Local Youth Policies between National Frameworks and Local Peculiarities: Examples from Two European Cities

Abstract

Abstract There are ongoing debates in youth research and politics about the impact of European and national youth policies on the local level. Based on the qualitative findings collected in the framework of the European Project partispace, this paper aims at analyzing whether and to what extent current local youth policies relates to national and European policies. Attempting to answer this question, it presents some empirical findings from a study on youth policies in two European cities: Bologna and Frankfurt. Before the reconstruction of the historically grown links between the local and the national youth policies, first the structures of current youth policies are analysed. After this, the results of expert interviews, focus groups with young people from a variety of youth scenes are presented to enlighten how youth policies work in these two urban contexts. It shows that they are linked to national policies in very different constellations with very different outcomes on the level of how they are perceived and taken up by the young people.