The Social Representations of Politics and Political Action among Young Moroccan Leaders.

Abstract

Through this paper, we tackle the issue of young activist‟s representations toward politics and political action. We argue that there exist two kinds of social representations, the first is related to the ethical view toward politics and political action; this means that young political activists are socialized with the ethical norms of politics and the best-shared ways to practice it through the political structure in which they belong to. The second social representation is looking at politics and political action in a different way; this means that instead of seeing political action as a way of sharing norms and values, it becomes as a tool for social promotion and job-seeking through the social capital that the political structure offers to young political activists. Finally, we argue that these findings are the results of the social representations which are dominating in the political structure. This explains the total conformity between young perceptions about politics, political action and the dominant social representations that young political activists are socialized within their political structure.