scholarly journals Environmental activism as a new form of political participation of the youth in Serbia

Sociologija ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 387-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelisaveta Vukelic ◽  
Dragan Stanojevic
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Environmental Activism ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Form ◽  
Established Democracies

The aim of this paper is to explore whether the environmental activism is a new form of political participation of the Serbian youth. One of the characteristics of the postindustrial societies is a general citizen withdrawal from the traditional channels of political participation. Political disengagement is thought to characterize all citizens but most of all the young people. However, although young people may have turned away from mainstream politics, they are nevertheless concerned with a wide range of issues that could be considered political in a broader sense of the term. In the post-socialist Europe young people tend to be even less involved in political life than the youth in the established democracies. However, they are also likely to adopt novel forms of political expression. Whether the Serbian youth follow the same pattern of political involvement, we intend to explore in this article. In searching for the answer to this question, we will focus our analysis on the environmental activism, as one of the forms of the new political engagement widely accepted among young people.

Online youth political engagement and bureaucratization: The Australian Youth Forum

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 767-781
Author(s):  
Prashanth Pillay
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Youth Participation ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Youth Policy ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Digital Society ◽  
Online Engagement ◽  
Depth Interviews

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.

Behind the Popular Narrative: Negotiating Life and Political Engagement in Conflicted Kashmir

2021 ◽  
pp. 232102302110430
Author(s):  
Wahid Ahmad Dar
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The State ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Popular Narrative ◽  
Political Actions

The article focuses on the subaltern system of micro appropriations or Jugaads used by young Kashmiris to survive within precarious situations inflicted due to armed conflict. More particularly, it argues that such Jugaads are invoked by the subaltern consciousness of Tehreeq-e-Azadi, which offers space for not just the negotiation with the state but also the creative improvisation of daily political actions. It is illustrated that young people’s political participation is entangled with the attempts to overcome the uncertainty around their lives, thereby offering them pragmatic solutions in advancing their interests. It is further elaborated that the existing polarization between separatism and mainstream is obscure at the experiential level, living within precarious situations has taught young people to silently craft possibilities of a good life without looking confrontational to either side. The article argues that localized forms of engagement are crucial for a comprehensive understanding of how modern states operate.

Gender inequalities in political participation and political engagement among young people in Europe: Are young women less politically engaged than young men?

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Grasso ◽  
Katherine Smith
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Political Inequality ◽  
Political News ◽  
Current State ◽  
Detailed Picture

This paper contributes to the literature by examining gender inequalities in political participation and political engagement among young people from a comparative perspective. By analyzing data on young people from nine European countries collected in 2018, we examine gender inequalities in participation in various modes of conventional and unconventional activism as well as related attitudes, broader political engagement and key determinants, cross-nationally, in order to provide a detailed picture of the current state of gender inequalities in political activism among young people in Europe. Our results allow us to speak to extant theorizing about gender inequalities by showing that the extent of political inequality between young men and women is less marked than one might expect. While the gender gaps in political participation for activities such as confrontational types of protest are small or absent, we find that young women are actually more active in petitioning, buycotting, and volunteering in the community. Young men instead are more active than young women in a majority of the nine countries analysed with respect to more institutional forms of participation linked to organizations and parties, various types of online political participation, and broader political engagement measures, such as internal political efficacy and consumption of political news through various channels. However, young men also appear to be more sceptical at least of certain aspects of democratic practice relative to young women.

scholarly journals Information literacy as a tool to support political participation

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (123) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren N Smith
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Information Literacy ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Information Provision ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
School Libraries ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Potential Tool

Recent political events have raised the profile of information literacy as a potential tool for supporting informed political participation. This article emphasises the importance of supporting political engagement through information provision and information literacy development, drawing on findings from two research projects to discuss what information needs young people have in relation to political engagement and identify some examples of work taking place in Scottish school libraries to help young people develop political knowledge and feel able to participate meaningfully in democratic processes. Some of the main barriers to libraries engaging with this work are also discussed.

scholarly journals Intra-generational inequalities in young people’s political participation in Europe: The impact of social class on youth political engagement

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110317
Author(s):  
Maria Grasso ◽  
Marco Giugni
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Class Background ◽  
National Perspective ◽  
Europe Today ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

The declining political engagement of youth is a concern in many European democracies. However, young people are also spearheading protest movements cross-nationally. While there has been research on political inequalities between generations or inter-generational differences, research looking at differences within youth itself, or inequalities between young people from different social backgrounds, particularly from a cross-national perspective, is rare. In this article, we aim to fill this gap in the literature. Using survey data from 2018 on young people aged 18–34 years, we analyse how social class background differentiates groups of young people in their political engagement and activism across nine European countries. We look at social differentiation by social class background for both political participation in a wide variety of political activities including conventional, unconventional, community and online forms of political participation, and at attitudes linked to broader political engagement, to paint a detailed picture of extant inequalities amongst young people from a cross-national perspective. The results clearly show that major class inequalities exist in political participation and broader political engagement among young people across Europe today.

scholarly journals Young People and Political Participation: An Analysis of European Union Policies

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Young Women ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Face ◽  
Political Act

There is now widespread recognition that, far from being politically apathetic, young people across Europe are engaged in a wide range of ‘political’ activities. While turnout at national and European elections among the 18-25 age group may be low, researchers have highlighted diverse and creative new forms of political participation. In relation to young women, in particular, Harris (2005) has presented a compelling analysis of the new ‘borderspaces’ opened up between public and private domains by young women through the use of new technologies. She contends that in the face of greater surveillance and regulation brought about by the shift to neo-liberal forms of governmentality, carving out a protected space for oneself is a political act, in itself. Moreover, the creative ways in which young women across the world use such spaces – to question dominant narratives about the nature of contemporary girlhood, to resist discourses which construct young women as merely passive consumers, and to trouble conventional notions of ‘youth participation’ – are highly political. Some EU representatives have indicated an awareness of these new forms of engagement and professed a desire to develop links between them and more traditional forms of party politics and policy making (Hoskins, 2005). Nevertheless, the degree to which these sentiments have been translated into policy remains unclear. This article draws on recent documents on young people, citizenship and political participation to assess the extent to which these new spaces of young women's politics are, firstly, recognised and, secondly, valued within EU policy.

scholarly journals Young People’s Political Participation in Malaysia During the 1998 Reformasi Era

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norhafiza Mohd Hed
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Young People ◽  
New Media ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Socioeconomic Factors ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Regional Trend

This article examines the dynamics of young people’s political participation in Malaysia during the 1998 Reformasi era by focusing its analyses on the patterns of participation and the impacts of the 1998 Reformasi and the 1999 general election on young people’s political engagement.  By using content analysis of secondary data, the findings show that the 1998 Reformasi marked as a turning point that changed political engagement of young people from politically indifferent or disconnected generation to politically engaged citizens, whether in the forms of conventional politics (i.e. voting) or unconventional politics (i.e. protest activism and social movements) whilst failed to replace the existing ruling regime.  This change was closely related to the regional trend, socioeconomic factors and the new media.

scholarly journals Whither slacktivism? Political engagement and social media use in the 2013 Czech Parliamentary elections

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Václav Štětka ◽  
Jaromír Mazák
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the relationship between online political expression and offline forms of political participation in the context of the 2013 Czech Parliamentary elections. It draws on the rapidly growing but still very much inconclusive empirical evidence concerning the use of new media and social network sites in particular for electoral mobilization and social activism, and their impact on more traditional forms of civic and political engagement. The theoretical framework of the paper is inspired by the competing perspectives on the role of social media for democratic participation and civic engagement, the mobilization vs. normalization thesis, as well as by the popular concepts of clicktivism or slacktivism (Morozov, 2009), denouncing online activism for allegedly not being complemented by offline actions and having little or no impact on real-life political processes. With the intention to empirically contribute to these discussions, this study uses data from a cross-sectional survey on a representative sample of the Czech adult population (N=1,653) which was conducted directly following the 2013 Parliamentary elections. The study was driven by the main research question: Is there a link between online political expression during the election campaign and traditional forms of political participation among Czech Facebook users? Furthermore, the analysis examined the relationship between online political participation and a declared political interest, electoral participation and political news consumption. The results obtained from an ordinal logistic regression analysis confirm the existence of a significant positive relationship between the respondents’ level of campaign engagement on Facebook and their political interest, political information seeking as well as traditional (mainly offline) participation activities, including voting.

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