From politics to pleasure and protest : what does the future hold in the political arena, given the alleged growing “youth de-politisation” today?

Abstract

Young people’s mode of political participation in recent years has been an object of concern and debate among political scientists and youth researchers. Research-based evidence has shown that many of them are not interested in politics like the youth of yesteryears. This trend has been described as “youth de-politisation” or youth political disengagement. Young people are said to now find comfort in pleasure and “protest politics” which often do not lead them to political positions in government or in governance institutions. Some researchers have thus described them as a ‘protest generation’ in contrast to the ‘political generation’ of their parents and grandparents. This could have crucial political implications in the future, more so because a large proportion of the world’s population today consists of young people as the UN has documented. This paper thus seeks to examine these political implications (which have received little attention from researchers) from two theoretical perspectives: political science and youth studies. Questions as to whether this alleged growing youth de-politisation is jeopardizing or will jeopardize future democracy and governance, especially from the point of view of competent political leadership, or if it is merely a replacement of traditional and/or institutional forms of politics by young people with new patterns of expression and participation that some researchers term ‘juventization’, is examined. The cause(s) of this depolitisation is also looked into, and suggestions about youth participation in the future are made.