Political Leadership and Democratic Governance from the Perspective of Slovak Youth

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the modern trends of political leadership in relation to young generation in Slovakia as interpreted by the results from international collaborative research project. The author tries to address the issues of trust, attitudes and challenges within democratic governance and political leadership in contemporary political and social agenda in the specific case study of Slovakia. First, we use the theoretical approaches to understand political leadership in context and then we apply the qualitative analysis of individual interviews with respondents in two field sites in Slovakia to link the issues of democratic governance and political leadership. Finally, using the survey data and quantitative statistical analysis we measure the political trust and attitudes of young people toward politicians and social organizations. This paper confirms the relatively large negative positions of young people to their political interest, trust, attitudes to political elites and practical democratic performance.