This book counters the widespread negative stereotypes from the media and elsewhere that portray young people today as apolitical. The authors contest claims that young people constitute a passive, narcissistic, self-motivated and individualistic âme generation,â which is just one negative generalisation among a plethora of simplistic and negative catch phrases and clichĂ©s used to claim young people today form âa generationâ who have no interest or involvement in politics and public affairs. The book also counters the claim that young peopleâs alleged civic disengagement threatens the legitimacy of democratic political systems, thereby creating a looming âcrisis of democracy.â We argue that rather than being responsible for âthe end of democracy,â there are significant numbers of young people assuming political responsibility and in doing so they are regenerating democracy. They do this by participating politically in numerous creative ways that address directly and indirectly the multifarious socio-economic, political, democratic, constitutional and environmental crises that have shaped and are shaping the world in which they live today.
In this introduction to Young People Re-Generating Politics in Times of Crises, we first examine the main features of these crises that many young people face in different ways. Next, we identify some of the means by which young people are exercising their political agency to regenerate politics around the globe. We then introduce each of the 20 chapters by 34 contributors who document the many and varied ways young people are regenerating politics in time of crisis in Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe and North America. Evidence drawn on in this book provides the basis for an optimistic outlook on young people and politics in the early twenty-first century.
Young People Facing Manifold Crises
This book was written as we head into the third decade of the third millennium. Previous centuries saw the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, as well as democratic revolutions in France and the United States of America. Added to this were processes of colonisation, which together contributed to transforming the western world to begin with and in time most other parts of the world, in ways that seemed to hold out the promise of progress. It was a promise based on technological rationalisation, unprecedented wealth creation and democratic politics, as well as liberal rights and freedoms.
This faith in fundamental concepts such as progress, liberalism, democracy and social justice remains potent. For many young people, these ideas inform their expectations that guides their hopes and dreams for a better future. However, for too many young people, the reality of their (everyday) lives differs quite radically from that expectation of a decent future. Too many young people confront minimal employment prospects, inadequate basic public services, high levels of debt, shortages of affordable adequate housing, a lack of access to (affordable) education, poor provision of physical and mental health care, non-existent or under-funded youth services, poor policing, prejudices, and considerable intergenerational inequalities.
This context that can be explained largely in terms of the dominant neoliberal worldview that policy-makers adopted as they drove waves of reforms from the late 1970s across the global north and the globe south (Bessant, Farthing, & Watts, 2017; Howker & Malik, 2013[2010]; Jones, 2017; Mizen, 2003; Sukarieh & Tannock, 2014). While acknowledging the different ways neoliberalism has been expressed and how it has been variously experienced by young people, the decisions taken by governments and other power elites contributed to a sense of insecurity, precarity and fear among many young people about their future (Furlong, 2009, 2014; Standing, 2011).
The neoliberal policy regime brought about the deregulation of the financial and labour markets, reneging on commitments to full employment and reductions in many key state welfare programs, accompanied by âa punitive turnâ and new forms of authoritarianism in youth justice and welfare. The new policy rhetoric spoke of the morality of âuser pays,â âreciprocal obligationâ and an âactive society.â In addition, many countries saw the progressive privatisation, marketisation and contracting out of public activities, hitherto critical to the lives of large numbers of young people without the means to pay for basic civic goods. These policies in conjunction with a commitment to free trade policies led to the demise of many industries where young people had historically began their working lives and careers. It produced the near complete collapse of the full-time youth labour market, as youth unemployment and underemployment became the new norm.
In parallel with this development, increasing numbers of young people have been encouraged by governments to remain in some form of education or training. One consequence of this has been the dramatic growth of higher education enrolments against the backdrop of its marketisation (Ward, 2014). It was, in part, a policy attempt to reduce youth unemployment and under-employment that increased significantly under the reign of neoliberalism (CĂŽtĂ©, 2014). Moreover, as enrolments grew the value of young peopleâs formal academic qualifications declined due to credential inflation (Furlong, 2009). Additionally, in many countries cuts to public spending on higher education and the rise in tuition fees shifted the cost of education onto young people and their families. For many, and particularly those from middle class and lower socio-economic backgrounds, this meant having to combine full or part-time work with full or part-time study, and carrying significant student debt (Pickard, 2014). This is a situation in which many young graduates find themselves as they struggle to secure a decent job and pursue some semblance of income security.
Many young people interpret these conditions as the result of a failure on the part of governments and other power elites to do their job; namely, to develop a political agenda and policies that are supportive of young peopleâs aspirations to live a good life. This is why so many young people say they are taking action into their own hands by engaging in politics themselves.
Technology and particularly the increasing use of information and communication technology in the labour market has exacerbated existing tensions and conflicts in the economy, while amplifying inequality. Whilst these innovations initially affected manual, unskilled and low-skilled workers (i.e., traditional working-class jobs), more recently, they have begun affecting high skilled, well credentialed professional workers, in clerical, administrative and professional fields. It is now âdisruptingâ the lives of many who hoped their costly investment in âhuman capital investmentâ (education) and steadfast commitment to the work ethic would protect them from the threat of technological unemployment that had shadowed the lives of their working-class peers (Streeck, 2016; Wallerstein, Collins, Mann, Derluguian, & Calhoun, 2013). The creation of new jobs, however, will not replace those lost to technological displacement, while increasingly most new jobs that are created tend to be typically precarious and part-time (Ford, 2015).
The lives of young people are also influenced by current and persistent national and global crises. The twenty-first century began with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in the United States of America, which segued into US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These were military and humanitarian disasters that in turn ignited war in Syria, and unleashed one of the cruellest refugee and humanitarian crisis in modern times with 65 million refugees seeking sanctuary in early 2017. International relations are now shaped by on-going armed conflicts in Syria, Libya, Ukraine and elsewhere around the globe, each of which are linked to growing xenophobic nationalism, religion, and populism.
Liberal states across the globe now claim they are fighting a âwar on terrorâ mandating assaults on their own long-cherished liberal rights and freedoms. In many cases, it has seen the criminalisation of journalists reporting news and penalisation of citizens engaging in political dissent. It is a development that has triggered concern about the chilling effect the prevailing preoccupation with security and âthreatâ of terror is having on the social and political life of our communities.
The âtriumph of free marketsâ culminated in the Great Recession of 2008 the most serious economic crisis since the 1930s depression. The consequence of a series of disasters in the banking, credit and finance sectors, it was kick-started by the deregulation of the financial markets in the late 1990s, which culminated in âthe crashâ that saw the bankruptcy of major banks and financial houses, and the drying up of the supply of credit. To address these problems, governments used taxpayersâ money to fund bank bailouts and other major financial institutions responsible for bringing on the crisis. All this drew attention to the ways governments and the finance sectorâinformed by a neoliberal worldviewâwere creating a degree of social inequality not seen since the 1890s. It also drew attention to the risky, irresponsible and even criminal conduct of many players in the banking sector and financial sector generally.
Added to this is the environmental challenge posed by climate warming underscoring the fact we live on a small and fragile planet. Climate change is so challenging that many are now asking whether the dominant socio-economic worldview premised on a commitment to constant growth of productivity, energy and consumerism is viable. If the past half-century has been a time of unparalleled economic growth and development, it is now haunted by what ĆœiĆŸek (2011) calls the âhorsemen of the apocalypse,â his metaphor for the threat posed by war, climate catastrophe, famine and insufficient drinking water.
Nor can we ignore the recent history of repeated economic crises, involving a series of governance and ethical failures resulting in âbanking panics,â debt defaults and currency crises. These led to austerity policies ostensibly designed to address the economic problems, but which placed a disproportionate burden on the more vulnerable (the young, the aged and the poor). Importantly, they are austerity regimes that provoked popular protest and widespread uncertainty about the value of the dominant neoclassical model of economics that encourages pursuit of never ending economic growth and increasing social inequality (Piketty, 2014). Today, young people live in a world marked by unprecedented levels of economic inequality and uncertainty.
Following the global financial crisis in 2008, numerous countries across the globe fell into deep recession. In a bid to reach recovery, many governments responded by cutting public spending to reduce government budget deficits imposing harsh âausterity policiesâ that further exacerbated poverty and unemployment across western societies. This crisis was experienced differently across the world. While countries such as Australia and Germany were relatively unaffected, the impact on others such as Brazil, Greece, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain and the United States of America were seriously detrimental. Common to all, however, was the disproportionate impact on particular demographic groups and specifically young people.
In a globalised world, that some people say has homogenised cultures, we have witnessed a significant revival of parochial politics centring on local issues of racial, religious and nationalist identity and sentiment. In 2016, for example, the referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain in or leave the European Union (EU) was enveloped by âlittle Englanderâ and national-centric anti-immigration discourses emanating from toxic populists like Nigel Farage, then-leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and other politicians. The result was a victory for those advocating âBrexit,â although a clear majority of young people voted to remain in the EU. Similarly, Donald Trumpâs victory in the 2016 Presidential elections in the United States signified an equivalent shift toward xenophobic nationalism and isolationism, while the more liberal views of Bernie Sanders made him popular amongst many younger voters.
In many countries around the world, political issues related to race, ethnicity, religion and culture have animated social movements. The âBlack Lives Mattersâ social movement highlights how in the United States, like in Australia, South Africa and many other countries still carry a significant white racist legacy. In South Africa, the legacy of apartheid combined with high levels of unemployment and poverty manifests in new forms, continuing to plague the lives of its population. Across the globe, from France, to the Netherlands, to Germany, to the USA and Australia, we see the resurgence of ultra-right extremism and conservatism reshaping the political right and attracting the hearts and minds of many young people via new media.
Meanwhile, struggles to establish basic democratic practices continue, such as free and democratic elections and civic rights, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of academics and freedom from arbitrary arrest continue, in countries including Chile, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Myanmar, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. Far from assuming there is one inevitable model these countries will take, the question of what paths they pursue remains a matter of political contest to be determined politically with no guarantee âthe solutionsâ will be liberal or democratic. This is why the intervention by young people will prove critical to these countries.
All of this points to a pattern of on-going crisis. However, any popular concern about a âpolitics of fearâ (Furedi, 2007), a loss of political alternatives and a crisis of democracy manifest in disengagement with politics on the part of young people is radically misplaced. As the contributors to this book argue politics is very much alive, and at the centre of it are young people.
Young People Exercising Their Political Agency and Regenerating Politics
Young people around the world are responding to these local, national and global crises in a variety of ways. It is action that occurs against a background that began emerging in the 1990s characterised by popular accounts of young people as politically apathetic, lazy and politically disengaged due to their excessive preoccupation with material and leisure pursuits. This view evolved into pejorative suggestions that young people are self-absorbed and living their lives through superficial social media experiences. This has proved to be a pervasive and resilient portrayal, perpetrated through mainstream media, politics and through mainstream media and politics, and to some extent in academia (for example, Twenge, 2014[2007]).
There has been growing interest on the part of some social and political scientists in refuting these negative claims and pointing to the ways many young people are engaging politically and creating new kinds of politics. However, it has tended to rely on relatively small scale studies or confined to a few regions of the globe (Bessant, 2014; Manning, 2015; Pickard, 2018).
This edited collection builds on this more constructive literature by documenting how young people from different parts of the world are engaging in redemptive actions that are regenerating politics. The volume also explores some of the many and varied ways young people are experiencing a sense of felt crisis and injustice, w...