Abstract
According to recent studies, young people are interested in politics in a broad sense but are disengaged with electoral politics. The falling turn-outs in European Parliament elections, especially among young people, are creating problems with the legitimacy of our political governance system. The authors suggest six pragmatic measures to address the disengagement of young people from electoral politics. The measures presented are designed to support a bottom-up approach towards building lasting interest in electoral politics among young people, while keeping in mind the changes in youth values and possible ways to participate in politics.
Introduction
For many years the turn-out in elections all around Europe has been declining among the entire population, with this decline having been especially dramatic in the European Parliament elections. From a percentage of 61.9 % in the European Parliament elections of 1979, turn-out dropped steadily to under 50 % for the first time in the 1999 elections (49.5 %) and finally reached an all-time low of just 43 % in the 2009 elections (European Parliament 2009). This steady decline in turn-out is partially explained by the decline in turn-out among young voters. In the European Parliament elections of 2009 only 29 % of 18-24 year- olds voted, compared to an overall turn-out of 43 %. However, despite the general perception that young people are uninterested in politics, various studies show that young people's interest in politics is defined in a broad way, including civic and political engagement, and in widespread disillusionment with electoral politics, and especially with politicians. In this article we will begin by providing a brief overview of the academic arguments presented for the current state of affairs; thereafter we will focus on practical ways to generate political interest among young people.
Academic context
In academic studies multiple reasons have been presented for the current situation in which young people feel distanced from electoral politics. James Sloam (2007, 549) argues that some of the main reasons for youth disengagement with electoral politics are the increased significance of individualism among young people, the changing socio-economic environment and the development of alternative values. According to Sloam, these changes have made it really hard for young people to relate to political parties that are still based on industrial cleavages. However, his research also shows that the perceived ‘apathy’ seems to be only limited to electoral politics. Murray Print (2007, 326) uses three different indicators to identify participation. The first one is the civic indicator that deals with membership of associations, volunteering and fund-raising for charities. The second indicator is called the electoral indicator, which concentrates on voting and helping political parties. The third indicator is the political engagement indicator and is about contacting officials, taking part in protests, signing petitions and being active in online engagements that are of a political nature. Like Sloam, Print argues that young people do have an interest in politics, as shown by indicators one and three, but that they show disillusionment with elections and voting. In this article we will focus on the electoral indicator due to the upcoming elections and the rapid decline in voter turn-out. We consider the risks of a fall in turn-out of paramount concern to the legitimacy of our political governance system and are of the opinion that rapid actions need to be taken to re-engage young people with electoral politics.
Thus it appears that young people are active citizens but that they value other kinds of participation more than electoral participation. The apparent apathy for voting among young people presents a serious threat to the legitimacy of our democratic system. If we cannot fix the problem, we will have to start asking questions such as whether such a small percentage actually casting a ballot (i.e. in the 2009 European elections overall turn-out was 43 %, and among 18-24-year-olds it was 29 %; European Parliament 2009) offers a strong enough mandate to the institutions or whether making voting obligatory should be considered in order to safeguard the legitimacy of our democratic system. Second, low general turn-out allows extremist parties to receive far higher proportional representation in parliaments than they should, since even a comparatively small group of people can gain a substantial number of representatives in parliament if their voters actually turn up to vote.
It is not only important to get young people to vote in order for them to have a proper representation of their interests in political institutions–-we also have to safeguard our democratic systems. If we bear in the mind that young people are interested in ‘politics’ but not in electoral politics we can target our measures more effectively to try to increase the turn-out of young people and strengthen their connection with electoral politics. This is something that needs to be done for everyone's sake. Below we suggest a package of measures that would introduce electoral politics to young people at an earlier stage. The measures suggested would update the ways of participation, which correlate with how young people connect with each other, what kind of issues they find important and how political parties connect with the electorate. Our proposed package requires the participation of governments, civil society and political parties alike, since we do not believe in any ‘silver bullet’ solutions for the alarmingly low level of electoral participation.
Proposed measures
As authors we want to start with measures that would introduce electoral politics to young people at a younger age. The first measure we suggest is bringing politics into upper secondary schools and vocational training colleges. In Norway, in parallel with the parliamentary and local elections that are organised every second year, ‘school elections’ are organised in which secondary-level pupils (15-19-year-olds) vote in a model election. The youth organisations of political parties organise debates and run campaigns in the schools, exposing young people to politics and voting well before they can formally take part in elections. As these events are run by the youth organisations of real parties, the model election offers students a direct channel to join in and hear young people discussing politics, before casting a vote on which party they think is most suitable. This also lowers the threshold for joining a party, since young people do not have to approach a political party as the parties come to them. Furthermore, organising school elections offers an initial experience of voting and this must be considered crucial because, according to research by Shephard and Patrikios (2012, 2), young people who do not vote in their first election do not appear to start voting at a later stage. Therefore, offering young people their first voting experience in a controlled and encouraging environment, in which they have been exposed to political debates, might lower the threshold for voting in their first actual election, as they will already have had a positive experience from voting in informal school elections.
A second proposal is to lower the statutory voting age to 16. Many young people feel neglected by politicians, which is logical considering that young people cannot vote. We believe that 16-year-olds are more than capable of making an informed decision on who best represents their interests. In most countries, with some notable exceptions, young people can join political parties at the age of 15 but voting is only possible after turning 18 years of age. We are not claiming that lowering the voting age would be an easy instant solution to the problem, but if it were to be done, everyone would be eligible to vote in their first election whilst still in school, and we believe that the encouragement and organising of debates in schools would make more young people vote.
Third, the local level is where every individual's opportunity to achieve tangible change is the strongest. Therefore, local youth councils should be established. These councils would have the right to be present on all local government committees, representing the voices of those who are not yet able to vote. A very good way to elect the representatives to these local youth councils would be to organise elections in each school. As is noticeable, we place a lot of emphasis on using elections and voting to select youth representatives simply to familiarise young people with the practice of voting. Young people certainly know how elections function, but the actual practice of casting a ballot remains distant and this is something that desperately needs to be changed. At the same time, we should not rely on grand top-down schemes to generate political interest but should build it from the bottom up. We believe that only bottom-up changes will lead to sustainable measures. Local youth councils are a cost-effective way in which young people can participate in local decisionmaking.
Fourth, each EU country should have an independent youth parliament that not only gathers once or twice a year but also produces resolutions in each session. We believe that we have to open up the political system and offer more ways for young people to participate and familiarise themselves with the political system. However, we also think that parliaments and parliamentarians should respect the work of national youth parliaments more, since only by engaging with young people can the politicians gain their trust. Unfortunately, national youth parliaments and parliamentarians have only started to connect with each other in a few places and this lack is regrettable since it creates negative consequences for the parliamentarian, for the national youth parliamentarians and for society at large. Therefore, we suggest that in order to make sure that young people feel that their work in the national youth parliaments is respected, getting an answer from the government as to why they are in favour of or against the proposals of the youth parliament should be the minimum requirement from the government. Research by Shephard and Patrikios (2012, 16) argues that in many countries national youth parliaments have become more of a platform to communicate to participants about how parliamentary democracy works rather than a well-functioning direct channel from youth to parliamentarians. This is something that needs to be kept in mind. And although it is true that the national youth parliaments are not representative of all youth, they offer a great opportunity for politicians to engage with young people and transmit their messages through media popular with the young.
Fifth, young people are increasingly connecting with each other, working and participating in society online and, therefore, electronic voting needs to be enabled. As research shows, young people are really interested in single-issue topics such as climate change and the rights of minorities. Therefore, each European country should introduce a citizens’ initiative. We find it disappointing that the European Citizens’ Initiative, as implemented today, makes it nearly impossible for initiatives to be adopted by the European Parliament. The fact that young people are really interested in single-issue topics is something that should be noticed by politicians and political parties. In order to reach the youth audience, it is no longer enough to put forward messages that resonate with industrial cleavages. However, all EU countries are different and the current ongoing economic crisis has potentially reignited industrial cleavages among young people.
Thus far, politicians have widely ignored citizens’ initiatives, but, especially for those who hope to connect with young people, these should be seen as a huge opportunity to meet with activist youths and drive forward the initiatives that young people are interested in (single-issue topics). Young people often cite a lack of trust for politicians as the main reason for their apathy towards electoral politics (Henn and Foard 2012, 49). Citizens’ initiatives should be seen as a great opportunity to address trust questions because the results are more visible and there is less need for political horse-trading, making it easier to see whether the aim was met or not without having to invest so much time and effort. Of course, this does not mean that all initiatives should be accepted, since some need to be rejected and some severely amended. However, consideration and parliamentary scrutiny should be given to each initiative. No-one governs a country in a vacuum and we should respect, embrace and address the participation of our citizens.
Sixth, individual politicians are not the only ones who should rethink their approach to connecting with young voters. As we have witnessed, electoral participation has been steadily declining in many European countries across the population at large. This is something that political parties should address by going back to basics and by making sure that they have sufficient contact with the electorate. Politicians have to be closer to the citizens and actively visit their constituents and address their concerns. Again, we would like to use Norway as an example as, during the latest parliamentary election campaign, our sister party, the Norwegian Conservative Party (Høyre), visited more than 400,000 households in person! The technological tools that make this approach feasible are there–-they just need to be put into use locally by political parties. We do not think that there is a better political family than the centre-right to do this due to our strong focus on communities. The communication of political messages to young people should be adjusted according to the changes in their values. It is not possible to get young people to vote using the same arguments and language that are used for older cohorts of voters. However, so far political parties have not succeeded (or have not been interested) in finding the correct way to communicate their policies to young people. Why haven't the parties promised support for ongoing citizens’ initiatives to show young people how some of their policies could be translated into real-life ones?
Conclusion
All in all, the current situation in Europe regarding the disengagement of young people from electoral politics is really alarming. Many measures should be introduced and many politicians and parties must change their way of thinking, since not only do young people need to reconnect with electoral politics, but politicians and political parties must reconnect and adjust their behaviour towards young people. We prefer a bottom-up approach to the problem and that is why we have suggested pragmatic and practical measures that would introduce young people to electoral politics at a younger age, which we consider to be crucial for getting young people to vote without making it obligatory. The risks of disengagement to our democratic system are overwhelming, but even though the risks are great we should not resort to top-down approaches but patiently create bottom-up interest in electoral politics. However, this will not work unless politicians and political parties adjust their behaviour to the changed values of young people and to their desire of furthering single-issue topics. This is especially important in the EU, because we believe that without building political interest from the bottom up we will not see more people voting in European Parliament elections except to cast protest votes.
Footnotes