Being Political: Polish Youth and Democratic Practice

Abstract

This paper confronts questions of political identity raised by the transition to democracy in Poland by focusing on university students in the late 1990s. These youth have constructed a shared identity that is defined by political competence derived through international experience. These students also define their political identity in terms of their differences from earlier generations. I explore the process of political identity construction by looking at representations — images created by these students and about these students - which are used as mechanisms for both communicating and constructing shared identity. While much work has been done that examines the format and structure of the evolving political organizations in Central Europe, my research provides a micro-level analysis of one important, but too often overlooked, aspect of this transition: the relationships that individuals involved in this transition establish between themselves, the state and their fellow citizens.