the qualitative approach to sociological investigation, as well as methods that are specific for quantitative inquiry.

Qualitative Research Methodology

The aim of the qualitative component of the study was to probe thoroughly the perceptions / social representations pertaining to the concepts of civic involvement and protest; to highlight key elements of the motivational constellations of attitudes, and of behaviours associated with these.

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Data were collected through six focus group discussions with young people and three in-depth interviews with representatives of the civil society and political parties.

The target group of the research includes young people aged 18 - 29.

The young people who attended the focus group discussions were women and men; employees with medium education (one group), students (three groups), or employees with higher education, from multinational companies (two groups).

Focus group discussions were conducted in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iaşi, cumulating 48 participants.

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“A focus group is an interview lasting between 90-120 minutes, conducted by a moderator, in which six to ten people are attending, selected based on shared demographic or behaviour characteristics, as defined according to the research objectives.” (Thomas L. Greenbaum, The Handbook for Focus Group Research, Lexington Books, 1993)

6 Most of the respondents participated frankly in the group discussions, which is an indication of spontaneous interest for the topic of the debate.

Quantitative Research Methodology The quantitative component of the research measures the level of confidence that young people have towards various institutions in Romania, as well as the strength of the various semantic associations to concepts of “social activism” and “good citizen”. At the same time, the quantitative approach aimed at describing the social perception on the concept of “protest”, as well as the meanings associated to it, and evaluating the level of civic involvement among young people.

Questionnaire implementation method The interviews were conducted by phone, using the CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) method.

Period when the interviews were conducted: 13-28 December 2011.

Sample: all respondents were selected randomly by a computer automatically generating mobile telephone numbers; sample size - 800 people; maximum sampling error: ±3.46%. interviews conducted in 146 urban settlements In order to ensure that the distribution of interviews is proportional to the distribution of the population aged 1829 in the urban environment, quotas were imposed for the gender and age variables.

Response rate Total

No answer Voice mail Busy tone Information tone Wrong number Re-scheduled Refusal to participate Interview not entirely conducted Inexistent number Number temporarily not allocated Out of quota Interview successfully realized Total numbers used

807 301 120 245 818 74 2068 49 3818 427 4376 800 13903

A total of 13903 phone numbers were generated.

Valid interviews rate: (800*100/13903) = 6%; Valid interviews rate (out of total successful contacts): (800*100/7367) = 11%; Refuse rate: (2068*100/13903) = 15%; Refuse rate (out of total successful contact): (2068*100/7367) = 28%; Rate of contacts made outside the target group (people

outside

the

(4370*100/13903) = 31%

18-29

age

group):

7 Sample structure:

% per column GENDER Male Female AGE 18-24 y.o.

25-29 y.o.

LOCALITY SIZE Small town (10-49 th. inhabitants) Middle town (50-199 th. inhabitants) Large town (200 th. inh. and more) REGION Transilvania Muntenia Moldova Bucharest INCOME PER HOUSEHOLD <= 1400 RON 1401 – 2000 RON 2001 – 3000 RON > 3000 RON Not declared EDUCATION 10 grades, vocational school Highschool, post-highschool College, university OCCUPATION Self-employed In paid employment Not working Pupil, student TOTAL

Frequency

Percent

400 400

50.0 50.0

444 356

55.5 44.5

168 224 408

21.0 28.0 51.0

332 239 100 129

41.5 29.9 12.5 16.1

230 180 152 145 93

28.8 22.5 19.0 18.1 11.6

99 397 304

12.4 49.6 38.0

61 483 91 165 800

7.6 60.4 11.4 20.6 100.0

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RESULTS OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

SPARE TIME

9 Regarding spare time, the young people who attended the qualitative research point to a varied range of preoccupations. Especially, these include “going out” in the city, to clubs, or “staying at home”.

Young people with medium education spend their spare time out in the city with friends, doing sports; or, they say they have no spare time because they keep two jobs or because they work in night shifts.

Some respondents, students of technical colleges, say that they have no spare time at all because of projects that they are required to do one after another, which, along with the classes, takes all their day. In the case of students, the main way in which they spend their spare time is going out.

Young employees of multinational companies seem to engage a more varied range of spare-time activities; they don‟t go for fun so much during the week, but they compensate with weekend and holiday trips, reading or going to a concert.

The details of how one spends their spare time do not emerge spontaneously in the discussion, and neither does any description of activities carried out with friends or colleagues – the young people say that these activities are interesting, or that they can hardly wait to have the opportunity for them. Not even the youngsters who are members of organisations make mention of any activities that they carry out in their spare time within their organisations. It is worth noticing that young people do not seem to look at spare time for an opportunity to socialise – in the context of the group discussions, nobody mentioned anything about a pleasure in exchanging opinions with members of the same generation.

THINGS THAT MATTER IN LIFE

In the opinion of most of the participants in the focus group discussions, the things that are most important in life are family (including both the family of origin, and the family that they built or want to build themselves), friendship, freedom, education, money, and health. The freedom of exerting a choice, i.e. independence regarding personal decisions appears to be important as well.

FG discussion Bucharest, employees, medium education MOD: When you hear the words, ‚things that matter in life‟, what are the things that matter to you?

F1: Education. Friendship.

B4: Money and family. And friendship.

F4: Education.

F2: Happiness. Making your dreams come true. Not having any obstacles in life.

B4: Doing what you like doing, in life; having time to do that.

B3: You can find time for everything, if you want.

B4: It depends on the priorities that you assign, with time.

F3: Education. Both formal and informal – it‟s not set in stone.

B3: Having people close to you. Not friends – the family to support you. Support your own ideas, not their ideas. This was the very reason why I came to Bucharest – so that I can have decision-making power, and just call home and let them know what the decision is.

Other things that are important in the lives of young people are a job, health and money.

10 Students appear to be especially concerned with a job, that is, with the challenges they face in finding a job according to their skills. Student respondents even confess that the lack of jobs is one of the main topics debated with colleagues. In this sense, students seem to be afraid of the future and feature an already set belief that, for a long time, the job will remain a desideratum for them. Personal development, accumulating professional skills and improving their professional knowledge and skills, requirements for career advancement – in short, career development – do not come through as criteria to guide one on the labour market. Almost irrespective of the specialisation, of the field of study, the general feeling appears to be one of disheartenment, a perception of no options. More over, young people spontaneously connect job with money, i.e. level of salaries; with this association, professional life and career turn into concepts that are emptied of their significance and become more of a means to address the people‟s primary needs. This attitudinal structure seems to be rather common, and we can even speak of a risk of narrowing of the students‟ field of aspirations.

ETHICAL AND MORAL VALUES

The most important ethical value is honesty, on all levels, both interpersonally – within the family and the primary group – and in terms of social communication.

The list of values that young people relate to also includes loyalty, integrity, morality – all of these, seen as a pro-social behaviour that enables knowing each other and even achieving personal fulfilment.

FG discussion Bucharest – higher education, employees in multinational companies MOD: What, would you say, are your values, the principles that guide you in life?

Majority: Honesty.

F3: Loyalty.

F4: Integrity and morality.

B1: Decency.

MOD: What is the most important one, of these values?

F4: Integrity.

B2: Honesty.

MOD: And do you find any of that around?

F4: I take it more to be a virtue than a value.

B3: Without being frank, it‟s quite difficult to have any performance in anything, and you need to know yourself very well.

MOD: And do you find these values in the society, around you?

B4: You need to know the person better.

F4: Multinationals have this approach to values. Many of them are actually doing something about this.

B4: In team building events too, that‟s where they do more. That‟s where you get to know people better. ...

MOD: So, do we find these values around, in the society?

F3: Somehow; in friends, mostly.

There are also students who deem that equality and fraternity are important social values. It appears that the importance of these values comes from their formative potential, their capacity to generate humaneness –

11 the quality itself of being human – in a person. For these students, what defines a human being is its desire of doing good.

Models in Life The group discussions revealed that young people look for models among the older generations, either in their own family, or among the personalities on the public scene. We were able to notice that the young people we interviewed do not socialise too much with people in their own generation; therefore, it is not a surprise that most of them do not state that they have any models among those of their age. Those who, however, do find their models among colleagues, say that those they appreciate represent behavioural patterns for their modesty.

Among the public personalities that young people mention as their life models are actors or singers (Bruce Lee and Tudor Gheorghe), TV stars or journalists (Andi Moisescu, Mircea Badea, Cristian Tudor Popescu), but also businessmen (Ion Ţiriac), politicians or personalities with political exposure (Mugur Isărescu, Madelaine Albright), or scientists and culture personalities (George Vâlsan, Titu Maiorescu).

It is worth mentioning that the participants in the research, who “project themselves” into public personalities are those who study/have studied humanist disciplines such as political sciences, philosophy or geography, while life models coming from their own family (grandfather, uncle or older brothers) appeal to young people who went for technical or economical studies. Journalists and people with media exposure appeal especially to students of management or constructions colleges. There are students who take teachers as their life models (from both high school and university), for what they call their „intellectual qualities‟, described as erudition and remarkable communication skills.

Politicians appear to be appreciated especially for how they continue their activities after the end of a term of public office, while scientists are appreciated for their efforts in establishing institutions of national importance; the example that one of the respondents proposed was scientist George Vâlsan, for his endeavour to establish the high-level education structures for the field of geography in Romania. The main qualities that are admired in journalists are courage and morality.

We were able to notice that the young people interviewed within the qualitative research have no models among the political class of the present times. More over, the dynamics of the group discussion revealed poor abilities in terms of negotiating the criteria based on which young people choose their models. Another thing to note would be that none of the models declared is chosen for their capacity to concentrate social energies (with the remarkable exception of scientist George Vâlsan) or for their political and social activity.

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Sources of information

The source of information used most seems to be the internet, although many young people are aware of the limitations of this method.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca students F2: The internet always gave me this shade of shallowness. Even when I was writing the papers for school – all my colleagues were crazy about the internet. But I was going for the books, because it‟s different when you take it from a book. I listened to a show with Pleşu and Liiceanu, they were saying that pupils, now, whatever homework they have, google it, and that in the end, the internet gives you the desired product, but only through those steps where you discover, you research, you go from one book to another yourself.

F3: But you can also do it on the internet - if you want to do something properly, then you read. When I would have some homework to do, I would go on a lot of sites and forums, and I would take whatever I needed from there. I know that‟s not how you do it, but it depends on your time.

F2: For instance, after I finished „Rememberance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust, all the tomes of it, we had to present a paper about it. I wanted to get an idea what the internet has about it, and read about it. And as I had just finished the book (and it‟s 3,600 pages, you can‟t forget what you read in that one), then I searched on sites, both Romanian and French, and the errors I found were huge, starting with the characters and ending with the very idea of the book. These were some specific things, and it was all a mess on the internet. So I gave up.

Other sources – used to a smaller extent, however – are television and radio stations.

The social network is not perceived as a means of information, although the majority of respondents in the group discussions report facts that they learned through their group of friends and acquaintances. Nor do young people mention books, textbooks or movies among their sources of information, although, sometimes even in the group discussions, some participants propose ideas that they remember having read about in books or textbooks or seen elaborated on in movies.

University libraries are not mentioned spontaneously either, in the group discussions, as sources of information – not even by the students. When probed to comment on the use of library reading rooms, some students admit that they visit them, but they say they don‟t really establish any social contacts in there; so, the library is not a place where young people go and socialise.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Except for the members of their own families, the young people have a relatively hard time describing their 4

social network. The primary group of “the equals” seems to be based on a minimum capital of trust from its

4

Primary group – a group that includes a small number of members that are in a direct, cohesive, long-term relatioinship. Each member feels involved in the life and activity of the group, and perceives the others as family members or friends. The group is a purpose for its members, not a means to achieving a purpose. Within the group, the individual experiences directly his or her own identity and at the same time ascertains his or her specificity, that the other members accept as such.

13 members and it even appears to be one of the important sources of dissatisfaction, as the majority of respondents say that they have no friends, only acquaintances.

Communication within the primary group seems to develop around concrete situations of everyday events, without tackling on life strategies that would lead towards achieving shared social ideals, preserving a certain set of values or acquiring certain abilities and skills. Commenting on the social or political reality does not appear to be a frequent topic in the discussions on young people, except for the challenges with integration on the labour market.

FG discussion Bucharest student attendants MOD: I mean, do you feel that you share the same ideas as your friends, or that you have different ideas in your group, that somehow, you are different from one another? What do you talk about, usually?

F3: About boys.

MOD: Do you ever talk about politics, for instance?

Majority: No. B4: Rarely.

F1: Maybe now, after the elections, we‟ll discuss about this once or twice.

MOD: How about social issues, or the crisis?

F2: Yes. But these discussions end very quickly.

Despite the somewhat frequent contacts with the members of the primary group, young people often believe that their personality and way of thinking about the world are not known in the group. It appears that, in their group of close acquaintances, young people display a minimum interest in confronting political options in general, and developing a specific social policy line in particular. Usually, such topics are perceived as “depressing”, “sober” or “to avoid”. Therefore, we could not say that young people in the contemporary society belong to social groups whose members share similar views on life and on the structuring of political action.

FG discussion Bucharest – higher education, employees of multinational companies MOD: What do you talk about, when you are together?

B4: For instance, we start from something and we get to science.

B1: It depends very much on who is in the group. If there are more boys, it‟s one topic...

MOD: Is politics one of the topics in these discussions, for instance?

B4: In any discussion.

B2: We try to avoid it.

F3: Not really; I have a friend who is in a [political] party and I try to avoid the discussion.

Nevertheless, great deal of the information that is relevant for their personal lives and for the structuring of options regarding their own future comes from their primary group, even though they are not always aware of this and they do not perceive the primary group as being a source of information. *** The young person‟s social network, as it emerges from this study, appears to include family members, teachers and colleagues. The relationships that this social structure involves are perceived as extremely

14 strong with the family members, weaker with the people from their own generation, and aspirational with regard to some of the teachers.

Family

The young individual

Professors

Friends, acquintan ces

The decisive role in the social network belongs to the members of the family, who support the young person, convey a feeling of security, and become life models. Unfortunately, the primary group does not include friends or colleagues in terms of socialising, embracing values or even models of life. The topics discussed in the group of colleagues either, do not seem to contribute to enriching the young personâ&#x20AC;&#x;s personality, as the interaction is rather weak and takes place at the level of an informational exchange that the youngsters are not always aware of. It is also worth noticing that teachers are appreciated for their skills, not so much for the efficient interaction with them. It appears that, for the youngsters, teachers are mainly people of value, and not so much of opinion-shapers or guides to create emulation among groups of pupils and students.

15

CONFIDENCE TOWARDS INSTITUTIONS

Young people evaluate their own confidence towards institutions as being at a minimum level. It is interesting to note that the research participants translate the concept of institutional framework as hospital and police, i.e. the main providers of social security. Youngsters mention spontaneously their negative experiences of interaction with representatives of the police or healthcare system in Romania, but they are aware of the lack of financial motivation among clerk, police, doctors and teachers in Romania and they understand that this reflects on the quality of these people‟s work.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca – students MOD: Do you think one can trust the institutions in Romania?

Majority: No. F1: It depends, which ones, because with better co-ordination from the centre, maybe you could have more confidence, but people have no interest in doing their work properly, in general. For instance town halls, where you have to wait in line for 7 hours; hospitals where you need to pay for the cotton pads... I don‟t know; if they were more motivated, or if they did what they dedicated their lives to doing, and take pleasure in that, maybe the citizens would have a bit more confidence. ...

B1: Yes, it is possible to have more confidence, with much better motivation. I know of a case, in the police force, when they need to chip in 20 lei each, in the night shift, to buy gasoline for the car. They would be nicer if they were given some conveniences, and if their wages weren‟t cut back.

However, a higher level of understanding of the social reality seems to make young people notice that the way in which the social action unfolds includes some positive aspects that could generate confidence towards the representatives of various institutions. Thus, there are young people who remember that, when they needed a medical intervention, it was carried out professionally, and when they crossed the border, the police and customs officers acted according to the law.

Unfortunately, the confidence towards the main political institutions – Parliament, Government and parties – seems to be completely absent among young people. They do not recognise themselves as a target group of any of the policies meant to facilitate their social integration.

In fact, it seems that young people embraced the idea that institutions in Romania do not work for the benefit of the citizens or the society. The general feeling is that they are being defied by the very clerk who should professionally provide various services to them.

16

FG discussion Bucharest - students MOD: Why do you believe that one can have no confidence in the institutions in Romania, in general?

B1: Because certain things are being done, that people tend to conceal. That is, stealing and a lot of indifference.

MOD: They look superior to you?

F2: Yes, they defy us anyway.

It is remarkable that, although poor-quality interaction with the state‟s institutions is a very frequent mention among the respondents, it does not seem to be debated with friends or members in an organisation that the young person belongs to. Therefore, although the objective premises are there, many of the young people are not concerned to monitor or even assert proper governance when it is absent.

Concerning the social institutions, group discussions have revealed that young people have confidence in the civil society, in non-government organisations. Some of the young people interviewed have personal experience (with various projects deployed with NGOs) that they deem as interesting and of formative value.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca students MOD: What are the NGOs that you think are worth considering?

F3: I think it‟s these local ones, made by young people; they are present approximately in every county and they target pupils in high schools, directly. And they actually motivate them to do something, various programs, various things, because I can also see the results.

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT AND ACTIVISM – CONCEPTUAL ASSOCIATIONS

In the opinion of the young participants in the qualitative research, the key meaning of civic involvement and civic activism is volunteering, charity activities and aid for distressed or disadvantaged social groups, as well as other desirable social behaviour (compliance with the laws, respecting other people‟s freedoms).

Let us also mention the opinions according to which a civically involved citizen (a “good citizen”) goes to vote and is sufficiently informed so that he/she cannot be manipulated.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca higher education, employees in multinational companies MOD: What are the things that come to mind when I say civic activism?

F1: Volunteering.

F5: Getting involved in the sense of going to vote.

F6: Donating blood.

F2: You have to be well informed, aware of what is around you, because otherwise you can be manipulated by the first person who comes and tells you, come one, do this.

MOD: ...What does ‚being a good citizen‟ mean?

B1: Going to vote.

B2: Complying with the laws of the country.

F3: Respecting the other people‟s freedom.

B1: You are no longer obliged to go and vote, but if you were to be a good citizen, you should go to vote.

17 In the respondents‟ opinion, besides volunteering (for charity purposes, if so), civic activism also includes the activity of informing “the others” about a topic they might be interested in, as well as belonging to an organisation.

By looking at the answers brought about by the group discussions, we can notice that the dimension of 5

political thinking seems to be absent in the formulation of concepts like civic involvement or „good citizen‟. Except for voting, civic involvement is not perceived as an aspect of political activism. This seems to be due also to the idea that involvement in politics is perceived as a behaviour that pursues exclusively personal, rather than “civic” benefits. Young people do not deem that civic involvement could have to do with monitoring proper governance, in order to correct the state‟s institutions‟ side-slips in carrying out their social contract.

FG discussion Iaşi students MOD: Have you ever contemplated the words „civic activism”? Does this phrase convey anything to you?

B4: Working for the benefit of the society.

F3: Persons who are civically active.

B1: Information campaigns.

B2: The Students‟ League.

SOCIAL REPRESENTATION OF PROTEST

In the opinion of the persons interviewed in the qualitative research, a protest first of all implies dissatisfaction, revolution, turmoil and even disorder or violence.

Young people are aware that a protest also implies a unity in opinions, as well as the drive to protect the shared opinion. In the particular case of the Romanian society, they doubt the chances of success of any protest actions, and implicitly, the capacity of the leaders of such actions to coagulate the required social energy. The respondents ground their doubts on the fact that “people are rather peaceful, in Romania”.

5

In 1950, T.H. Marshall proposes to operationalise the concept of citizenship by separating three dimensions: civilian, political and social.

The civilian component of the concept of citizenship has to do with the rights that are necessary to ensure individual freedom; the political component includes the right to participate in exerting political power, and the social component pertains to the entire sphere of rights, from the right to wellbeing and security to the right to a civilised life, according to the dominant norm in the society.

18

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca students MOD: Please tell me, what do you think of when you hear, ‚protest‟?

F1: Dissatisfaction.

B1: Revolution.

F3: Hope for change.

B2: Reaction.

F6: Chaos.

MOD: Protest implies chaos?

F6: In the sense of turmoil. There is a lot of turmoil in a protest. Everything you see on TV, the protests in all countries, you see that some guy was beaten, or they spread tear gas, or someone was put in the hospital by someone else.

B2: That‟s the bad part of it. The good side is that it‟s not you.

F2: You cannot have a protest in Romania, because people in Romania are much more peaceful than in other countries. You want something, but ‚forget it, there‟s no use‟. People have no confidence.

MOD: Can a protest change a given situation?

F5: More or less.

B1: With gentleness, we are going to change something. Not as people say, that we Romanians are like that.

When we can‟t take it any longer, then we react.

F1: Just that, not too many stick to it until the end. They get influenced and give up along the way.

MOD: What does a protest mean, what does it imply?

F5: It implies that a group of people have the same opinion, for a purpose. The desire to convey something.

One distinct representation is given by youngsters who have a passion for social history – they associate protest with the student movements in the US, at the end of the „60es. Implicitly, in the consciousness of these young people, protest is associated with social values that are perceived as important, such as pacifism, the right of every human being to life and health. At the same time, for these students, protest means change, the capacity to change the political action.

FG discussion Iaşi - students B1: Protest, expressing a discontent.

F1: And solving it. Is what we wish.

B4: Manifesting an attitude of dissatisfaction. For me, protest means the Vietnam war in the United States, the student protests in Paris.

MOD: When you say protest, what comes to your mind is the end of the ‚60es?

B4: Yes, something like that. That‟s when students really changed something.

MOD: How do you know about these movements? Can you remember where you‟ve read about these?

B4: In the contemporary history textbook, I believe. And again, there are a lot of very interesting movies about this. And the phenomenon itself is interesting.

MOD: And what do you recall, regarding the American students‟ protest?

B4: The pacifism. And the social context – it was about hippie, flower power, that is, all these movements generated... The people‟s desire to live, without dying for other people‟s ideas. And you need to find reasons to live, reasons to live for, not to die for.

MOD: So, in your mind, ‚protest‟ brings together a number of significant values.

B4: Yes. A significant component of the meaning of the idea of protest is the physical risk that the participants in a protest movement expose themselves to.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca students MOD: When you hear ‚protest action‟, what does that convey to you?

F1: The strike in England.

MOD: Does that seem like a good action to you?

F1: Even there, you could see clearly the moment when they got scared. They had serious protests few years ago, with fights and all... And there were a lot of them, and now, when Mrs the queen sent the police on the streets, there was merely a handful of people there.

19

Therefore, the qualitative research reveals that a protest movement prevailingly translates into images or words that carry the meaning of risky actions with no chance of success in the Romanian society.

What the attendants emphasise spontaneously in the discussions – employees of multinational companies – is their belief that protests are generally useless in Romania, where there is no “culture of protesting” like in other countries. The respondents explain this concept of “culture of protesting” by invoking the strikes and union movements in France, which they find impressive by their size. Therefore, we can notice that some of the young employees perceive protest as being the result of an organisational activity that has to do with one‟s job.

Another thing to mention would be that the “Occupy Wall Street” movement seems to enjoy low awareness among the students – it is either not known at all, or the goals of the movement are unknown, which again proves that students do not exchange information and opinions regarding the social and political reality.

Employees of multinational companies share the opinion that the goals of this protest movement are not communicated sufficiently well, but it‟s a way to „make yourself heard‟.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca – employees of multinational companies MOD: What is your opinion about „Occupy Wall Street” ?

R: Most people don‟t know about it.

B1: I don‟t remember exactly what they want, but they have several points that are out of the ordinary. They are asking for something that cannot be offered. If you go to a protest, you need to ask for something that can be offered to you. Have a pragmatic cause.

MOD: But is this a good idea, to go there, camp there and support your cause?

F1: Well, maybe that way you are heard.

MOTIVATION OF PARTICIPATION IN PROTEST ACTIONS

The majority of participants in the qualitative research say that they would participate in protest actions that have purposes such as: •

to recover a right that has been violated;

•

to combat corruption;

•

to create jobs;

•

to support the right to education;

•

to improve the conditions in hospitals;

•

to abolish the VAT increase measure;

•

to grant allowances;

•

to preserve the national treasures (in the case of RMGC company);

•

to ensure legal punishment for those involved in serious car accidents that result in human casualties.

20 Direct references to political actors are absent from the list of motivations for joining a protest.

However, in the majority of group discussions, the enunciation of the reasons why the respondents deem it would be worth protesting is accompanied by the opinion that the usefulness of the protest is arguable, or by a prior discussion about the risks involved.

FG discussion Bucharest - students MOD: What would be the goals worth protesting for – you, all of us?

B3: To see whether anyone truly listens to you, instead of merely making empty promises.

F3: And whether you are threatened, because you don‟t know whether you still have a job, or the same salary tomorrow.

F1: I remember that protest last year, about compulsory attendance to course classes, but not seminars... so, just the classes. They were obliging you to attend the classes, truly. So?! Was there anything achieved?! No, we are still obliged to attend the classes.

MOD: What are the causes worth protesting for?

B2: [Those] in your benefit.

B1: [The benefit] of a group.

B3: Of the community.

B1: Actually, if it‟s a group, but again, for each member individually, sort of.

MOD: What would you protest for?

B3: Scholarships.

The social representation of the protest tied to the perception of the useless risk that the participant is taking, the precarious socialising in the same-age group and they way in which young people relate to social values – all diminish the participatory attitude regarding protest movements, even though every respondent is able to mention a cause he/she believes is worth protesting for.

However, the students notice that there is one key factor missing in the structure of student organisations to facilitate participation – that is, the organising factor.

FG discussion Iaşi students MOD: No organising. What does that mean?

B4: There is no center to co-ordinate all these leagues around. A brain.

F3: You have the National League of Romanian Students.

B4: And where is the action promoted? At a national level, to determine all the students participate in such a fantastic thing, such an ideal? ...

B3: That‟s why we need a president or something.

B4: That‟s not what it is about. You know the difference between a revolution and a revolt. There is an underlying ideological layer in the revolution, things that will work, a clearly established goal that will motivate people to do that. Bur this?! They went for a walk from Tudor to Copou and that was it, they split and they solved everything?! Useless waste of energy. Nothing was solved. *Speaking about a protest that took place 6 or 7 years ago around improving the living conditions in the student hostels. The FG attendants were pupils at that time, but they heard discussions about the event – author’s note.

21 It is worth noting that the students would join protests not only about improving the standards of living in the student hostels, but also about issues that have to do with the schooling policy – such as, abolishing tuition fees in public universities, securing a job at graduation.

SELF-PERCEIVED ROLE OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND STUDENTS IN THE SOCIETY

Young people have a very hard time describing the social role of the student or young person in the society. It seems that this is not one of the topics of reflection in the target groups. More over, whatever the majority of respondents expressed reveals a pessimistic or confused attitude. It seems that the students are unable to define a social role for themselves, and they also feel a diffuse social pressure towards not having any role whatsoever.

The group discussions pointed out the fact that, when students are asked about their role in the society, they first think not of a set of behaviours assumed by them, but of what the society allows them to do.

Since one of the big fears of students is insertion on the labour market, it is not surprising to see a dominating opinion that the role of the student is to be a “conformist”, i.e. to obey the norm, that is, pay the fees and accept a potential status as an unemployed member of the society.

FG discussion Cluj-Napoca students MOD: What do you believe is the social role of the student?

B4: To graduate from college and stay home.

B1: To take money from them. The student pays the money – for instance, my case, I pay a lot of money for... what? Because they don‟t offer anything in the future; they don‟t offer a bit of practical training in a company – maybe, just if you are very good and involved with five thousand organisations...

MOD: But what should the role of the student be?

F3: To create a better future.

B1: To be able to help the country.

F2: Yes, but unfortunately, the country doesn‟t help us.

Despite the reality they observe, some students are nevertheless aware of what the student should represent – be a drive for the society‟s development. In the group discussions, however, references to this role of social transformation, involvement, building of a participative political culture are extremely rare. And since it‟s the social roles that determine the social behaviours – or a good deal of them, there is a risk that, since they perceive their role mainly at the level of conforming, students would develop conformist kinds of behaviours, that is, different from participative involvement; the risk is even greater since, as we saw, the exchange of political opinions (or of opinions regarding the social reality) is weaker inside groups of equals.

Behaviours in the academic life develop too, in close correlation with how young people perceive their own role in the society. Youngsters feel from and blame on the higher education structures a lack of involvement regarding their insertion on the labour market (for instance, some universities do not provide opportunities for practical training in the speciality field, although employers in the field demand experience, even from fresh

22 graduates), and this generates more and more withdrawal-type attitudes, lack of participation in the academic life, despite the fact that a lot of youngsters claim that they have more confidence in universities than in other institutions of the state.

ASSOCIATION STRUCTURES AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM OF YOUNGSTERS

Some of the youngsters who participated in the qualitative research state their affiliation with various organisations. Both the group discussions and the in-depth interviews revealed a twofold motivation of the youngsters‟ involvement in the activities of these organisations: personal development, and the desire to perform a specific type of volunteer work. The organisations that the youngsters declare their affiliation with are student organisations, political parties or NGOs operating in various fields.

The representatives of the civil society, however, notice that there is a high degree of formalism around becoming affiliated to an organisation and getting involved with certain projects. Whatever the organisation that the youngster in our society belongs to, the organisation does not become the significant framework of manifestation for the youngster‟s personality. The members of the organisation do not appear to develop any inter-personal relationships based on their interest for knowing each other.

There are, however, some positive perceptions among the civil society regarding the young people‟s civic involvement. The personal qualities of the young people who could be deemed as truly involved in the NGOs‟ activities are, in general, determination and communication skills, with the latter meaning a particular ability to advocate one‟s opinions.

In-depth interview – NGO representative R: From the experience with our projects, I regret to say that the involvement of young people... the majority only get involved so that they can add a line in their résumé. That‟s what most of them want. The young people only get involved if they have a clearly defined purpose. It‟s not the kind of involvement, like, ‚yes, I feel the need to do this‟, it‟s more like... For instance, I have projects where young people are involved. They ask you right away: „And you will give us diplomas, certificates?”. Only to add to their résumé. So, it‟s not the ‚We want to do this again‟ type of involvement. That kind are very rare. In some projects, yes, youngsters want continuity, or they want to get involved, but there are others, in which they get involved strictly for the résumé.

MOD: So, there is a strong formal component in this, you say?

R: Yes, in the great majority of cases.

MOD: You said that there are some projects, nevertheless, in which they want to see continuity and get involved by courtesy, so to say, looking for a personal, spiritual benefit, let‟s say, some personal development that cannot be quantified in diplomas.

R: Definitely. So, I could make two categories (of people who participate in the organisation’s programs): it‟s the youngsters who are looking for personal development, looking to help, because they are aware that, when they are going to graduate from college and get a job, they will know, ‚ok, I did this, I was involved in this, I know how to do it, I know how to use it, I prove my skills, my ability‟... And there are those in the second category, who are there only for something to add to their résumé.

23 In general, the young people illustrate their own civic involvement by describing their participation in several charity or environment-cleaning activities. Even among the leaders of the political parties‟ youth organisations, the notion seems to prevail, that social activism at the level of a political organisation could translate into organising activities that have a charity or environment-protection aspect to them.

In-depth interview – political party representative (leader of the party‟s youth organisation) R: There are several types of activities; we have training courses, we train them on the legislation a bit, and on the opportunities available to young people, so that they can disseminate this to others, in turn. ..

MOD: What other activities are there, besides courses and training?

R: Now on Christmas, for instance, we actually want to do this action, to distribute flyers around in the district, and invite people to come to our headquarters and donate whatever they have available – clothes, toys for children and so on, so that we can visit at least some children‟s homes on Christmas, bring a Christmas tree and some presents for the children. And we had some other actions of this kind. There was a garage sale sort of event, American style, just that it wasn‟t old stuff – it was new toys, virtually new clothes and so on, and with that money, we bought what was necessary for certain children in some children‟s homes. So we had a number of actions targeting disadvantaged children.

Motivations for Joining a Student Organisation Students join the student organisations looking for professional anchorage into their field of study, or for the purpose of “social parties”.

FG discussion Iaşi - students MOD: So, we have people here who are members of student organisations. I am talking to those who are members – tell me, each of you, what was your purpose, when you joined?

B4: I wanted to know their programs and I wanted to get involved. That‟s the main purpose – to gain as much experience as possible in my field.

MOD: Have there been any actions?

B4: I did some volunteer work, as a guide for the Ukrainians who came to Iaşi for know-how exchange.

F3: First of all, in order to know my 1st year colleagues, to socialise and get involved with projects. Kind of that was it.

MOD: And did you manage to achieve them? Did you have any projects?

F3: Not too many. There are two leagues in our school, and one of them is not too active. The goal was cultural and social. We have projects... like, we were marching on the street in costumes we had taken from the theatre, and distributing various materials. Then the Feststudies, in a project that goes on for several days, and all – or almost all the leagues in Iaşi have various projects. And social parties.

In general, defending the students‟ rights seems to be a not so convincing or even totally neglected activity of these organisations. There is no reference in the group discussions, to situations where the members of these organisations communicate on topics related to politics or civic participation.

Motivations for Joining a Political Party Youngsters do not seem to join a political parties motivated prevailingly by one philosophy of social-political action or another. Rather, the motivations that stimulate them to join are of personal nature – for instance, the desire to help a friend advance in the hierarchy of the respective party by them bringing in new members.

24 Among the party members attending the research, one distinct category includes those who are ambitious to prove their organising and communicational skills. Talking about the activities organised, they seem to emphasise their practical side, rather, on the expense of their underlying political significance.

One thing to note is the fact that, for the time being, the parties in our society do not appear to be emulative communities, and the members of a political youth organisation do not know each other beyond social greetings – that is, politics is not a passion for them; they do not truly socialise on political topics and they do not develop within the party any skills for participation in a civic culture.

FG discussion Iaşi students MOD: What is the reason why you wanted to join a political party? What was the purpose of that?

B3: To help a friend. He needed as many members as possible. And I had some benefits from that myself.

This was in my first year in college. I participated in actions.

MOD: So, you simply joined for someone, but now you continue to be a member, for yourself?

B3: Now, yes. But I have no time. I really want to go; they call me, but I have no time. I participated in various activities before the elections. Talking to people.

MOD: What would you have liked to do, in a party?

B3: Have interesting meetings. Like this one, for instance.

MOD: Do you know any other member, besides the person you helped?

B3: A lot of them.

MOD: Would you say that they are your friends, more or less?

B3: No; acquaintances. If we meet, we say hi.

MOD: You never went for beers after those meetings, after the actions?

B3: There was nobody to go with. When they were leaving the party, they would go home, and from home they would go to school, and from school they would go to the party, or do various activities, and that was it.

MOD: You mean, you don‟t know each other, you don‟t know the other members‟ views?

B3: No. I wasn‟t interested in their opinions, or in what they think about others.

The fact that young people do not befriend each other, not even within the political organisations – they don‟t know each other and don‟t talk to each other about their life experiences, they don‟t exchange opinions and don‟t know each other‟s views on life is an indicator of the parties‟ reduced capacity to absorb young people, but it is also the consequence of the already noticed trend of a weak relationship between the young person and their group of equals, between the young person and those of the same age.

The weak ideological motivation at the time of joining an organisation, the absence of any exchange of opinions on topics that have to do with politics or organising, are factors that hinder association structures in becoming promoters of dialogue with the state institutions, or promoters of social change.

Social Types of Students

The qualitative research was able to outline a number of social types among students.

The anti-social is the student who, by his or her own will, narrows his social contacts and motivates this undertaking either by his own shyness, or by the lack of loyalty from the others. This image of self (too sensitive, or treated inappropriately, perceived as under-evaluated by the world) does not encourage perseverance in civic

25 activism. If he ever gets involved in civic activities, the anti-social does it at the level of volunteering, of charity, and his involvement is short-lived. The anti-social never takes into account the political dimension.

The ostensive type is the student who wants to assert him/herself, to check – or rather, to show their social skills; they want to be judged by their family and group of acquaintances as a model for success – they even want to be envied for the qualities they display. They study fields that are in high demand on the labour market; they join highly structured organisations, where they get involved in civic and even political actions through which they can assert their capacity as organizers and prove their persuasion and communication power.

The pessimistic type is afraid for his/her future and cannot project his professional route outside a corrupt interaction. These fears, alongside a presumed respect that the society still has for what uniforms represent, motivate him to attempt to join total institutions, such as the army or police force. The pessimist displays lack of confidence towards all institutions, including the army and the police, if he does not succeed in becoming a member. If he does become member of an organisation, his involvement is strictly at formal level and he does not extend his social network.

The optimistic type projects his/her future easily, especially outside the country, but claims that he has confidence in the institutions in Romania. He has a passion for the field he is studying. His speech includes spontaneous reference to ethical and moral values of social relevance (equality, fraternity or pacifism), and, in his view, the student‟s role is to be the engine of social change. As a member of an organisation, he will seek personal development through participation in know-how exchange projects.

LEADERSHIP AND CIVIC INVOLVEMENT

Maybe one of the most diffuse concepts researched in the qualitative study, the social representation of the leader (of a civic action or protest) features a long list of attributes. Thus, in the youngsters‟ view, the leader that they would follow should have determination, strength, charisma, vision, he/she should know how to persuade those he is addressing, be personally interested in the successful completion of the action he is leading – that is, someone who is “directly touched by the issue”. At the same time, the leader needs to have physical strength and a strong voice, and get totally involved, to the point of giving up other engagements. The leader needs to know and to communicate, inform, persuade the others.

The common denominator that seems to emerge from these images circulated in the group discussions is the trait of determination, drive. Thus, we could say that the collective representation of the idea of leadership focuses on combining consistency with perseverance. The leader‟s personality needs to be able to persuade the youngsters, especially with regard to the leader‟s ability to fight for their interest, which has to be the same as the leader‟s own interest.

26 The projection exercise where the respondents were asked to project the idea of leader in the sphere of public personalities discloses a long list of names. From Andreea Marin and Mihaela Rădulescu – names suggested by the female students – to Ion Ţiriac, Dinu Patriciu, Mircea Badea, or Buzdugan and Morar, none of the personalities mentioned in the focus groups would be accepted, at least partially, by any of the other participants in the discussion.

Arguments proposed to support the persons as leaders

Arguments proposed against the persons as leaders

- persons who are convincingly involved in mutual aid and volunteering campaigns,

- challenged (by male respondents) for lack of the important trait of „strength‟ (deemed as a masculine monopoly);

Liliana Tudor

- people who empathise with other people‟s problems.

- they are promoters of charity actions, not credible in protester roles.

Ion Ţiriac

- persons of influence, capable to solve problems, - persons who know how to communicate.

- cannot be followed by young people; they are not „in the role‟ as protest leaders.

- they have a personal history regarding protest actions,

- „there is someone behind them”.

Andreea Marin Mihaela Rădulescu

Dinu Patriciu Mircea Badea, Buzdugan and Morar

- they are cute.

The incapacity to negotiate the figure of a leader is another consequence of the weak socialising between the members of the young generation, and of a relatively low involvement of young people in association structures. Therefore, we could not say that a leader is a motivational factor regarding participation in a protest or even in any other civic action.

The motivation of participating in such action can come, for the time being, only from an organisation in which the communication flow is structured in such a way, so that young people extend their social network and share their opinions about the „up-to-date‟ political reality and their facts of life, and especially, to formulate the values they believe in and project systematically the restructuring of the society in a way that allows for such values to be respected. In the students‟ opinion, the representatives of the civil society could be leaders, because they „have experience‟ – that is, people trust them.

27

RESULTS OF THE QUANTITATIVE STUDY

28 PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE COUNTRY‟S DIRECTION OF EVOLUTION The youngsters‟ perceptions regarding the evolution of Romania preserve the trend noticed at the level of the entire population, with a predominantly negative evaluation of the future situation.

Out of the total number of young persons interviewed, approximately 17% assess that things in Romania are moving in a good direction, while 74% assess that things move in the wrong direction. The percents recorded for the 18-29 age group are in alignment with the results pertaining to the entire population, where the percent of those who are optimistic about the country‟s evolution is 14%, while the percent of those who are rather 6

pessimistic is 81% .

The young people‟s dissatisfaction regarding the country‟s future evolution also comes through in their perception regarding the protest as a form of expressing their opinion, and implicitly the need for a protest in our country, at this time. Thus, youngsters who are rather pessimistic about the evolution of the country tend to assign a high rate of usefulness to protest: 92% of those who believe that things are moving in the wrong direction in our country deem that, at the present time, we do have reasons to protest. They are also more inclined to think that the forms of public protest (demonstrations) are more effective than attending voting procedures in order to influence decisions made at society level. With regard to their trust in institutions, as one could expect, the youngsters who assess that things in our country are moving in the wrong direction, as compared to those who make the opposite evaluation, display low levels of confidence towards the state‟s institutions (Presidency, Parliament, Government), local institutions (town hall), but also towards nongovernment organisations or European Union institutions.

Figure 1.1. The evolution of things in Romania

Figure 1.2. Trust in institutions among young people who believe things are going in a wrong direction in our country Army

69

EU Institutions

58

Church In a good direction, 17

In a wrong direction, 74

DK/NA, 9

53

Non-governmental organizations

39

Romania educational system

38

Police

35

Justice

30

City Hall

30

Mass-media (press, radio, TV)

22

Presidency

5

Government

3

Parliament

2

Political parties

2 0

20

40

60

80

100

Note: Base used for graph in Figure 1.1 is 800 respondents; base used for graph in Figure 1.2 is 584 respondents. The percents in Figure 1.2 cumulate the “A lot of confidence” and “Quite a lot of confidence” variants.

6

Source: IMAS Omnibus study, December 2011

29 CONFIDENCE IN INSTITUTIONS The young people interviewed display a high level of confidence towards the army, the European Union‟s institutions and towards the church, while trust in non-governmental institutions cumulates, among the interviewed persons, about 42%. A low level of confidence is associated with institutions in the political sphere: Presidency, Parliament, Government, political parties.

Trust in mass-media seems to cumulate a lower percentage among young people than amoung the whole population (18+), thus, while 23% of individuals aged 18-29 y.o. trust mass-media, almost a double percentage 7

of the population 18+ would state trusting this institution .

Figure 2. Trust in institutions among young people in Romania Army

69

EU Institutions

62

Church

52

Non-governmental organizations

42

Romania educational system

41

Police

40

Justice

34

City Hall

34

Mass-media (press, radio, TV)

23

Presidency

9

Government

6

Parliament

5

Political parties

4

Note: Percentages in Figure 2 cumulate “Very much” and “Pretty much” variants. Base used in Figure 2 is 800 respondents (total base).

0

20

40

60

80

100

Persons who display a high level of confidence towards the church tend to be the people who are currently unemployed, originating from small towns or from the Moldova area, people who completed 10 grades in the formal education system or graduates or vocational education. Those who display high levels of confidence towards the army tend to be young people with medium incomes, while people who display confidence towards EU‟s institutions are graduates of higher education institutions. High levels of confidence towards nongovernment organisations associate with high incomes (3000+ RON per household), higher education and being a pupil or student. This could indirectly indicate a potential for concentrating organisations‟ policies towards attracting and actively involving in their actions a segment of young people with high confidence towards this type of institutions.

7

Source: IMAS Omnibus survey, December 2011

30 Figure 3. Confidence towards non-government organisations per education, occupation, income, region.

100

55

48

46

46

42

Total

47

Bucharest

1401-2000 RON

28

32

36

39

<1400 RON

41

In paid employment

38

39

Self employed

40

55

53

60

Moldova

80

32

20 Muntenia

Transilvania

>3000 RON

2001-3000 RON

Pupil, student

Temporarily not working

College/ university

High-school/ post high-school

10 grades/ vocational school

0

Note: The percents in the chart cumulate the “A lot of confidence” and “Quite a lot of confidence” variants.

Significant differences can be noted in terms of the confidence towards the church and NGOs in relation to the „civic involvement‟ variable (participation in protest actions, filing an application, petition, working with an organisation to solve a problem in the community). Thus, people who in the past used to display civic involvement through participating in demonstrations, signing petitions etc. register with a low level of confidence towards the church and a high level of confidence towards non-government organisations.

Figure 4. Confidence in institutions function of participating/ non-participating to public forms of action

Note: The percents in the chart cumulate the “A lot of confidence” and “Quite a lot of confidence” variants.

31 “A GOOD CITIZEN”

8

Spontaneously , youngsters share the opinion that being a good citizen means first of all complying with the laws, the rules (33% of total respondents). The same phrase „a good citizen‟ is associated with respect for people around you (13%) and being honest, fair (10%).

When respondents are read a set of attributes, most of them associate the phrase „a good citizen‟ with involvement in environment protection actions and expressing one‟s political option through voting. A tendency is noticed among people who deem that a good citizen tends to be a person who goes to vote, of displaying confidence towards mass media, the church, the mayoralty and the European Union institutions.

Young people rarely include attributes assessing the dimension of political involvement with the phrase „good citizen‟. In this sense, the table below shows that the statements measuring interest towards politics are clustered in a zone of smaller relevance.

Table 1. Characteristics of a good citizen

A good citizen ...is actively promoting human rights ...is volunteering in civic organisations ...does not violate traffic rules ...when having fun he does not bother colleagues or neighbours ...protests against any incorrect fact that happens in the community ...keeps up to date with information on politics ...discusses politics within his circle of friends and colleagues ...votes ...enrolls in a political party ...engages in actions to protect the environment

Agree (p+)

Disagree (p-)

Neutral (p0)

Total

IOD

75 69 72 79

5 9 14 7

20 22 14 14

100 100 100 100

56,1 46,5 49,4 61,5

79

8

13

100

62,4

36 24 82 14 89

29 50 7 60 3

35 26 11 25 9

100 100 100 100 100

4,8 19,9 66,7 34,0 78,4

The index of dominant opinion proposed by Hofstatter IOD (+p-p-)*(100-p0)/100. IOD varies between +100 and 100. The closer a value is to 100, the more an opinion is associated with a higher degree of acceptance in the population. Negative IOD values indicate levels of acceptance for negative variants, while positive values indicate acceptability levels for positive variants of answer.

Source: IMAS, 2011 9

The factor analysis of statements regarding the traits that a good citizen should have, reveals three latent factors with 54.4% variable variation explaining power. The three factors are easy to interpret as being the political dimension (keeping up-to-date with political topics, political discussions, and joining a political party), the community-action dimension (promoting human rights, volunteering, organising protests against unfair events, environment protection), and the dimension of compliance with social norms (compliance with traffic regulations, social co-existence rules).

This separation strengthens the result of the qualitative research, which establishes a lack of association between a range of concepts such as „civic involvement‟, „good citizen‟ and the political sphere. The resulting factors and their relationship with the items used to characterise a good citizen are presented in the table below.

8

Open question, answers coded subsequently.

Exploratory factor analysis performed in SPSS; factors were extracted using the key component method, coefficient KMO = 0.744, resulting factors were rotated using the varimax method.

9

32 Table 2. Factor analysis model for the good citizen profile

*the data represent correlations between factors and items **How to read: Correlation between political factor and keeping informed on the political life is 0.651

From the chart below (Figure 5) we can deduct that youngsters who participated in public protest actions, compared to those who did not participate, seem to assign higher relevance to promoting human rights; thus, 82% deem that being active in promoting human rights should be a definitive trait of a good citizen.

Figure 5. Perceptions regarding the role of a good citizen

Note: The percents in the chart cumulate “Fully agree” and “Somehow agree” variants.

33

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT Approximately 40% of the participants in the research were unable to define the phrase “civic involvement” using their own words, while another 8% offered a general explanation, such as “citizens being involved”. Looking at the valid answers, it is visible that most of them illustrate an association of civic involvement with involvement in the problems of the society, of the community, extending help to close ones, and getting involved in solving problems at country level. Approximately 3% of the respondents share the opinion that civic involvement implies volunteering or taking initiative, promoting change in our country. 2% of the youngsters say that one can‟t talk about civic involvement in Romania at the present time, since there is no such thing here.

Figure 6. Meaning of ‘civic involvement’

10% to do something for the community/society 8% citizen's involvment 8% to help your peers 5% citizens' involvment in state's affairs 3% volunteering

Note: The chart only includes the first five mentions. The sum of percents exceeds 100% because one respondent was allowed several answers. Total number of answers: 893.

VALUES Within the quantitative stage of the research, respondents selected the three most important values that guide them in life, from a given list. Taking into account only the first value mentioned by the interviewees, the following ranking emerges: justice (17%), freedom (16%), respect (15%). The ranking of values changes when we take into account all the three values mentioned: justice (42%), respect (40%), truth (38%), freedom (37%). It is worth noting that solidarity and courage register with the lowest percents compared to the other values on the list, both as a first mention (solidarity 7%, courage 4%), and out of total mentions (solidarity 21%, courage 29%). The ranking of values varies depending on the modality of civic involvement embraced. Thus, youngsters who choose public protest as a form of expressing their opinions appear to value first of all justice (17%) and freedom (17%), then respect (15%), while youngsters who get involved in the community by volunteering services value first of all freedom (19%), then respect (17%) and justice (16%).

34 Figure 7.1 Ranking of values (first mention)

Figure 7.2 Ranking of values (total mentions)

42% justice 40% respect

17% justice 16% freedom

38% truth

15% respect

PROTEST Most youngsters share the opinion that protest is a form of expressing dissatisfaction, disagreement regarding certain things (31%). Approximately 9% of the interviewees deem that publicly expressing one‟s opinions is equivalent to making a stand against, demonstrating that you are against someone or something, while 7% associate this form of manifestation with fighting for truth, justice.

89% of the youngsters interviewed believe that there are things we should protest against at the present time, while only 9% share the opposite opinion. The discussion regarding the need for protest at the present time can be understood properly if we take into account the low confidence that youngsters assign towards the state‟s political institutions. On the background of this low confidence, youngsters in Romania assign high relevance to a protest that aims first of all at the country‟s management structures (Government, Parliament, and Presidency).

Figure 8.1. Perceptions regarding the necessity of a protest

Figure 8.2. Things worth protesting for

32% political institutions 10% low wage, pensions levels

Yes, 89 DK/NA, 2

No, 9

8% coruption 6% low standard of living 6% political parties

Note: Figure 8.1 is a graphic interpretation of the results from Q7. „Do you think that at present there are things we should protest against? să protestăm?”. Base is 800 respondents. Figure 8.2 includes only the first 5 mentions. Othe mentions with more than 3%: low number of vacant jobs 5%, unfairness/ inequalities between individuals 4%, not respecting human rights 4%, educational system 4%, not protecting the environment 3%. Base is 770 responses.

35 No statistically significant

10

differences can be identified in terms of participation in public protest actions,

between the social categories defined according to the historical-geographical regions or the size of town.

Figure 9. Breakdown of people who participated in public protest actions per region and size of town 100 80 60 40

25

20

24

26

Muntenia

Moldova

Bucharest

20

23

25

23

Town with <49 thou. inh.

Town with 50-199 thou. inh.

Town with >200 thou. inh.

Total

20 0 Transilvania

Neither education nor income are elements that provide a clear delimitation of participation in public protest actions, but they seem to indicate a trend among non-protesters. Thus, a smaller probability to participate in such actions displays among youngsters who have not yet completed any form of medium or higher education, or youngsters with low incomes (only 13% of those who completed 10 grades/vocational education forms and 18% of those with less than 1400 RON income per household participated in public protest actions). However, youngsters originating from households with medium or high incomes (more than 2000 RON per household) are more inclined to participate in public protests; one of the reasons could be that, many times, their claims have nothing to do with the financial field. In our case, most of the young protesters participated in student actions aimed at solving issues related to the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x; scholarships, the number of places available in student hostels or, on a more general line, protests against the education system or the law on education.

Figure 10. Breakdown of people who participated in public protest actions per education and income/household.

100 80 60 40 20

25

25

13

18

23

30

30

23

0 10 grades, High-school, vocational post school high-school

College, university

<1400 RON 1401-2000 RON

2001-3000 >3000 RON RON

Total

Marches and street demonstrations (63%), as well as strikes (52%) are deemed to be the most effective protest modalities. This opinion tends to be popular among respondents who participated in public protest actions.

10

These limitations in defining certain profiles based on the socio-demographic variables mentioned also come from the fact that the sample was not designed in such a way, as to ensure a representative sub-sample for people who have not participated in protest actions, sufficiently large to allow detailed statistical analysis.

36 With regard to influencing decisions that target the entire society, expressing oneâ&#x20AC;&#x;s voting option in elections (78% of the total sample), attracting mass media attention (73%) and participating in public demonstrations (67%) are deemed to be the most effective modalities. The list remains unchanged in the case of people who participated in public protest actions, but the ranking changes and slightly tilts to the expense of the political dimension. Thus, 81% of the people who participated in protests share the opinion that attracting the mass media can efficiently influence decisions made at society level. The next influencing factor is participating in public demonstrations, mentioned by 77% of the youngsters interviewed. Ranking third is voting, with 74% of the opinions offered.

It is worth noticing that, at the level of the total sample, 19% of the people deem that participating in illegal protest actions is effective in influencing decisions. Among those who already participated in protest actions, the proportion is significantly higher. Thus, 32% of the people who have been involved in public protest actions share the opinion that participating in illegal protests is an effective way of influencing decisions made at society level.

Figure 11. Breakdown of people who have participated/ have not participated in a public form of protest and their opinions on influencing decisions which affect the entire society

37 11

Figure 12. Profile of young protester ~ Profile of young non-protester

Is characterized by high confidence towards non-government organisations and, more over, he/she is currently a member of an organisation (association, foundation, party).

Displays low confidence towards the church.

Most often chooses to get involved in the activity of student organisations, especially driven by the desire to socialize, to know new people, or in the activity of political organisations, because he/she trusts or identifies with the ideology of the respective party.

His/her interest for this latter field manifests in political discussions with people in the close group (approximately one fifth of the people who participated in a public protest discuss politics at least several times a week).

Deems that a good citizen is characterized by a wish to get involved in the field of promoting human rights (56% of those who participated in a public protest action fully agree that a good citizen is active in the field of human rights).

Besides being involved in a public protest action, he/she also goes for other, indirect forms of expressing opinion (filing requests/petitions with the local authorities, working with an organisation to solve problems in the community).

Deems that public demonstrations are very effective in influencing decisions made at society level (37% of those who participated in public protests in the past). Attracting the mass media is another effective modality for them in this sense.

Deems that there are things we should protest against, at this time (96% of those who participated in a public protest).

Originates from households with income over 2000 RON.

Is characterized by low confidence towards non-government organisations and currently is not a member of any organisation (association, foundation, party).

Displays high confidence towards the church.

Usually does not engage in political discussions in the close group (28% of the young people who have not participated in public demonstrations state that they never talk about politics).

Non-participation in public protest actions comes with a general lack of involvement. Thus, this segment of young people do not use other, less direct forms of protest either filing requests/petitions with the local authorities, working with an organisation to solve problems in the community) in order to express their opinion.

Has not done volunteer work (47% of those who have not participated in protest actions have not been involved in volunteering actions either).

With regard to influencing decisions at society level, he/she associates a low level of usefulness to illegal protests or to any other forms of public demonstration. In addition, the young non-protester appreciates that the mass media has low effectiveness in this respect.

He/she deems that there are no things to protest against at the current moment (11% of those who have not participated in a public protest).

In general, he/she has low incomes – less than 1400 RON per month, total net income per household in November 2011.

Until now has completed 10 forms or the vocational school.

11

The protester‟s profile was elaborated based on the item ‚Have you, personally ever participated in any public protest action (street demonstration, strike, march)”, using the Chi-square test, through adjusted standardised residual analysis (contingence analysis).

38 ASSOCIATION STRUCTURES Compared to older European democracies, Romania still ranks in the lower ranges when it comes to civic 12

involvement, with the percent frequently mentioned in this sense being below 10% . We should mention, however, that a positive modification of their social involvement is noticed among youngsters. Thus, approximately one half of the interviewees stated that they participated in volunteer actions before.

Young volunteers are characterised first of all by high levels of confidence towards non-government organisations. At the same time, they seem to assign high relevance to values such as freedom (19%), respect (17%) and justice (16%), while under-valuing other traits, most frequently associated with civic involvement - solidarity (6%) and courage (3%). Regarding involvement at community and society level, they do not reject the possibility of expression through public protests or signing petitions.

Figure 13. Main values that guide young volunteers

19% freedom 17% respect 16% justice 11% honour 11% dignity

Note: The chart only includes the first five mentions. Other mentions: truth 10%, honesty 8%, solidarity 6%, courage 3%, other value 1%.

Base is 465 respondents.

13% of the youngsters interviewed are currently members of some organisation (association, party); most of them are currently pupils or students. The organisations that youngsters mention are political parties (33%), student organisations (15%) or NGOs operating in various fields (for disabled people, environment protection, animals, etc). Regarding affiliation with a political organisation, most youngsters say that they are enrolled with PNL (31%), 20% claim that they are PSD members and 17% - PDL.

The reasons most frequently mentioned by youngsters who join such organisations are the desire to help (15%) and recommendation from a friend (11%). Confidence in the organisation (8%) and the ideology proposed by the organisation (7%) are other significant reasons why young people join organisations.

12

Source: World Values Survey, 1998-2007.

39 The type of organisation and the reason why they chose to join the respective organisation are illustrated in the chart below.

Figure 14. Main organisations where youngsters are active and reasons why they joined the organisations

13

a political organization, 33%

a student organization, 15%

an association for disabled persons, 11%

i know someone there, i have a frisnd there, 23% i trust the organization, 17% i identify myself with its ideology, 14%

Note: The graph includes only first three mentions. Other organisations mentioned, which accumulated over 5% of responses: an organization for environmental protection (9%), an association for animal protection (6%), a professional association (5%). Base 1: 105 respondents who are members in organizations. Base 2: 33 respondents who are members of a political organization.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION Internet is the most frequently used source of information in the 18-29 age group. 85% of the interviewees stated that they access the internet every day. Ranking second and third are television - 65% of respondents watch TV every day â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and respectively, radio, with 57% of mentions. Written press represents a main source of information among the interviewed young people.

Figure 15. Main sources of information among young people

13

Open ended question.

40

With regard to internet consumption, the greatest differences between social categories are given by the „level of education‟ and „occupational status‟ variables. Thus, those who access the internet every day tend to be young people who completed a form of higher education or who are currently students / pupils (91% of the pupils/students we interviewed said that they access the internet every day). Another significant increase compared to the average of the total sample shows among youngsters originating from households with high incomes; thus, approximately 90% of the young people with more than 3000 RON income per household access the internet every day.

Among those who use the internet, most of them do it for communication platforms such as Facebook, Hi5, and Yahoo Messenger. 52% of those who access the internet every day use the online communication platforms every day, while 39% write on a blog or on a discussion forum at least several times a week.

80

91 83

77

79

82

88

90

>3000 RON

92

1401-2000 RON

91 84

<1400 RON

100

2001-3000 RON

Figure 16. Breakdown of people who use the internet every day per education, occupation and income variables.

85

68

60 40

Total

pupil, student

temporarily not working

in paid employmen t

self employed

0

10 grades/ vocational school highschool/ post highschool college university

20

The infrastructure needed for accessing information coming through television is particularly well developed in the urban environment. 65% of the respondents say that they watch tv every day. Television consumption, as emerging from the results of the study, varies between the different social categories that we can define by occupational status, income and environment of residence. A larger number of respondents with high television consumption emerge among persons who do not work at the present time; have low incomes (less than 1400 RON per household), and live in medium-sized towns, 50-199 thousands population. Television consumption decreases mildly among youngsters in Bucharest compared to the entire sample (58% compared to 65% from total sample).

41

Figure 17. Breakdown of people who watch TV every day per occupational status, income and residence environment.

72

77

73

66

66

65

64

>3000 RON

80

2001-3000 RON

100 69

75

60

65

58

54

40 20 Total

town with >200 thou. inh.

town with 50-199 thou. inh.

town with <49 thou. inh.

1401-2000 RON

<1400 RON

pupil, student

temporarily not working

in plaid employment

self employed

0

The written press is the least frequently used source of information among youngsters; one quarter of the interviewees state that they read newspapers every day. Higher written press consumption values, however, emerge among young people aged 25+, people who completed a form of higher education, those who are currently employed and have high incomes.

Figure 18. Breakdown of people who read newspapers every day per age, education, occupation and income.

100 80 60

21

pupil, student

<1400 RON

1401-2000 RON

27

25

Total

20

>3000 RON

18

2001-3000 RON

15

temporarily not working

in paid employment

self employed

25-29 y.o.

18-24 y.o.

0

30 21

20

college, university

20

10 grades/ vocational school

16

high school/ post high-school

20

39

36

32

40

42

CONCLUSIONS

Ethical and Moral Values The qualitative research provided an outline of the values mentioned spontaneously: honesty, loyalty, integrity and freedom – values associated with personal development and inter-personal relationships.

At the same time, the questionnaire-based inquiry produced a ranking of values, through a semi-closed question. The most important values that youngsters identified are justice, respect and truth, but the ranking of values is noticed to change among youngsters who are involved in volunteering actions. Thus, this segment of population appears to value first of all freedom, then respect and justice. It is worth mentioning that the youngsters assign low relevance to values that are most often associated with various forms of civic involvement, such as solidarity and courage.

Thus, young people (irrespective of their profession and educational status) tend to be attached to values that guide behaviours in the primary group (the group of affiliation). However, the social memory still holds the idea of justice and respect, alongside with truth and freedom, which is an indication of a basis of receptivity for a social action that pursues these values.

Confidence towards the Institutional Framework The young people we interviewed keep the general tendency of pessimism regarding the evolution of the country, and distrust towards institutions in the political sphere. We could say that this distrust associated with the state‟s political institutions comes with a low interest for the political field in general. Young people say that they are only interested to a small extent in political topics and debating such topics with their close group; they assign low relevance to keeping themselves informed about the political scene or joining a party.

On the other hand, similar to the tendency for the entire population (18+), among the young segment of population it is being maintained an increased trust ar regards two of the state‟s “total” institutions, meaning army and church, a probable explanation in this regards being the low exposure in media of such institutions.

Also, young people assign a greater capital of trust to non-government organisations; those who display inclinations in this sense are those originating from households with high incomes, who are currently students or have completed a form of higher education. We could say that this segment of population represents a potential that could be further capitalised in terms of civic involvement.

On the background of a high level of confidence assigned to non-government organisations, the quantitative research points that approximately one quarter of the youngsters interviewed are currently members of an organisation, and almost one half were involved or continue to be involved in volunteering. As for the reasons that inform the choice of joining an organisation, these include the desire to help and a

43 recommendation from an acquaintance. Another reason is the desire to be involved in certain projects, but this can come from a purely formal behaviour (the benefit added to a rĂŠsumĂŠ), as the qualitative study revealed. The ideological motivation or the motivation of supporting a certain set of values tend to be less frequent. However, a tendency is noticed among youngsters involved in public protest actions, to motivate their affiliation to an organisation by identification with the respective organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x;s ideology.

At the same time, the presence of the desire for personal development on the list of reasons why a young person joins an organisation is a significant element. An organisation that explicitly lists personal development of its members among its purposes can become appealing to youngsters.

Among the sources of information used recently, the internet appears to have the highest penetration among the population below the age of 30. Therefore, regarding online social networks, more than half of the youngsters who are internet users access Hi5, Facebook, Yahoo Messenger, Skype or similar platforms every day. This indicates that propagation of an idea can be easier to do online, using the snowball method.

Social Network On the other hand, the in-depth discussions revealed the fact that most youngsters (especially those with higher education or students) rely very much on their family group in their life decisions, and they almost exclusively look for support within the family. If we corroborate this social fact with the lack of confidence towards most of the political and institutional actors in the society, and with the lack of any high motivation when the youngster joins an organisation, what we get is the image of a social network that does not facilitate propagation of civic behaviours. Online social networks and non-government organisations could have concrete effects in facilitating such behaviours.

Good citizen The quantitative part of the survey revealed that among the young segment of population there is a low tendency of associating to the profile of a good citizen atributes from a political sphere. However, it prevails the tendency of evaluating this profile in terms of elective involvment, and also in terms of its European vision, meaning that a good citizen is perceived as a personality which expresses political options through voting, and as well, as an environmentalist, or a person who is involved in acts of protecting the nature.

Attitudes towards Protest Both the quantitative and the qualitative inquiries reveal the fact that protest is mainly associated with discontent. Other associations are revolution or fighting for truth. The qualitative research also revealed

44 associations with negative connotations – turmoil, violence. In addition, most youngsters believe that there are things we should protest against at the current time, and on the background of a low confidence towards the state‟s political institutions, they tend to assign increased relevance to a protest that aims first of all at the country‟s management structures (Government, Parliament, and Presidency).

Youngsters do not seem to internalise the behaviour of expressing their dissatisfaction through protest. A significant majority of the interviewees (in both inquiries) have never participated in protest actions and motivate their non-participation by “no occasion” and “uselessness” or “ineffectiveness” of such actions.

It seems that the youngster in the contemporary society, prevailingly existing within the social network of the family, not that of the group of equals, embraces those social behaviours that are desirable within this particular social cluster. It is not surprising that protest is implicitly assessed as a situation of physical or social risk, as the qualitative research points out.

There are, however, topics or ideas that youngsters deem would be worth to participate in a protest in order to assert. These include recovering rights deemed as violated (allowances, scholarships, salaries – i.e. it‟s worth protesting for re-establishing a correct rewarding of work, after the wage cuts implemented in 2010; the right to health, to education, etc.), alongside issues that have to do with the economic policies or combating corruption.

The quantitative research reveals that, with regard to civic involvement, protesters seem to be somewhat different from the other youngsters in their generation. Thus, youngsters who have participated in public protest actions in the past are more interested in politics, discuss political topics with the persons in their close group and, most likely, are members of some organisation. In addition, a young person who has chosen to assert his/her opinion publicly in the past is more inclined to using indirect forms of protest as well (filing applications/petitions with the local authorities, working with an organisation to solve problems in the community), and to deeming that there are things currently in Romania we should protest for. In other words, this young person is someone who believes in the effectiveness of a direct form of protest, but at the same time, without excluding other, less direct forms of expressing their opinion; in addition, he/she would also be available for involvement in protest actions of any kind in the future.

On the other hand, the youngster who has not participated in protest actions is characterised by low attachment to the civil society, thus displaying low confidence towards non-government organisations and, most likely, is not involved in any volunteering. He/she sees no use in expressing one‟s opinions through forms of public protest and does not deem that there are any things to protest against at the present time.

Leadership and Civic Involvement The qualitative research pointed out the significant role of a leader in the case of civic involvement actions in general and involvement in protest actions in particular.

45 The leader‟s portrait, as the youngsters describe it, includes prevailingly traits such as decisiveness, strength and charisma. The leader is necessarily a person of vision, capable of mutual aid and „directly touched by the problem‟ – which is the guarantee of his/her credibility.

*** Thus, with regard to creating a participatory political culture among youngsters, this research proves that there are two pillars available for support: confidence in non-government organisations, and internet socialising. We showed that there is a factor facilitating civic involvement, insufficiently exploited for the time being: intensification of socialisation on social-political topics within student organisations or other organisations. If members of these organisations will circulate political ideas among them in the future, this will create the premises for them to join efforts in supporting a joined political project.