Political Attitudes Of Contemporary German Youth(2010-2019):A Perspective Of Theory Of Generations

In the 21st century,many issues appear to be crucial part of international politics,including climate change and environmental management,regionalism and regional integration,transnational immigration and refugees,etc.Therefore,Germany,due to its significant status in the European Union,also plays a key role in global arena.In this context,contemporary German youth generation also tends to focus more on international affairs.Because they often hold different opinions with older generations in politic,political attitudes of contemporary German youth have become an important element influencing German foreign policies.Hence,political attitudes of contemporary German youth have become significant research topics as well.Core issues explored in this thesis are,contents of political attitudes of contemporary German youth,origins and significances of their political attitudes.This thesis aims at revealing relatively unanimous political attitudes of contemporary German youth generation,which consists of four parts:political interest and political engagement of German youth,attitudes towards German democratic political system,attitudes towards crucial global issues significant both to Germany and the world,including environment protection and climate governance,European Union and European integration,and attitudes towards immigration policy and immigrants integration,etc.Through analysis on contents and origins of contemporary German youth's political attitudes,we could then infer future development of German political system according to youth's satisfaction level,and also assume future policy changes in German society in dealing with important political affairs both domestically and internationally.Main conclusions of this thesis are as below.Today's young generation in Germany commonly hold positive attitudes towards the future.Considering political attitudes towards concrete issues,they are more tolerant,more liberal and more involved into the world.It seems that political attitudes of German youth as a whole are in favour of the sound development of liberal democracy in German society.Contemporary German youth are increasingly interested in politics.Young people recognize national democracy and nomocracy while criticize party system and party politics.In areas of concrete political issues,young people commonly consider environment protection and climate governance as their primary interest,approve the European Union and its development,mostly hold tolerant attitudes towards immigrant despite of split attitudes.In this thesis,Theory of generations coming from sociology is introduced into political research.Theory of generations was epitomized and explicitly interpreted by German Sociologist Karl Mannheim,which helps not only to explain why a generation forms and the rule of generation changes,but also contributes to analyzing functions of generation and generation changes in social changes.Even if the definition of youth is firstly based on age as biological factor,social and historical elements are decisive in forming relatively unanimous political attitudes among youth cohorts and divergent political attitudes with older generations.Age alone could hardly explain distinguished features of contemporary youth's political attitudes and political interactions between youth and people of older ages.In the Generation theory,however,people of different generations are regarded as different social forces,youth generations are hence usually regarded as driving forces for social conflicts and social changes.Besides,interpretations in Theory of generations on origins of different generations,intergenerational relations,generation changes and social changes are primarily historical.Similar historical experiences and similar destiny participation in youth stage could overwhelming shape features of one generation,promoting relatively unanimous political attitudes and concept of values.Hereafter,by means of Theory of generations,origins of contemporary German youth's political attitudes will be interpreted,mainly from the aspects of important international affairs,German domestic significant historical events,features of German social milieu and political education towards German youth.At last,in accordance to intergenerational relations discussed in Theory of generations,inheritance and breakthrough of political attitudes held by previous generations are explored as well.It is thus possible to infer future development of German society,as well as the possibility of social changes promoted by political attitudes of contemporary young generation.