As part of the ongoing, topical cooperation between the Embassy of Austria with specialized research centers in the United States, the issue of millennials in politics was discussed during a public lecture by Dr. Hannes Richter on March 12, 2019, at the University of New Orleans’ Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies (Center Austria).
With faculty and graduate students: From left: Professor Marc Landry (Associate Director, Center Austria), Research Professor Emeritus Charles D. Hadley (political science), Professor Robert Dupont (history), Dr. Hannes Richter (Embassy of Austria), Professor Günter Bischof (Director, Center Austria), Vicko Marelic
(Austrian Federal Ministry for Science, Research & Economics Fellow), Raphaela Fischnaller (Center Austria Fellow) Irina Pavlovic (Nick Mueller Fellow), Gertraud Griessner (Project Manager, Center Austria).
Millennials as a group are significant in today’s political environment for several reasons: they have been on the forefront of the ongoing, seismic transformation of political communication; they exhibit distinct policy preferences that differ significantly from other age cohorts in the electorate and they are a substantial force in today’s competitive electoral environment. At the same time, and perhaps counterintuitively, millennials on both sides of the Atlantic also exhibit declining levels of support for liberal democracy in general. The talk took a comparative approach in investigating this block of voters and their unique features based on the latest data from the United States and Austria – the first country to elect a millennial as its head of government.
The talk was by invitation of the Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies and its director, Professor Günter Bischof, who have been valued partners in the ongoing investigation of issues relevant to the contemporary Austrian-American dialogue, ranging from historical questions to political science.
Hannes Richter is the deputy director of the Austrian Press and Information Service and has been a senior research fellow with the Center.