scholarly journals Youth doing politics in times of increasing inequalities

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110427
Author(s):  
Maria Grasso ◽  
Marco Giugni

Particularly in the current context of rapid political change it is key to understand the political participation of young people and what underpins their political engagement patterns as well the as the inequalities that may lay beneath them. While there is a rich literature on youth participation, to date we have lacked the data to carry out detailed subgroup analyses to understand differences in the political participation between different groups of youth cross-nationally. The papers in this Special Issue all examine different aspects of youth participation in the current context. They examine key questions for participation including the inequalities, socialising influences, polarisation, online participation, radical political views, tolerance, life engagement and opportunities for social inclusion. This Special Issue thus provides a contemporary analysis of youth participation in Europe in the current historical juncture.

Author(s):  
Robert B. Talisse

Democracy is hard work. It can flourish only when citizens actively participate in the business of collective self-government. Yet political participation gives rise to deep political divides over core political values. In the midst of these divisions, citizens are required to recognize one another as political equals, as fellow participants who are entitled to an equal share of political power. Research shows that political engagement exposes citizens to forces that erode their capacities to regard their political opponents as their equals. In the course of democratic participation, we come to see our opponents as inept and ill-motivated, ultimately unfit for democracy. This tendency is especially pronounced among those who are the most politically active. Democratic citizenship thus can undermine itself. With this conflict at the heart of democratic citizenship, we must actively pursue justice while also treating those who embrace injustice as our equals. Sustaining Democracy navigates this conflict. It begins by exploring partisanship and polarization, the two mechanisms by which citizens come to regard their opponents as unsuited for democracy. It then proposes strategies by which citizens can mitigate these forces without dampening their political commitments. As it turns out, the same forces that lead us to scorn our opponents can also undermine and fracture our political alliances. If we are concerned to further justice, we need to uphold civil relations with our opponents, even when we despise their political views. If we want to preserve our political friendships, we must sustain democracy with our foes.


Author(s):  
Prashanth Pillay

Through in-depth interviews with all 10 youth representatives who worked in the Australian Youth Forum (AYF), Australia’s first online government youth forum, this article explains how online engagement was experienced and understood by those who managed its day-to-day operation. While the AYF was decommissioned in 2014, it was the first, and, till date, only online federal initiative that invited young people to run a government-funded youth public forum. Despite its relatively short existence, the AYF provokes questions about the influence of historically entrenched political values on online youth political participation and policy. Findings from this article have uncovered a series of challenges faced by youth in adjusting to government efforts to regulate consultation within the AYF. Building on Collin’s (2015, Young Citizens and Political Participation in a Digital Society: Addressing the Democratic Disconnect. London: Palgrave Macmillan.) observation of a ‘democratic disconnect’ in Australian youth policy, an incompatibility between government expectations of youth political involvement and how young people value participation, this article suggests that the AYF provided key insights into the centralized bureaucratic arrangements that have historically defined Australian youth participation and how they influence youth participatory experiences in online government initiatives.


Author(s):  
Melissa R. Gotlieb ◽  
Chris Wells

Young citizens are increasingly seeking fulfillment in expressive modes of political participation, and scholars have begun to examine the implications of this trend for engagement in formal politics. While some argue that expressive practices are “crowding out” participation in more conventional civic activities, others more optimistically contend that they have expanded the political repertoires of young citizens, affording them with more opportunities to be engaged. The authors add clarity to this debate by specifying the conditions under which engagement in one particular form of expressive politics, political consumerism, is associated with conventional participation. An analysis of survey data shows that identification with other political consumers significantly enhances the relationship between political consumerism and traditional political engagement, particularly among younger generations of Americans. The authors argue that engaging in political consumerism alongside others provides an important opportunity for young citizens to develop the civic competencies necessary for engagement in the formal political sphere.


Author(s):  
Jody C. Baumgartner

This chapter examines the relationship between the use of the Internet for campaign information and two dimensions of the political engagement of young adults. Drawing on data from a national survey of 18-24 year olds conducted online during the 2008 presidential campaign, it shows that the effect of Internet use for campaign information on political engagement among youth was marginal. While these young adults did take advantage of opportunities to participate on the Internet, reliance on the Internet for campaign information had no significant effect on knowledge about the campaign or more traditional types of political participation. Despite the promise the Internet holds for increasing political interest and participation, those youth who relied on the Internet as their primary source of campaign information did not seem any more inclined to participate in politics than others in their cohort.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINE BELL

Abstract:This article considers the relationship between constitutions and political settlements and locates the special issue articles within this wider discussion. The article points to the apparently paradoxical connection between disillusionment with internationalised state-building techniques on one hand, and increased international faith in constitution-making as a state-building tool on the other. Using understandings of the relationship of the constitution to political settlement which draws on conventional constitutional theory, it argues that the current context of negotiated transitions requires constitution-making to be approached with an eye to the distinctive dilemmas of statecraft that pertain in contemporary transitions. The most central dilemma concerns how power-balances between political/military elites can be broadened to ensure the constitution’s capacity to fulfil its normative role in restraining power and delivering broader social inclusion. The pieces which make up this special issue draw together development and legal discourses. This article suggests how constitutional theory provides a resource for those seeking to promote constitutionalism as a tool for reaching political settlements capable of resolving conflict. It also argues that those who seek to rely on constitutions for conflict resolution need to understand this enterprise as just as political and fraught as all other institution-building efforts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise I-fen Chung Guerrero

This Major Research Paper is a case study examining an act of civil disobedience at a Salvadoran community event which occurred in 2007 to explore the political participation, transnationlism and a sense of belonging for Salvadorans in Canada. Interviews were done with participants who attended the event as well as members of the community not present. The questions explored are: 1. Is political engagement a strong indicator of social relations within the community? 2. What do these social relations mean for the political participation of Salvadorans and how do these intersections affect their sense of belonging? and; 3. Do these dynamics affect a sense of identity for Salvadoran in Canada? Research data emphasized an understanding of politics as "party politics" among participants, embedded with socio-economic hierarchies which are transferred through generations. Other concepts emerging from the data highlight the political socialization of Salvadorans and the impact of the civil war.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Lorin W. Anderson

In this summary article, six recommendations for the design, implementation, and interpretation of educational evaluations are presented and discussed. These recommendations are based on common “threads” that run through most, if not all, of the papers included in this special issue. The recommendations concern (1) the need for awareness of the political, societal, cultural, and economic factors affecting evaluation studies; (2) the importance of knowing and understanding the stakeholder groups; (3) the need to ensure that the purposes of the evaluation are explicit and clear; (4) the importance of allowing flexibility in the implementation of the evaluation when needed to account for issues that arise during the evaluation process; (5) the need to ensure that the data gathered as part of the evaluation process are of the highest technical quality possible; and the (6) importance of ensuring that the results of the evaluation are interpreted correctly and well understood by stakeholders and decision makers.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faiswal Kasirye

<p>Today, internet memes have become a part of the political campaigning. This paper thus analyses how internet memes have been used as a medium to communicate political messages amongst millennials in Uganda. Parameters like political engagement, influence on political views and voting behavior are used to analyze the different political memes trending on social media platforms in Uganda under the framework of the elaboration of likelihood model of management.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise I-fen Chung Guerrero

This Major Research Paper is a case study examining an act of civil disobedience at a Salvadoran community event which occurred in 2007 to explore the political participation, transnationlism and a sense of belonging for Salvadorans in Canada. Interviews were done with participants who attended the event as well as members of the community not present. The questions explored are: 1. Is political engagement a strong indicator of social relations within the community? 2. What do these social relations mean for the political participation of Salvadorans and how do these intersections affect their sense of belonging? and; 3. Do these dynamics affect a sense of identity for Salvadoran in Canada? Research data emphasized an understanding of politics as "party politics" among participants, embedded with socio-economic hierarchies which are transferred through generations. Other concepts emerging from the data highlight the political socialization of Salvadorans and the impact of the civil war.


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