The Influence of Serbian Mothers on Political Elections in Serbia
It is important to remember: All adult citizens are participants in elections whether they vote or not. Science says: the concept of electoral behavior encompasses electoral participation, or electoral abstention, and electoral orientation. Electoral participation represents an individual’s decision to either go to the polls or not, while electoral orientation is related to the voter’s decision to vote for one party or another in the elections. Individual behavior depends on two types of factors: personal – traits and characteristics of the individual, and situational – influenced by the broader social and political context. For example, a personal factor might be party affiliation. Around the world, members of political parties generally regularly participate in elections. A situational factor might be a political party’s decision to abstain from elections, in which case its members, despite being politically inclined, also abstain and become political abstainers.
Zoran Pavlović in his work Predictors of Electoral Abstention among Youth in Serbia analyzes the significance of factors influencing young people’s electoral abstention. The results indicate that the most important factors are party identification, political interest, formal activism (membership in organizations), and the educational level of the mother. The likelihood of an unaligned young person being in the group of abstainers is 3.6 times higher compared to those who are party-identified. The chances of electoral abstention increase with a decrease in political interest and formal activism, as well as with a rise in the mother’s educational level.
Classical theories described electoral abstainers as younger individuals, predominantly female, homemakers or unemployed, residents of urban areas, with lower levels of education and lower material income. They are also characterized by a lack of identification with political parties and a disinterest in politics and political issues.
Unlike classical theories, research conducted among high school students in Belgrade has yielded opposite results. Specifically, male students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds who are enrolled in civic education are not more inclined to participate in elections than female students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are enrolled in religious studies.
The educational level of the mother influences electoral abstention. When other factors are controlled, the likelihood of political abstention among youths increases with the mother’s educational level. The social status and education of the father do not affect young people’s electoral abstention. The authors of the research themselves acknowledge that this data is difficult to interpret and requires further analysis. Although not yet fully clear, the impact of mothers on Serbian politics is evident.
Young people between the ages of 18 and 30 have long constituted the population with the highest number of abstainers. Political parties have spent decades trying to motivate these voters to go to the polls and vote for them. If mothers are indeed the solution to this problem, political parties will need to pay special attention to the interests of mothers in the future.
In the previous elections, there was a slogan from one political party: “For Our Children.” Is this a marketing attempt to specifically target mothers, who could influence their children to go out and vote?
In the long term, a political party that builds its policy on stable family values, investments in education and healthcare, and employment for young people would have a chance to gain the support of the most influential political demographic in Serbia—mothers. In this way, it would also impact the youth between 18 and 30 years old—a goldmine for political parties.
JASNA MILOŠEVIĆ
Institute for Political Studies, Belgrade
PSYCHOLOGY, 1999, 3-4, 1997/1998
Zoran Pavlović
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, 2013, Vol. 6(1), pp. 5-21