Youth in the shadows: An urgent call for meaningful participation
For more than 2,400 years, “young people” have been a perennial cause for complaint. Socrates’ and Plato’s accusations are still topical because politicians and citizens all around the world are still blaming youth for their failure: The myth of youth disenchantment with politics is spreading – disregarding the fact that they are active citizens, just not in the same ways as previous generations were. Young people are expressing their opinions by demonstrating, protesting, volunteering in associations and via digital and social media.
But being active citizens in a democracy does not automatically lead to awareness about your point of view. Government decisions and legislation are made by politicians who are chosen by parties with an older membership and elected mostly by older voters. The demographic change is pushing young people into being a minority and less important for holding onto power and re-election. The so-called will of the voters is pure mysticism, because representation research has long known that interests are best represented by someone who belongs to the same demographic as themselves. Representation and participation, therefore, go hand in hand. The solution to this lack of representation and significance of young topics can be tackled by a more permeable political system and meaningful youth participation.
How can this be accomplished? When we look at other marginalized groups, in most democracies we have representatives, quotas and support programs to make sure that they are represented in legislative processes and promoted in the system. But in terms of the young generation, we consider them as being represented by academics, teachers or even their parents or think talking to them would be the same participation as talking with them. Young people themselves are experts on their topics, problems and solutions, but you rarely find them as experts in parliamentary hearings or at conference stages. We need meaningful youth participation in the political processes by lowering the voting age and reducing the hurdles for young candidates in parties to establish a balance between generations. We need to give youth organizations a seat at the tables of legislative procedures and hearings, and create room for discussions at eye-level with young people.
It’s not enough to emphasize in a Sunday speech that young people are the future and then getting back to business as usual on Monday. If political parties and decision-makers continue neglecting the young generation, they will be putting the strength of democracy itself at stake. If they fail to find smart and effective ways to integrate the youth, young men and women are likely to turn away from politics or seek recognition in the dangerous embracement of extreme political powers.
Nicole Kleeb is a project manager at Bertelsmann Stiftung, an independent think-tank based in Gutersloh, Germany. She will be speaking at the Athens Democracy Forum, October 1-3.
