This article is a contribution to the discourse of politics towards (for) youth, which the author defines as the ‘cultural politics of risk’. The article begins with scientific representations of youth as a threat, as a group inclined to engage in risky behaviours. It then focuses on theoretical approaches called the ‘risk paradigm’, providing a framework for recognising anxieties and rationalities supporting them. The following section is concerned with the analysis of selected programmes which determine the strategies of Polish state politics towards (for) youth. The author attempts to show the relations between scientific risk knowledge and political projects justified by expert rationality. The article concludes with an interpretation of governmentality of youth portrayed as a threat in the context of the conception of ‘suitable enemies’.
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