Political participation among Canadian Arab youth

Abstract

ABSTRACT Seeking to influence the direction of government policy decision-making, many young people are politically engaged, not through voting and party membership like youth in previous decades, but rather through membership in social, environmental or identity-centered organizations, lobby groups or advocacy organizations, and online groups. In this paper, we investigate the many ways that Canadian Arab youth get involved in the formal political system and examine the nature of that involvement. We have found that Canadian Arab youth show a higher level of political participation than the Canadian youth population as a whole and that rather than being politically alienated, Canadian Arab youth are active participants in Canadian society, as well as an interested and diligent citizenry. We examine the possible forces galvanizing Arab youths’ political interest and mobilizing them into action. Based on our findings, we argue that the Canadian political landscape is changing due to substantive contributions from ethnic minority youth, including Arab youth.