Youth Civic and Political Engagement

Martyn Barrett, Dimitra Pachi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429655371
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What exactly is civic and political participation? What factors influence young people's participation? How can we encourage youth to actively participate in their own democracies? Youth Civic and Political Engagement takes a multidisciplinary approach to answering these key questions, incorporating research in the fields of psychology, sociology, political science and education to explore the issues affecting youth civic and political engagement.

Drawing on evidence that has been obtained in many different national contexts, and through multinational studies, this book provides a theoretical synthesis of this large and diverse body of research, using an integrative multi-level ecological model of youth engagement to do so. It identifies unresolved issues in the field and offers numerous suggestions for future research.

Youth Civic and Political Engagement

is an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, youth workers, civil society activists, policymakers and politicians who wish to acquire an up-to-date understanding of the factors and processes that influence young people's civic and political engagement, and how to promote youth engagement.

Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

1

Civic and political engagement among youth

Concepts, forms and factors

This book provides an introduction to youth civic and political engagement. It describes the forms that such engagement takes, how it develops, the factors that facilitate or inhibit its development and the actions that can be taken to promote and encourage the civic and political engagement of youth and empower them as active democratic citizens.

The book is distinctive in a number of respects. It draws on findings that have been obtained across a range of academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology, political science and education, and it explores the many different psychological, social, demographic and macro factors that are related to youth engagement. It also examines the inter-relationships between these various factors, reviewing findings that have been obtained in different national contexts and through multinational studies. The final chapter provides a theoretical synthesis of this large and diverse body of research, using an integrative multi-level ecological model of youth engagement in order to do so. Along the way, the book offers suggestions for future research that needs to be pursued in order to address a number of unresolved issues. We therefore hope that the book will prove useful to those who wish to obtain a comprehensive overview of the research that has been conducted in this field, those who wish to obtain a theoretical integration of what can sometimes feel like a plethora of disconnected findings and those who wish to pursue further research in the field.

In this opening chapter, we provide a guide to many of the concepts that will be used throughout the book. We define some of the key terms that will be used, outline the various forms that youth civic and political engagement can take and take note of the findings of recent studies into patterns of youth engagement. We also introduce the numerous factors that are related to youth engagement – these include psychological, social, demographic and macro ­factors. We outline the inter-relationships between these four sets of factors and explain how different forms of participation are influenced by different subsets of factors. In addition, this chapter maps the various topics onto the remaining chapters in the book, to aid the reader’s navigation of the subsequent chapters. This opening chapter therefore serves as an introduction to the book.

Some definitions

As a first step, it will be useful to clarify the meanings of some of the key terms that are used throughout the book. To start with, the term youth itself, which appears in the title of the book, is ambiguous. For example, the United Nations defines ‘youth’ as the period between 15 and 24 years when (it is claimed) individuals make the transition from the dependence of childhood to the independence of adulthood. UNICEF defines ‘young people’ as the period of life that falls between 10 and 24 years, while the African Youth Charter defines ‘youth’ as the period that falls between 15 and 35 years (United Nations, 2014). An alternative view, advocated by the Council of Europe (2006), is based on the observation that the transition from childhood to early adulthood is actually a highly variable, non-linear, fragmented and sometimes extended process, with the transition to independent living in some contexts not taking place until 30 or even 35 years of age. For this reason, it is argued that it is preferable to leave the age-based definition of youth open. This book follows the latter approach and is similarly liberal in its use of the term, using it to denote the period of life that starts with early adolescence and extends through into early adulthood. The book will therefore draw broadly on evidence that has been collected about the civic and political engagement of young people across this entire period of life. Importantly, however, wherever possible, we will indicate the specific ages from which the evidence that is being discussed has been derived, so that appropriate conclusions can be drawn about young people’s patterns of engagement at different ages.

The term citizen, which is used in the opening paragraph of this chapter, is another potentially ambiguous term. Following Barrett and Zani (2015a), we use this term to denote all individuals who are affected by political and civic ­decision-making and who can engage with political and civic processes through one means or another. This definition means that even those who are not legal citizens of the country in which they are living (e.g., first generation migrant youth who have not been naturalised and who therefore do not hold the passport of that country) are nevertheless citizens because they are affected by political and civic decision-making, and they are able to participate in political and civic processes through a number of means, including youth organisations, ­ethnic community organisations, pressure groups (e.g., anti-racist, human rights or environmental organisations) and Internet-based activism. This book therefore uses the term citizen with this broader meaning in mind.

The term political engagement is used throughout the book to refer to the engagement of an individual with political institutions, processes and decision-making. By contrast, the term civic engagement is used to refer to the engagement of an individual with the concerns, interests and common good of a community. Here, community denotes either the people living within a particular geographical area (e.g., a neighbourhood, a city, a country or a transnational area such as Europe or Africa, or the world in the case of the ‘global community’), a more geographically diffused cultural or social group (e.g., an ethnic group, a religious group, a recreational group, an occupational group or a sexual orientation group) or any other kind of cultural or social group which is salient to an individual and which therefore provides a site for that individual’s civic action.

Engagement usually involves some kind of participatory behaviour that is directed towards political institutions, political processes and public authorities (in the case of political engagement) or towards the fellow members of a community (in the case of civic engagement). However, not all engagement is exhibited through participatory behaviour. It is entirely possible to have an interest in and to have knowledge, opinions or feelings about political or civic matters without undertaking any action. In other words, individuals can be cognitively or affectively engaged without being behaviourally engaged. As we shall see, it has been found that some youths are indeed psychologically but not behaviourally engaged in precisely this way. In other words, lack of overt political or civic action cannot necessarily be interpreted as a sign of political and civic disengagement.

Very often, however, political and civic engagement does involve not only interest, opinions and feelings about political or civic matters but also active participatory behaviours. The term political participation is used in this book to denote those behaviours that are intended to influence political institutions, processes and decision-making at either the local, regional, national or supranational level; these behaviours may be aimed either at influencing the selection of the people who make public policies and decisions, or at influencing the content of those policies and decisions (this definition is adapted from Verba, Schlozman & Brady, 1995).

Political participation can take many different forms. Some forms involve electoral processes and are called conventional forms of political participation. These include voting, election campaigning, donating money to a political party, standing for election, etc. Some forms of conventional political participation (such as voting) are institutionally denied to youth below a particular age (usually 18 years, although other ages between 16 and 21 years apply in a few countries around the world), sometimes with consequences for their feelings of exclusion from political decision-making.

However, there are many other forms of political participation that do not involve electoral processes and that can be undertaken by individuals of any age. These so-called non-conventional forms of political participation include participating in political demonstrations, protests and marches, signing petitions, writing political articles or blogs, writing political graffiti on buildings, etc. Both conventional and non-conventional political participation can be undertaken either alone (e.g., voting, spraying political graffiti) or collectively in cooperation with other people (e.g., election campaigning, participating in a protest march about a particular issue). And some forms of political participation are legal (e.g., electoral campaigning, signing petitions) while others are illegal (e.g., spraying graffiti, throwing stones at a demonstration).

The term civic participation is used in this book to refer to activities that are focused on helping other people within a community, solving a community problem, working on behalf of a community or participating in the life of a community more generally (this definition is adapted from Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins & Delli Carpini, 2006). Once again, such activity can include work which is undertaken either alone (e.g., doing shopping for an ill neighbour, boycotting a product for environmental reasons) or in cooperation with others (e.g., attending a community meeting about an issue of concern, helping to renovate a facility such as a communal park in the neighbourhood).

Table 1.1 lists some of the numerous forms that political and civic engagement and participation can take.

TABLE 1.1 Some of the different forms taken by conventional political participation, non-conventional political participation, civic participation and ­psychological engagement (reproduced from Barrett & Zani, 2015a, pages 5–6).

Forms of conventional political participation • Voting • Membership of a political party • Running for political election • Working on political election campaigns for candidates or parties • Donating money to political parties • Trying to persuade others to vote
Forms of non-conventional political participation • Protests, demonstrations, marches • Signing petitions • Writing letters/emails to politicians or public officials • Writing letters/emails/phone calls with a political content to the media (both old and new media) • Writing articles/blogs with a political content for the media (both old and new media) • Using social networking sites on the Internet to join or like groups which have a political focus • Using social networking sites on the Internet to distribute or share links which have a political content to friends and contacts • Wearing or displaying a symbol or sign representing support for a political cause • Distributing leaflets which express support for a political cause • Participating in fundraising events for a political cause • Writing or spraying graffiti on walls which expresses support for a political cause • Participating in other illegal actions (e.g., burning a national flag, throwing stones, rioting) in support of a political cause • Membership of political lobbying and campaigning organisations/attending meetings of these organisations/expressing one’s point of view at these meetings/participating in the activities of these organisations/holding an office in these organisations
Forms of civic participation • Informally assisting the well-being of others in the community • Community problem-solving through community organisations/membership of community organisations/attending meetings of these organisations/expressing one’s point of view at these meetings/participating in the activities of these organisations/holding an office in these organisations • Membership of other non-political organisations (e.g., religious institutions, sports clubs)/attending meetings of these organisations/expressing one’s point of view at these meetings/participating in the activities of these organisations/holding an office in these organisations • School-based community service • Undertaking organised voluntary work • Translation and form-filling assistance for non-native speakers • Sending remittances to others living elsewhere • Donations to charities • Fundraising activities for good causes • Consumer activism: boycotting and buycotting (preferential buying)
Forms of psychological engagement • Paying attention to or following political or civic events • Having political or civic knowledge or beliefs • Holding opinions about political or civic matters • Having feelings about political or civic matters • Having political or civic skills • Understanding political or civic institutions • Understanding or holding political or civic values

In addition to engagement, however, young people can also be disengaged from both political and civic processes and may fail to display any of the characteristics that are shown in Table 1.1. As in the case of engagement, there are different forms of disengagement (Ekman & Amnå, 2012). For example, some young people may simply not have any interest in political matters, may regard all such matters as boring and may have no wish to participate in any forms of political action because such action is viewed as either irrelevant to their lives or a waste of time that can be much better devoted to more enjoyable, stimulating or rewarding activities instead. These young people may be characterised as apolitical.

However, other youth may be strongly antipolitical and vehemently refuse to engage with political matters, being resolutely opposed to any form of political action. For example, some youth may adopt this stance because they view politicians as corrupt, dishonest or self-serving, or because they believe that politicians have no interest in the views and lives of young people.

A parallel conceptual distinction can be drawn between young people who are acivic and young people who are anticivic, that is, between those who are simply not interested in participating in any activities with or on behalf of other people in the communities to which they belong, and those who are actively opposed to engaging with other people in their communities, perhaps because they are antisocial and mistrustful of other people.

Having outlined some of the terminology and conceptual distinctions that we...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Civic and political engagement among youth
• 2 Psychological factors linked to youth civic and political engagement
• 3 Social and demographic factors linked to youth civic and political engagement
• 4 Macro contextual factors linked to youth civic and political engagement
• 5 Theoretical integration and actions for promoting youth engagement
• References
• Author index
• Subject index