Self-determination theory and the role of political interest in adolescents' sociopolitical development

In this study we adopted an agentic perspective and used self-determination theory to analyze the role of political interest in youth’s sociopolitical development. Inspired by this theoretical framework, we identified indicators of the needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence within the political sphere. We followed two age cohorts (Swedish 13- and 16-year-olds) over one year, with a total of 1,992 adolescents, who are at a crucial age for sociopolitical development. Results from autoregressive structural cross-lagged models indicated that political interest predicted significant increases in autonomy, relatedness, and competence over one year, but that these psychological needs did not predict a change in political interest over the same time period. The findings speak in favor of an agentic perspective, suggesting that political interest can serve as a basis for youth’s political development.