Young People and Everyday Democracy

This chapter poses the question of how young people can be engaged politically both during and between elections. It begins with a discussion of the role of contact and interactions between citizens and policymakers in contemporary democracies, which spring from civic republican conceptions of good and active citizens. It asserts that the civic republican models of citizen-to-state relations are unlikely to work without the intensification of policy engagement at a local level. While small-scale, everyday democracy is a promising pathway to political engagement, contact with politicians and public officials has been overwhelmingly the preserve of those who are predominantly middle-aged, college-educated and financially well-off. To raise the involvement of young people, any localized approach to youth engagement must be scaffolded by political and social institutions: primarily, local government, schools and universities. The chapter goes on to consider the performance of a number of local and national initiatives to engage younger citizens in the policy process and reflect upon the lessons from these experiences.