20.500.12556/RUL-190931 A Reflection on young people’s understanding of politics and political orientation in Slovenia in the era of neoliberal rationality Refleksija razumevanja politike in politične orientacije mladih v Sloveniji v času neoliberalne racionalnosti The article examines media and research accounts of alleged turn to the right among young people in Slovenia. Rather than treating this shift in moral terms as evidence of an inadequate understanding of politics, research with young people is drawn on to analyse how different groups understand politics and how they position themselves on the left– right spectrum. Using a Foucauldian analytics of government, young activists are shown to understand politics in systemic terms, and through a critique of the neoliberal order, young politicians chiefly in institutional terms and within the existing neoliberal rationality, and apolitical young people on the individual level, through ideals of the good life. While their left–right positioning does not indicate an unequivocal turn to the right among young people, it does show differences in their political and social engagement. We understand young people’s political orientations as situated processes of subjectivation within neoliberal relations of power, thereby moving the discussion from moralising judgements towards analysis of the conditions that produce these orientations. Članek obravnava medijske in raziskovalne ugotovitve o domnevnem obratu mladih v desno v Sloveniji. Namesto moralnih sodb, da ta obrat izraža pomanjkljivo razumevanje politike, prek raziskovanja z mladimi analiziramo, kako različne skupine mladih razumejo politiko in svojo levo-desno orientacijo. S foucaultovsko analitiko oblasti pokažemo, da mladi aktivisti politiko razumejo sistemsko in kot kritiko neoliberalne ureditve, mladi politiki institucionalno znotraj obstoječe neoliberalne racionalnosti, apolitični mladi pa individualno, skozi ideale dobrega življenja. Njihova levo-desne usmeritve ne potrjujejo enoznačnega obrata mladih v desno, temveč kažejo razlike glede na politično in družbeno angažiranost. Politične orientacije mladih razumemo kot situirane procese subjektivacije znotraj neoliberalnih razmerij moči, razpravo pa od moraliziranja preusmerjamo k analizi razmer, v katerih te orientacije nastajajo. youth perception of politics ideals political orientation left– right analytics of government age and politics political culture sociology of elections political participation of young people Slovenia mladina percepcije politike ideali politična orientacija levo-desno analitika oblasti starost in politika politična kultura sociologija volitev politična participacija mladi Slovenija true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-11-07 18:38:26 2026-11-07 18:38:34 2026-11-08 04:05:45 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 Str. 609-635 št. 3 Letn. 63 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 2026-10-28 316.62:324(497.4) 0040-3598 10.51936/tip.63.3.609 304326403 RAZ_Pusnik_Tomaz_2026.pdf RAZ_Pusnik_Tomaz_2026.pdf 1 0ADDF37327D168C555A9B2CB0AE66984 0b4982b9c0402990a781b8d64d7c831b1afc0a9302a610fbd6ff9be3f0690a72 1f5417f8-dad2-11f1-aea2-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=252747 https://www.fdv.uni-lj.si/revije/znanstvene-revije/teorija-in-praksa/iz-vsebine/teorija-in-praksa-3-2026 Članek v reviji 1 20b33341-dad2-11f1-aea2-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=252748 Fakulteta za družbene vede 0 0 0