The article is based on a national survey conducted between January 26 and February 26, 2022 on a sample of 800 young people aged between 18 and 40 years. The research was conducted in a online and CATI system. The central objectives of the study were, on the one hand, the analysis of the value profile of young people in Romania at the end of a two-year period of pandemic crisis and the identification of perceptions on changes in Romanian society during this period. On the other hand, the research aimed to highlight the perspectives of democratic values in Romanian society and for this reason we chose a sample consisting exclusively of people under 40 years. We used in data processing two age categories: subjects between 18 and 29 years old (young people) and 30-40 years old (young adults). This classification aimed to make a comparative analysis of the value and attitudinal differentiations at the level of the studied population, with the objective to reveal the possible tendencies of the evolution of political culture in Romania. We took into account 22 value options, we analysed the level and profile of young people who express their confidence in 10 institutions, we also analysed the perceptions of young people regarding the severity of the pandemic crisis but also their opinions on the measures taken by the authorities in pandemic. The analysis on the mentioned age categories was also doubled on the categories: higher education and secondary education. We have proposed in the article a theoretical model of analysis that operates with two dichotomous classifications. On the one hand, I speak of declarative values (with a high desirable and symbolic value) and action values (contextualized at the level of concrete practices of individuals), and on the other hand of two levels of assumption of a democratic culture: the strong and the weak liberalism. I used an older thesis from an article I will refer in the paper to and which distinguishes between the weak liberal who is strong only in opposition to a state perceived as weak and the strong liberal who needs a strong state. The data show that young people do not allocate major importance to democratic values, compared to young adults. For example, only a third of those who value democracy are young and two thirds are young adults. The situation is similar for other values such as tolerance or the rule of law. But in relation to government practices and their assessment in concrete contexts, young people tend to be more balanced, appreciating democratic practices to a greater extent than young adults (e.g. renouncing to freedoms for safety, where young adults have a higher degree of acceptance, with twelve percentages). On the other hand, young people are more likely to want a weak state in terms of values such as: Authority of state institutions; The need for a strong state; The order and observance of laws or the rule of law, values at which the scores of young people are significantly higher than those of young adults. The analysis at the level of the two categories of education, higher and secondary education, reveals the major role of higher education in cultivating democratic culture, with the mention of a more pronounced realism in the analysis of Romanian social realities for this category. Finally, the study also shows a major distrust in Romanian political institutions as well as in political parties. For example, 62% of the sample do not have confidence (either „much” or „very much”) in any party. This situation is also given by the fact that most of the subjects do not position themselves ideologically, not even in a simple left-right paradigm. Only 31% of the sample can make a choice in this regard. The conclusions of the study may in some respects give a horizon of hope, but much of the data is meant to sound the alarm regarding the evolution of political culture in Romania.
Keywords:
values, political culture, democracy, rights, freedoms, pandemic, declarative values - action values, weak liberalism - strong liberalism, confidence in political institutions