Youth and Crises of Democracy: Exploring the Democratic Potential of Young People's Participation (2)

Crises of democracy are seemingly endemic to the twenty-first century. Resurgent authoritarianism is one of many consequences of democratic crises, fuelled by ‘fake news’, expanding inequality, and the continuous unfolding of neoliberal logics. Simultaneously, new forms of social organizing, both online and in the streets, reveal strategies to rethink democracy. Young people are often at the forefront of both democratic crises and emergent mobilisations, seen either as the source of the problem or as agents of a process of revitalisation of democracy.

This session aims at exploring the nexus of young people’s engagement with democracy by examining how democracy is experienced, learnt and re-imagined in and through young people’s participation. The session aims to consider different types of youth practices of engagement in both formal (e.g., parties, local councils, educational settings) and informal settings of participation (i.e., social movements, youth cultures, social media). Encouraging proposals from Global North and Global South scholars, the session aims to shed light on how national contexts, including histories of postcolonial struggle, neoliberal structural adjustment, and/or welfare state retrenchment shape young people’s understanding of and relationship with democracy.

From this perspective, we welcome theoretical and empirical contributions focusing on:

• contextual and intersectional barriers and enablers to democratic participation by young people;
• processes of learning of democratic values in different participatory settings;
• prefigurative potential of young people’s practices of participation for generating democratic alternatives;
• democratic impact of youth activism on surrounding communities;
• implications of youth participation for rethinking (democratic) institutions.