The Impact of Youth Engagement on Political Participation  

‘Young people are the future!’ a phrase heard by every young person in the UK, but to what extent do young people have an impact in politics and how are they changing the future of political participation? As more young people in Britain are becoming politically active, fresh perspectives and a challenge towards the social norm are sparking conversations that will have a lasting impact on the future of British politics. This blog post aims to examine two main points, firstly, the influence that youth led movements have on the British political discourse and the role of younger generations civic duties amidst a civic deficit. 

The Rise Of Youth Activism

Political participation is a volentary act by individual citizens in order to directly or indirectly impact or influence political choices at various levels of the political system (Melo and Stockemer, 2014) which can be seen in many ways, simply voting in an election to donating to a campaign, protesting, and petitioning (Uhlaner, 2015). Youth led movements in Britain can be seen as a powerful force evident in recent years, with an ever-growing technological society, a politically conscience and digitally connected generation has been formed. The movements formed have illustrated a remarkable ability to shape public opinion, spark debate and influence political outcomes, a specific example of a youth led initiative is the 2019 ‘School Strike 4 Climate’ when Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg founded a protest to change the actions of older generations in regard to their carbon footprint, it involved school strikes every Friday for a full year spanning from March 2019 until the covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 (Boulianne, Lalancette and Ilkiw, 2020,p,208) . The strike started with one teen in Sweeden and using social media, went worldwide. These strikes had a profound impact, it sparked an interest in young people causing them to be more involved and interested in environmental issues, forcing world leaders to be held accountable for their actions. When referencing how this has affected British politics, the pressure put on government helped pass the Net-zero emission by 2050 scheme in where Britian aims to balance the among of greenhouse gases emitted to the amount removed or offset (Pye et al., 2017). 

Civic Duties and Addressing the Civic Deficit 

The concept of the public having a civic duty is crucial among young people’s political participation, within the past few years there has been growing concern over the idea of a ‘civic deficit’ particularly within the youth of the country, the idea of the younger generation is that they take no interest in political affairs, that young people are lacking in the political knowledge needed to perform their civic duty (Politics et al., 2017, pp.3). Whilst yes, there is evidence to suggest that young people are not imploring their right to vote as seen in the in the 2019 general election in where 54.5% of people aged 18-24 turned up to vote as in comparison to 78.5% of those aged 65+ (Ledgerwood and Lally, 2024). However, there can be a multitude of reasons in why young people are not interested in voting, one reason being that politicians are not catering to what young people are interested in, nor what affects them, this is evident in voter turnout, in 2005 it lay at 39%, then in 2010 increased to 44% because topics such as tuition fees were campaign issues (Henn and Foard, 2011), sparking interest within the 18-24 age group, thus leading to a higher voter turnout. Which begs the question, can young people be blamed for a lack of interest when their needs are not catered to? It is also important to mention that research has proven that young people are more likely to be participate politically on a cause oriented’ basis (Henn and Foard, 2011). Whilst this type of engagement is an informal style of participation it shows that young people are knowledge when they are interested in the topic at hand, the problem does not lie with young people becoming lazy and disinterested, but instead with the political parties and elected members aren’t focusing on the issues that the youth of Britain care about or resonate with 

Conclusion

Youth enjoyment in the Uk has the potential to completely transform Britain’s political sphere, youth led incitive and movements are a driving force in challenging political norms, whilst the concern over a civic deficit is valid, it is more telling of Britain’s current electorate. By promoting and fostering engagement with the younger generations Britain’s political climate can only flourish. 

Bibliography  

Boulianne, S., Lalancette, M. and Ilkiw, D. (2020). ‘School Strike 4 Climate’: Social Media and the International Youth Protest on Climate Change. Media and Communication, 8(2), pp.208–218.

Henn, M. and Foard, N. (2011). Young People, Political Participation and Trust in Britain. Parliamentary Affairs, 65(1), pp.47–67.

Ledgerwood and Lally, C. (2024). Election turnout: Why do some people not vote? . [online] UK Parliament . Available at: https://post.parliament.uk/election-turnout-why-do-some-people-not-vote/.

Melo, D.F. and Stockemer, D. (2014). Age and political participation in Germany, France and the UK: A comparative analysis. Comparative European Politics, [online] 12(1), pp.33–53. doi:https://doi.org/10.1057/cep.2012.31.

Politics, M.C., Associate Professor of, Gagnon, J.-P., Hartung, C. and Pruitt, L.J. (2017). Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combating Civic Deficit? Google Books, Rowman & Littlefield, pp.3–30.

Pye, S., Li, F.G.N., Price, J. and Fais, B. (2017). Achieving net-zero Emissions through the Reframing of UK National Targets in the post-Paris Agreement era. Nature Energy, [online] 2(3). doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2017.24.

Uhlaner, C.J. (2015). Political Participation – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics. [online] Sciencedirect.com. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/political-participation.