A revisionist account of the crisis of democracy and 'youth participation'

Against a backdrop of considerable research, commentary and advocacy and in a context often referred to as a ‘crisis of democracy’ we explore youth participation as a source of democratic renewal. We do this by addressing four questions: How has youth participation conventionally been understood? Is that a defensible conception of ‘youth political participation’? How should we understand the ‘crisis of democracy’? How can we think about ‘youth political participation’ in ways that envisage young people playing a larger political role in democratising democracy. We begin by identifying the key characteristics of what we call a ‘governance model of youth participation’. A ‘governance model’ is what governments and non government organisations use when claiming to encourage young people’s political participation, while actually negating young people’s demands on government and preventing their political participation. This model owes much to adultism or age-based prejudices, which perpetuate common-sense claims about young people’s alleged deficits. At the same time many experts and policy-makers have argued that young people’s abstention from electoral politics and their general failure to participate in formal politics contributes to the crisis of democracy. This, it is claimed is because they are said to be apathetic and disinterested in politics. Against this we highlight concern expressed by many young people about important matters of the day and their deep interest in politics. We offer a ‘revisionist account of the ‘crisis of democracy’. We document how the actual ‘crisis’ is a refusal by liberal-democratic governments to govern in the interests of the majority of their citizens, including young people while playing an active role in promoting inequality and global warming. We draw on the work of Wolin (2016) and Rancière (2010) to argue for what we call a model of ‘youth political participation’. Given the scale and magnitude of young people are leadership and participation in various forms of political action their views can no longer be ignored or marginalised if we are serious about addressing the crises mentioned above while also democratizing democracy.