The concept of ‘young radicals’ is gaining ground in a context of generalized discontent – often, this is due to the fact that young people engage increasingly in unconventional forms of political activism. Much less is known about young people holding radical political attitudes. This article advances our understanding of those young people who place themselves on the extremes of the ideological scale and investigates how those with radical right attitudes differ from those with radical left ones. Drawing on a survey that gathers data from nine European countries, with a sample of young people aged 18–35, we test those factors that have been used to explain why people use violent repertoires of action: social background, gender, political values, and prior experience in protest activism. The results relate ‘radicalness’ to experienced economic difficulties and the more contentious political activism. The difference between the young ‘radicals’ in right and left are, however, defined by gender and adherence to authoritarian values.

在普遍不满的背景下，“年轻激进分子”的概念正在普及–通常，这是由于年轻人越来越多地参与非常规形式的政治活动主义这一事实。对于年轻人持激进的政治态度所知甚少。本文将进一步了解那些将自己置于意识形态范围极端情况下的年轻人，并研究拥有激进右派态度的人与那些激进左派态度的人之间的区别。根据一项调查，该调查收集了来自9个欧洲国家的数据，并抽样了18-35岁的年轻人，我们测试了那些因素，这些因素已被用来解释人们为何使用暴力行为举动：社会背景，性别，政治价值观和抗议活动的先前经验。结果将“激进”与经历的经济困难和更具争议的政治行动主义联系起来。然而，左右的年轻“激进分子”之间的差异是由性别和对威权主义价值观的坚持来定义的。