Paradoxes of Young People’s Political Participation

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the complexities and paradoxes of young people’s political participation and related activism, agency, and practices. The chapter explores the ways in which young people face a range of contradictory perceptions around their political participation. They are perceived as being part of hopeful, positive, and egalitarian politics at the same time as they are considered to not have the skills or capacity to be effective political actors. This chapter contains five sections and a conclusion. The introduction (Sect. 1) provides an overview and calls for caution around the terms “youth” and “young people.” In Sect. 2, the normative positioning of young people as political agents, drawing largely from liberal political thought and its critiques based in the West, is detailed. Here the political subject in liberalism is scrutinized for its validity but also for its inadequacy. Section 3 describes a pedagogy, or a set of discourses and practices that sustains social order, and that emphasizes the creation of self-governing citizens. Section 4 of this chapter outlines the ways that this pedagogy is operationalized and enacted by institutions and civil society organizations and discusses the implications for the creation of political subjects. It engages with the expectations around youthful citizenship and the “common good.” Section 5 focuses on definitions of politics and the importance of redefining politics. It examines the relationality between acts and politics. The conclusion considers the kinds of politics such political subjects enact and questions surrounding active and activist citizenship.