Legal Regulation of Youth Civic Participation in Russia and European Union

Abstract

Youth in scientific and practical discourse is considered as a promising demographic group that is able to determine the economic and social development of countries and regions. Creating an environment for constructive civic participation of young people, their involvement in solving socially significant issues in many countries of the world is becoming one of the key directions of state policy. In this case, youth policy should be a tool for the formation of consciousness and socially acceptable patterns of behavior of the younger generation, corresponding to the direction of long-term development set by the state. The purpose of the article is to identify national accents regarding civic participation in the context of the formation of a culture of citizenship of the younger generation, mechanisms for achieving goals in this direction that exist in the regulatory discourse of Russia and the European Union countries. We were based on an institutional approach to assessing the regulatory regulation of the activities of the authorities of the Russian Federation and the governments of the EU countries in relation to the civic participation of young people, applied legal analysis and a comparison method. The analysis of regulatory regulation was carried out according to the following parameters: characteristics of regulatory legal acts, a brief description of their structure and content; definition of civil participation and its forms; identification of substantive directions and goals; definition of subjectivity. The sources of information were regulatory and legal acts of the EU and the Russian Federation, conceptually defining the essence of youth policy, as well as unofficial legal information. The study revealed that the place of citizenship culture is clearly defined in the EU normative discourse, the need to expand and improve the qualitative characteristics of civic participation of young Europeans is justified and supported by concrete decisions. The place and significance of civic participation of young people is not clearly defined in the normative field of regulation of youth policy of the Russian Federation. With the priority of social types of youth participation, the subjectivity of youth as a civic participation in managerial and political decision-making is not conceptualized and, accordingly, is not supported in practice. The activation of civic participation of young people today is not among the state priorities of youth policy, more important in the normative and legal discourse of this policy are the problems of professional self-determination, preservation of health, public safety and strengthening of the institution of the family.