Young Spaniards, parties and democracy: what the data says, read through Hirschman's exit and voice

The first problem Miriam González named at the launch of Democracia 21 on 10 October was this one: young people have come to loathe the parties, and some have started to doubt democracy itself. It is a strong claim. The data mostly bear it out, with one nuance that matters for what to do about it.

What the surveys say

The best recent figures come from the CIS, Spain's public polling institute, which ran a survey on the quality of democracy in April 2025 with 4,010 interviews. Overall, 79.2% of Spaniards preferred democracy to any other form of government. Among 18–24-year-olds the figure was 72.6%, the lowest of any age group, and among 25–34-year-olds it was 68.1%. Asked whether an authoritarian government can be preferable in some circumstances, 17.3% of the youngest group and 17.4% of the next one agreed, the highest shares of any age.

The trend is what stands out. In 2009, according to CIS figures that Vozpópuli recalled earlier this year, only 6.8% of under-25s chose the authoritarian option, and 8.2% of those aged 25–34. In sixteen years, the share of young Spaniards open to authoritarian rule has more than doubled.

The Fundación SM's Jóvenes Españoles 2026 study, which surveyed more than 5,000 people aged 15 to 29, adds the texture. It finds 68% of young people dissatisfied with how democracy works. The EFE summary of the report puts it carefully: young people show no lack of interest in politics, and they show a growing distrust of how the democratic system functions. A third of them have signed petitions, joined demonstrations or campaigned on social media.

The parties carry a large share of the blame in public opinion generally. In the Eurobarometer of winter 2023, 90% of Spaniards said they distrusted political parties, against an EU average of 75%. Yet the same CIS survey that found young people wavering also found that 76.1% of Spaniards agree there can be no democracy without political parties. People are rejecting how the parties behave. Most still accept that democracy needs them.

Hirschman's lens

Albert O. Hirschman's Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, published by Harvard University Press in 1970, is the most useful short book for thinking about this. Hirschman asked how members of any organisation, a firm, a party or a state, respond when it declines. They have two options. They can exit: switch brands, leave the party, emigrate, stop voting. Or they can use voice: complain, protest, organise, push for change from inside. Loyalty slows exit and gives voice time to work.

The insight that matters here is that the two interact. When voice is slow, costly or ignored, people exit. Exit from democratic politics can take several forms. Young Spaniards can abstain, emigrate, or turn to a strongman who promises to sweep the whole system away. The rise in openness to authoritarian rule looks like a cry of frustration from people who feel their voice is useless and want someone to break the machinery.

The Fundación Rafael del Pino's summary of González's ideas states the message young people receive in her view: closeness to a party weighs more than talent and effort. Hirschman would add that this message destroys loyalty. Once people believe that the institution rewards connections, staying and speaking up looks naive.

A radical-centre response

The left has a strong point. Young people's disaffection has material roots: rents, insecure jobs and wages that make a life plan hard. Democracy that fails to deliver a home and a career loses the young, and fixing those things is part of the answer. We will deal with housing in week 3 and social mobility in week 4.

The right and the market-liberal tradition have a strong point too. Effort and merit should open doors, and every privilege that party connections buy is a lesson in cynicism. Cutting political appointments and opening public careers to open competition, as we argue in today's piece on clientelism, is a message to the young that the system will judge them on what they do.

Hirschman supplies the third idea, which belongs to neither camp: design for voice. If young people have a cheap, fast way to be heard, and they can see it change outcomes, fewer of them will choose exit. In practice that means a few concrete things. A citizens' petition that reaches a set number of signatures should get a hearing in parliament and a reasoned reply within a fixed time. Every citizens' assembly that Spain convenes should guarantee seats for under-30s, drawn by lot. Every member of parliament should answer to an identifiable group of voters, which leads to the electoral reform we will discuss this week. And every institution that young people deal with, from universities to employment services, should publish what it did with their complaints.

The surveys show a generation that is dissatisfied, active and still mostly democratic. That is Hirschman's voice, waiting to be used. The task for Spain's institutions is to answer it before it turns into exit.