Youth Apathy Research Articles

East-Central Europe: The Young and The Far-Right

Abstract: Scholars are increasingly concerned that youth political apathy is a risk to liberal democracy. The issue of youth apathy is particularly pronounced in East-Central Europe—a region that has recently experienced sharp democratic decline. Across the EU member states of East-Central Europe, the share of youth that report complete disinterest in politics has doubled in the last decade. This is not an artifact of youth dissatisfaction with their nation's democracy. Rather, it is explained by ideological cross-pressures. East-Central Europe's apathetic youth hold a unique set of values that do not map onto party platforms. Unlike older generations, they are profoundly pro-EU and embrace certain aspects of liberalism, including gay rights. They are also significantly less religious. However, they are increasingly unfriendly toward immigration and multiculturalism. Compared to their politically engaged peers, East-Central Europe's apathetic youth also value democratic governance less. If they were to be politically mobilized, there is little reason to believe they would stabilize liberal democracy.

‘New Dispensation, New Kids on the Block’. 'Ama 2000' and the 2023 Harmonised Elections in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's political landscape has undergone significant changes since the 2017 coup, with the post-coup period being christened the ‘New Dispensation’. The advent of the ‘New Dispensation’, characterised with promises of a new and revolving democracy, coincided with the coming of voting age of ‘Ama 2000’. The paper investigated the electoral participation of ‘Ama 2000’ in Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections. A theoretical framework that looked at factors that influence youth political participation was developed and used in explaining the electoral participation or their lack thereof. 115 focus group respondents between the ages of 18 to 23 were selected in Zimbabwe’s cities of Harare and Bulawayo, wherein conversations on the motivations and barriers on youth political engagement were facilitated. Whilst ‘Ama 2000’ demonstrated political knowledge and interest, they are generally apathetic, with a few participating in voting whilst most did not associate with the other forms of electoral participation. Disillusionment with both politicians and political parties, politically motivated violence, and life cycle factors were the major reasons for their lack of interest in the country’s 2023 elections. Arguably, there is no democratic and plural ‘New Dispensation’ after all, as these same factors have deterred older youth from participating in elections under the authoritarian Mugabe regime. However, the limited participation of ‘Ama 2000’ in voting demonstrates commitment to democratic principles and a desire to shape the country's future. To address the youth apathy gap, political parties must actively engage with them, reform and promote inclusivity. At state level, structural reforms of an electoral nature are necessary to protect the security of the voter. Civil society has a role to play in strengthening civic education programs that instill a sense of civic duty and active participation in democracy. By involving youth in the democratic process, Zimbabwe can build a foundation for inclusive political participation.

Increasing the Competence of Village Youth Communities through the Introduction of Cultural Experience and Knowledge in Local Wisdom

Increasing the competence of village youth communities through the introduction of cultural experience and knowledge in local wisdom is a response to the problem of youth who are currently more interested in foreign cultures than their own, which is one of the formation of national character and identity. In addition, youth apathy in local culture, which is strengthened by the onslaught of global Islamic movements or transnational Islam develops among millennials so that religious values that exist in various traditions become misunderstood. This community assistance is located in Ketanen Village, Panceng District, Gresik Regency with the participatory action research method. The mentoring steps include preparation, process, analysis to evaluation. The result of the service is the increasing competence of the youth community, which can be seen by the awareness of the youth community to preserve the cultural heritage that has existed through various positive activities. Through this service, a village history team was formed as a center of information on various local wisdom.

Youth Apathy in Political Contest: A Case Study in the 2020 Gowa Regency Head Election

This study examines the political apathy that plagues youth in Gowa Regency. Political apathy is an indifference and lack of interest in politics. This research was conducted to explore the causes of apathy and alternative solutions to these problems. The apathy that afflicts young people is a serious problem that must be solved. This is because they have intellectual capital that can create social change for the better. This change can occur if youth actively participate in each stage of the contestation. The research used is qualitative research with a case study approach. Informants were selected by purposive sampling, consisting of elements of youth organizations, apathetic youth groups and the government. Collecting data through document studies, observation, in depth interviews, focus group discussions and documentation. Analysis uses the Miles and Huberman model, namely data reduction, data presentation and conclusion drawing. The results show that the causes of youth apathy towards politics include the lack of knowledge of the position of youth in development, a bad political image, the influence of the family/friendship environment and the contestants are only followed by one pair of candidates. Then alternative solutions that can be done to minimize apathy are to increase education or community-based political socialization and strengthen youth organizations as a forum for youth to develop themselves.Penelitian ini mengkaji tentang apatisme politik yang melanda pemuda di Kabupaten Gowa. Apatisme politik merupakan sifat acuh tak acuh serta tidak memiliki ketertarikan terhadap politik. Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menggali penyebab apatisme dan solusi alternatif atas permasalahan tersebut. Apatisme yang menimpa kaum muda merupakan persoalan serius yang harus ditemukan solusinya. Pasalnya, mereka memiliki modal intelektual yang dapat menciptakan perubahan sosial ke arah yang lebih baik. Perubahan ini dapat terjadi jika pemuda berpartisipasi aktif dalam setiap tahapan kontestasi. Penelitian yang digunakan adalah penelitian kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi kasus. Informan dipilih secara purposive sampling, terdiri dari unsur organisasi kepemudaan, kelompok pemuda apatis dan pihak pemerintah. Pengumpulan data melalui studi dokumen, observasi, in depth interview, focus group discussion dan dokumentasi. Analisis data menggunakan model Miles dan Huberman yakni reduksi data, penyajian data dan penarikan kesimpulan.Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penyebab apatisme pemuda terhadap politik diantaranya masih lemahnya pengetahuan atas posisi pemuda dalam pembangunan, citra politik yang buruk, pengaruh lingkungan keluarga/pertemanan dan kontestan hanya diikuti oleh satu pasang calon. Kemudian solusi alternatif yang dapat dilakukan untuk meminimalisir apatisme yakni, memassifkan pendidikan atau sosialisasi politik berbasis komunitas dan penguatan organisasi kepemudaan sebagai wadah bagi pemuda untuk mengembangkan dirinya.

Everyday interactions and political participation of Malaysian youth

ABSTRACT Some scholars have argued that youth apathy in politics arises from an interpretation based on conventional electoral politics. Other scholars have studied unconventional political participation and found the willingness of youth to sign petitions, join boycotts, and attend demonstrations. However, little is known about the potential of everyday interactions to generate youth interest in politics. This study examined youth participation in politics, including everyday interactions, before the 14th general election in Malaysia which changed the ruling government after six decades. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 participants aged 15–40 from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Analysis revealed low levels of political participation in electoral politics. Less than half of them voted in campus elections, and state or parliamentary elections, or attended campaign rallies. None of them were candidates in campus elections, and none of their immediate family members were political candidates. A majority of the participants were engaged in everyday interactions through online news, occasional political conversations with friends, teachers, lecturers and parents, membership in organisations, and writing letters to government agencies. The findings suggest that youth disengagement from politics is due to a closed political climate, and the perception of politics as dirty and for the self-gain of politicians.

Youth Apathy: A Class Struggle for Student Political Hegemony in Malaysia

On the 10th December 2018, an unprecedented historic event took place in the lower courthouse of the Malaysia Parliament. After years of repressive and regressive stance on student activism, members of parliament voted unanimously to amend the Universities and University Colleges Act 1975, which finally allows student political participation on campus. However, claims of youth apathy and the portrayal of youth in mass media as “unprepared and inexperienced political actors” pose a detrimental dilemma on the participation front. Intrinsic experiences of the youth community, especially from within the confines of universities have been misunderstood, and in fact, very much alienated. Therefore, the impact of the amendment amongst students is assessed in this research. Through exploring the experiences of youth who are caught up between state autonomy and civil liberties, this study employs qualitative research methods through asynchronous in-depth interviews in understanding youth’s freedom of expression. The findings are analyzed thematically to extract emergent themes from interviews derived from participants’ experiences with bureaucratic structures of the university environment and secondary data on the existing models of polity within the campus. Results show that structural barriers empowered by the existing ideological control provide both perceived positive and negative experiences to the participants. The majority of participants were alienated from the mechanisms of existing democratic institutions and discourses whereas subaltern voices of the youth prevail outside the confines of state-oriented spaces. This study has implications on the Overton Window practices of policymakers in providing true autonomy to students.

Youth apathy in an electoral democracy : a critical discourse on civil participation in South Africa

Youth apathy in an electoral democracy : a critical discourse on civil participation in South Africa

The case of #NeverAgainMSD: When proceduralist civics becomes public work by way of political emotion

ABSTRACTCivic culture is a term for how citizens actively live out, perform, and create public life through our habits, actions, words, and public work. A vital civic culture, with an engaged citizenry, is one of the measures of a healthy democratic republic. In this inquiry, we explore how civic education—holistically envisioned across disciplines and types of curriculum—might be imagined in light of civic cultural engagement and creation. We use the recent #NeverAgainMSD youth activism against gun violence as a single case study through which to examine what educators can learn from youth enacting citizenship in real time, contributing to a vital civic culture in an era when many lament youth apathy and disconnection from public life. We argue that much civics education ignores the worth of political emotion, and we describe both the important role of affect in civic culture and curricular possibilities for working with students around the intersections of affect, civic culture, and public work as citizens.

Generations in the Feminist and LGBT Movements in Italy: The Case ofNon Una Di Meno

The article analyses the participation of young people in emerging social movements, focusing on the experience of the Italian Non Una Di Meno (NUDM) movement combatting male violence against women. Challenging scholarly assumptions of growing youth apathy in democracies, the analysis reveals high levels of participation on the part of the younger population engaged in gender-related struggles. Hit by both conservative and austerity policies associated with the economic and political crisis, feminist and LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersexual) Millennials reacted by increasing their involvement in contentious politics. In the protest arena, they have crossed paths with older generations, activating processes of exchange, but also intergenerational tensions. Based on original qualitative data from ten semi-structured interviews with movement activists in Florence and Bologna, this piece of research sheds light on the role of young people in the birth and evolution of NUDM, and the relationship between different generations of activists within this movement. More specifically, it explains continuities and discontinuities between veterans and younger activists’ sources of theoretical inspirations, organizational models and mobilization resources, strategic priorities and action repertoires. Millennials embrace intersectional feminism and queer theory; opt for grassroots, horizontal organizing; adopt a conflictual attitude towards the state, and dialogical, introspective dynamics within the movement. Intergenerational disagreements especially relate to sex work, and surrogate motherhood.

Nomophobia: A Research among Italian Digital Natives

In recent years, media attention has been increasingly focused on certain concepts that are closely related to the improper and excessive use of mobile phones: smartphone psychological dependence, the correlation between youth apathy and the massive use of new technologies, and the drastic change of social interaction in the Internet Age. Such phenomena may be considered to be the reason behind the emergence of a new contemporary pathology that already has a name: nomophobia. This is a pathology that seems to be quite common at present, particularly in those countries with high levels of smartphone ownership, usage and penetration, such as Italy.

Vocabularies of Citizenship: West Coast Secondary Students Describe Their Civic Subjectivities, Skills, and Classrooms

Canada’s changing geopolitical landscape will require a generation of engaged and active citizens. Citizenship education in British Columbia must negotiate conflicting narratives while opening spaces for students to develop civic skills and subjectivities. Given negative program reviews, empirical evidence for the impact of identity - especially group identifications - on behaviours and beliefs, and continued low youth political engagement, there is a great need to understand how citizenship and civic subjectivities are constructed in real school contexts in order to gain insight into how secondary civics classrooms might support students’ active political voices and development of efficacious subjectivities. This article reports preliminary results from a large mixed methods, multiple-case study project. The data reported here focuses on students (n = 64) from two purposefully sampled secondary school classrooms on Vancouver Island: a special civics program, and a regular stream Social Studies classroom in the same school. Data collection consisted of a class-wide online survey near the beginning of the course. Grounded in the larger understandings of social identity theory and rooted cosmopolitanism, qualitative data from open-ended questionnaire responses analyzed with a constant comparative coding technique explored the extent to which students construct regional, national, or global notions of citizenship. A preliminary report of quantitative items investigates the level of conflict present between levels of identification and suggests avenues for future research. Examined against previous research and the theory of rooted cosmopolitanism, this project aims to question the popular narrative of youth apathy and to describe the ways in which students characterize their civic subjectivities. In giving voice to student perspectives on their civic selves and their Civics classrooms, this study aims to contribute to more representative classrooms and pedagogies.

The Myth of Youth Apathy

A common interpretation of the low levels of electoral turnout among young voters is that they are apathetic and part of a generation that does not care about political issues—indeed, a selfish and materialistic generation. In this article, the authors question this common perception and test this claim against an important alternative: that the limitations to youth participation in Europe are due not to a lack of interest in the public good but rather to a combination of contextual and psychosocial factors, including the real as well as perceived inadequacy of the existing political offer. The authors assessed young people’s attitudes toward democratic life in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Austria, Finland, and Hungary. A mixture of a comparative mass survey, stakeholder interviews, an experiment, and focus groups was used. The data suggest that young people are willing to engage politically but are turned off by the focus and nature of existing mainstream political discourse and practice, which many believe excludes them and ignores their needs and interests. Contrary to the assumptions of the disaffected and apathetic citizen approach, there is a strong desire among many young Europeans to participate in democratic life, but this desire is not met by existing democratic institutions and discourses.

‘I mainly look at things on an issue by issue basis’: Reflexivity and phronêsis in young people's political engagements

Young people have been characterised as apathetic and disengaged from politics. The discourse of youth apathy has widespread currency in the academy, governments and media. This understanding of young people's relationship with politics assumes a particular, narrow and hegemonic notion of politics originating during the Scottish Enlightenment and relies upon a public/private divide. This definition of politics is used to measure the participation and knowledge of young people and finds them wanting. In contrast, the young people of the present study practice politics in a range of ways drawing upon the permeability of public/private spheres. Moreover, their political practice relies upon reflexivity and phronêsis in a form of ethico-political engagement which politicises morality and everyday life. This study argues that the narrow hegemonic definition of politics is outdated and does not reflect contemporary social conditions and the political repertoire available in late modernity. Nevertheless, there are limitations to ethico-political practice.

Predicting youth apathy and exclusion: Macedonian high-school students and their relations to their communities

In order to understand the youth?s growing apathy and cynicism towards society, this paper examines the relationships between civic engagement, volunteerism, parental support, peer support, the support of the educational system, extra-curricular activities, religious affiliation, as well as attitudes among high-school students in the Republic of Macedonia. A representative sample of 3607 high-school students in thirteen towns across the country indicates that the support from the educational system, involvement in extra-curricular activities and trust in institutions, society and oneself are the strongest predictors of civic engagement and volunteerism. Parental support (whether respondents engaged in discussions about civic problems with their parents), while important in the past, loses its significance in the present. Discussions with peers seem to replace the role of the parents. Religious affiliation is not meaningfully related to civic engagement and volunteerism. Theoretical and practical implications in regard to social integration are discussed.

The Students’ Role in French Academic Deliberative Democracy

AbstractSince 1968, according to the French higher education law, elected students must participate in the different academic boards in every university. As trustees, they must formulate opinions about the institutional policy. Moreover, they must deliberate on equal terms with teachers.According to a common discourse, this democratic activity is still considered as a nonsense because of some students’ structural weaknesses: very low turnout at the elections of their representatives, very high absenteeism rate of these miselected representatives and incapacity to formulate responsible and pragmatic proposals. This students’ uselessness in the academic participatory governance process would come from a post‐modernist air du temps: youth apathy, individualism, democratic societies’ crisis . . .In accordance with the scientific questioning about the contemporary processes of political communication, I propose an alternative set of explanations focused on the spirit and practices which rule French academic boards. I assume that the development and improvement of student participation are also limited by endogenous factors that are closely linked with the functioning of the academic boards.I propose an ethnographic analysis of a French university board. I compare the elected students’ absenteeism to the others members’ (teachers, staff members and guests) attendance rates. Then I study the cultural patterns which structure the interactions. Discursive freedom would be the sine qua non condition of academic autonomy and the structural explanation of weak student participation by teachers.