Youth Participation in Democratic Life

Youth Participation in Democratic Life

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Youth Participation in Democratic Life Stories of Hope and Disillusion Bart Cammaerts, Michael Bruter, Shakuntala Banaji, Sarah Harrison and Nick Anstead London School of Economics and Political Science, UK

Bart Cammaerts, Michael Bruter, Shakuntala Banaji, Sarah Harrison, Nick Anstead 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-54020-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-58140-5 ISBN 978-1-137-54021-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137540218 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Contents List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements vi viii x 1 Introduction: The Challenge of Youth Participation 1 2 Youth Participation: Theoretical Positioning and Methodology 17 3 Participation of Youth in Elections: Beyond Youth Apathy 49 4 Youth Participation in European Policymaking: Representation and Limits to Participation 83 5 Youth Participation Beyond Voting: Volunteering and Contestation 105 6 Participation of Youth In and Through Media: Traditional and New Media 133 7 Youth Participation and Exclusion: Towards Equal Treatment in Public Space, Education and the Workplace 167 8 Concluding Thoughts and Tribulations 197 Notes 215 References 217 Index 233

List of Tables 2.1 The sample 33 2.2 Experiment invited participants by country and percentage completing questionnaire 36 2.3 Stakeholder interviewees per country 43 3.1 Perceptions of democracy for under and over 18 years old young citizens (in %) 55 3.2 The memory of elections (in %) 60 3.3 Why young people vote in the first election when they are eligible to (in %) 62 3.4 Why young people fail to go to vote in the first election when they are eligible to (in %) 62 3.5 How young people feel when they do (or do not) go to vote (in %) 64 3.6 Evaluation of possible youth participation boosters under 18 (N = 2721) 72 3.7 Evaluation of possible youth participation boosters 18 30 (N = 4480) 73 3.8 Actual turnout by campaign type (in %) 77 3.9 Likeliness to hesitate on whom to vote for (in %) 78 5.1 Modes of participation experienced at least once by young citizens (in %) 109 5.2 Ranking of modes of participation in terms of efficiency, democratic quality and preference (N = 7,201) (in %) 111 5.3 Percentage of 15- to 30-year-olds participating in civic and political organisations (N = 12,927) 112 5.4 Modes of participation in which respondents expect to participate in the future (in %) 113 vi

List of Tables vii 5.5 Percentage of youth engaged with volunteering or donations (in %) 117 5.6 Top five forms of active non-electoral political participation (i.e. excluding voting in political elections, discussing politics and keeping up with current affairs) reported in the seven countries studied 119 5.7 Types of involvement of young people across the focus groups 121 6.1 Children s digital literacy and safety skills (in %) 152 6.2 Internet activities as a percentage of individuals who used the internet in the past three months by age group (in %) 153 6.3 Social media use in 7 EU countries (aggregated N = 7,201) (in %) 155 6.4 Actual turnout by campaign type (N = 625) (in %) 161 6.5 Campaign perceptions 161 6.6 Perceptions of candidates 162 7.1 Percentage of young people aged between 18 and 24 not in employment and not in any education or training 175 7.2 Focus group comparison by category and country of political issues which most concern young people 180 7.3 Relationship between forms of participation and family income 190

List of Figures 3.1 Differential turnout between young people and other citizens 50 3.2 Differences in levels of interest in politics, efficacy and perceived responsibilities of political cynicism between pre-voting and post-voting young citizens 56 3.3 Effect of early memory of parents taking young people to the polling station on future likeliness to vote 61 3.4 Emotions associated with voting, debating on Facebook and demonstrating 64 3.5 Emotions associated with traditional and electronic voting experiences 78 3.6 Percentage preferred voting mode by actual vote (voters/non-voters) 79 3.7 Percentage preferred voting mode by experimental vote organisation (polling station/e-vote) 80 5.1 Perceived effectiveness of confrontational and non-confrontational modes of participation before and after reaching voting age 110 5.2 Evolution of four key forms of political involvement by age group 115 5.3 Engagement in voluntary activities of 15- to 30-year-olds 117 6.1 Percentage of citizens never following politics through the media 138 6.2 Reading or downloading online newspapers 139 6.3 Degree of distrust of the press in the EU 140 6.4 Internet access in the last three months 149 6.5 Percentage difference in access to the internet of poor young people compared to all young people of the same age category 150 viii

List of Figures ix 6.6 Posting messages to social media sites or instant messaging 154 6.7 Groups that young people spoke to about the election 163 7.1 Youth unemployment in Europe 179 7.2 Percentage of young people aged between 16 and 24 at risk of poverty 181 7.3 Percentage of young people aged between 18 and 24 at risk of poverty and in employment 181 7.4 Percentage difference aged between 18 and 24 and between 25 and 54 at risk of poverty and in employment 182 7.5 Percentage of early school leavers across Europe 185

Acknowledgements We would like to thank first and foremost our country-based researchers, Itir Akdogan (Finland), Eri Bertsou and Maria Pini (UK), Anna Clua (Spain), Melanie Pichler and Magdalena Schmidberger (Austria), Emmanuelle Reungoat (France) and Judit Szakacs (Hungary). They did an amazing job helping us out with data collection, conducting interviews with the stakeholders, and recruiting for and running the focus groups in the different countries, as well as conducting the e-voting and social media campaigning experiments. Their efforts are greatly appreciated and contributed to a large extent to the success of the research project and to the writing of this book. We would also like to extend our gratitude to all the study participants, including the many respondents to the survey, those who participated in the various focus groups and who gave us their different perspectives, the students who participated in the experiment and the stakeholders who were interviewed and who shared their expertise with us. All their perspectives and insights were very valuable and contributed to this book. We are also grateful to the Education, Audio-Visual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and the European Commission (DG Education and Culture) for the funding provided to undertake our study. We based our assessments and recommendations on what the many study participants told us without sparing institutions and our funders. We hope that this will ultimately help shape and inform future EU policy in terms of youth participation. Finally, we would like to thank the members of the LSE enterprise team for their support throughout the project, especially Niccolo Durazzi; and Robin Mansell and Sonia Livingstone for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. x