A Young Revolutionary? The Level of Radicalism as a Factor Determining Ukrainian Youth's Mood to Protest

A turbulent history somehow forced Ukraine to abandon the standard social progress, characteristic of other post-soviet countries in the region, at the expense of rapid, significant changes, with a possible cyclical nature. It is unquestionably associated with numerous protests and "revolutions" in which young people (students) often participate, at least in their early stages. Chiefly students were the "flywheel" of the most important political and social events in Ukraine, since the beginning of its independence in 1991. That is why the author considers as important to analyze why young people in Ukraine are the most active social group, and why they are catalysts for sociopolitical change in the country. In this article, the author tried to answer two questions of (1) whether the level of radicalization of Ukrainian youth (students) affects their attitude to participation in long-term protests, and (2) whether students are ready to participate in long-term manifestations and protests (revolutions). In the theoretical section of the article, the author analyzes the older and recent available, mostly western, literature on theories of revolution. In the following section, he describes the research methodology that allowed conducting the research in Ukraine to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. For quantitative data, the author surveyed 1,043 respondents in 14 academic centers (which, due to the methodology, can be qualified as representative results for Ukrainian students). For qualitative data, the author conducted in-depth interviews with 16 active students. In both cases, the author took into account the important geographical aspect (to cover all parts of the country). In the third section, the author presents the research results that are related to the answers to the research questions. In light of the data, the author states that it is difficult to talk about excessive radicalism of Ukrainian youth, although the level of very radical youth is relatively high. He also notes that the scale of radicalism does not significantly affect the students' tendency to prolonged protests. It is indicative, however, that moderate-minded youth are more likely to participate in long-term protests. This result is practically the opposite of the popular opinion that it is radical youth who are willing to protest predominantly. The young students' tendency to protest may probably be the result of their mentality (part of their political culture). The conclusions of the article may have a significant impact in the discussion of the readiness of Ukrainian youth to protest rooted in their historically "inherited" mentality, not in their political radicalization, as commonly thought.

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