I have been invited to speak in Spain on “youth alienation from politics” this June. I have no doubt that if you ask young people in any of the wealthy democracies what they think of politics, you will get negative responses. But the question remains whether that is a special phenomenon of youth in the present moment, of youth at all times, or of all people in the present moment.

The European Social Survey asks respondents whether they trust politicians. Respondents are offered a 10-point scale, and after some experimentation, I have divided the subjects into those who gave scores between 0-5 and those who said 6-10. The available data come from even-numbered years between 2002 and 2012:

Note, first, that not many people rate politicians 6 or higher on a 10-point scale. That is not exactly startling news. Second, all age groups were more positive in 2002, less so by 2010, and somewhat more trusting again in 2012. Finally, the four major age groups show the same trends. If you wanted to identify a generational difference, you might note that seniors lost less trust between 2002 and 2004–possibly buffered from the recession by national retirement programs. The young are currently the most trusting, albeit not by much.

This graph is evidence that there isn’t really a phenomenon of youth distrust in politics in Europe. The distrust is shared. That said, I should note two caveats. First, the span of years shown above is short; it would be interesting to know how a similar question would have been answered in 1988 or 1966. Second, I didn’t track the same birth cohorts over time. People aged 14-29 in 2002 were 24-39 a decade later. It is conceivable that tracking birth cohorts would reveal a significant difference between those born in 1982 versus 1992–but that seems unlikely given the lack of a relationship between age and trust.

China: Xi Jinping is “a president who has ruthlessly centralised power while embarking on an ambitious project to revitalise Communist rule and to secure the party’s future. … One of his major themes is a war on ‘western values’, including a free press, democracy and the constitutional separation of powers, all of which he believes pose an insidious threat to one-party rule. … Xi considers himself the antithesis of the ‘weak man’ who turned out the light on the Soviet empire.”

India:  A “cult of personality is slowly building around” Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “No surprise, then, that he rules firmly. … Many fear that unchallenged by a weakened opposition, Mr Modi will help turn the world’s largest – and most diverse – democracy into a Hindu nationalist state. There’s trepidation over a lack of tolerance among many of Mr Modi’s supporters, particularly on social media, to any criticism.”

Russia: “The elevation of Mr Putin as a father of the nation, a man who may be elected in a nominal political process but is in fact apart from and above politics, is a symptom of Russia’s ‘deep demodernising trend’, according to Andrei Zorin, a historian at Oxford University.”

Turkey: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip “Erdogan’s achievements are now shadowed by his undeniable lurch toward autocracy. Over the last year, he has initiated a harsh crackdown against peaceful protesters, political opponents, and independent media outlets.”

This is a radically incomplete list, but it includes the leaders of countries with nearly 3 billion subjects and great international influence. How profoundly disappointing that the ascendant ideology of the 1930s should again confront us.

Of course, the momentum in the direction of macho, nationalist, centralizing authoritarianism is not unstoppable. This trend is of fairly short duration–so far–and could still be checked. The question is whether we can develop a sufficiently cohesive, energetic, optimistic, and truly global democratic movement to resist it.

See also: postcolonial reaction;  why is oligarchy everywhere? and why is oligarchy everywhere? (part 2).