From potential to action: youth engagement in political parties

Abstract Studies on political engagement, like Fillieule’s, Oliveira’s and others, recommend that the understanding of such processes must be based on diachronic and synchronic analyses, combining (i) the construction of lasting dispositions to engage with (ii) the recognition of social networking and (iii) the experiences that allow for the transformation of such provisions into effective engagement. This article explores such aspects of the constitution of the youth engagement phenomenon through the analysis of narrative interviews conducted with 21 young students from Rio de Janeiro, all of whom are political party activists. The analysis allowed us to identify links between dispositions built along their personal and familial trajectories, through various educational processes, and the social networks and events that triggered such dispositions transforming them into effective political activism.