Russian Youth Forums: Sites of Managed Youth Empowerment

Abstract

In the 2010s Russia, government-organized local, regional and national youth forums have become major sites for state-youth interaction. These typically weeklong summer camps are organized across Russia, attracting up to one million participants annually. Although the forums have diverse foci, they are all formal platforms of youth participation, aimed at young people engaging in ‘compliant’ forms of activism. Drawing from qualitative content analysis of official reports and media accounts combined with participant observation and interview data, this article analyses the forums as a case of youth policy in an authoritarian political setting. It finds that the government treats youth as a ‘problematic resource’. Moreover, while the forums’ agenda is defined by the policymakers, young people acquire and apply agency to navigate and negotiate the official agenda and re-signify it to respond to their interests. This process, it is argued, has an empowering effect regardless of the constraining authoritarian setting.