A R T I C L E

Bringing politics to the youth:how to generate interest in electoralpolitics

Konstantinos Kyranakis •

Juha-Pekka Nurvala

Published online: 28 November 2013� Centre for European Studies 2013

Abstract According to recent studies, young people are interested in politicsin a broad sense but are disengaged with electoral politics. The falling turn-outsin European Parliament elections, especially among young people, are creatingproblems with the legitimacy of our political governance system. The authorssuggest six pragmatic measures to address the disengagement of young peoplefrom electoral politics. The measures presented are designed to support abottom-up approach towards building lasting interest in electoral politicsamong young people, while keeping in mind the changes in youth values andpossible ways to participate in politics.

Keywords Electoral politics � Youth � Participation � Citizens’ initiative �Elections � Turn-out

Introduction

For many years the turn-out in elections all around Europe has been decliningamong the entire population, with this decline having been especially dramaticin the European Parliament elections. From a percentage of 61.9 % in theEuropean 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 lowof just 43 % in the 2009 elections (European Parliament 2009). This steady

K. Kyranakis (&) � J.-P. NurvalaYouth of the European People’s Party (YEPP), 10 Rue de Commerce, 1000 Brussels, Belgiume-mail: kyranakis@youthepp.eu

J.-P. Nurvalae-mail: nurvala@youthepp.eu

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decline in turn-out is partially explained by the decline in turn-out among youngvoters. 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 thegeneral perception that young people are uninterested in politics, variousstudies show that young people’s interest in politics is defined in a broad way,including civic and political engagement, and in widespread disillusionmentwith electoral politics, and especially with politicians. In this article we will beginby providing a brief overview of the academic arguments presented for thecurrent state of affairs; thereafter we will focus on practical ways to generatepolitical interest among young people.

Academic context

In academic studies multiple reasons have been presented for the currentsituation in which young people feel distanced from electoral politics. JamesSloam (2007, 549) argues that some of the main reasons for youthdisengagement with electoral politics are the increased significance ofindividualism among young people, the changing socio-economic environmentand the development of alternative values. According to Sloam, these changeshave made it really hard for young people to relate to political parties that arestill based on industrial cleavages. However, his research also shows that theperceived ‘apathy’ seems to be only limited to electoral politics. Murray Print(2007, 326) uses three different indicators to identify participation. The first oneis the civic indicator that deals with membership of associations, volunteeringand fund-raising for charities. The second indicator is called the electoralindicator, which concentrates on voting and helping political parties. The thirdindicator is the political engagement indicator and is about contacting officials,taking part in protests, signing petitions and being active in online engage-ments that are of a political nature. Like Sloam, Print argues that young peopledo have an interest in politics, as shown by indicators one and three, but thatthey show disillusionment with elections and voting. In this article we willfocus on the electoral indicator due to the upcoming elections and the rapiddecline in voter turn-out. We consider the risks of a fall in turn-out ofparamount concern to the legitimacy of our political governance system andare of the opinion that rapid actions need to be taken to re-engage youngpeople with electoral politics.

Thus it appears that young people are active citizens but that they value otherkinds of participation more than electoral participation. The apparent apathy forvoting among young people presents a serious threat to the legitimacy of ourdemocratic system. If we cannot fix the problem, we will have to start askingquestions 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 enoughmandate to the institutions or whether making voting obligatory should beconsidered in order to safeguard the legitimacy of our democratic system.

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Second, low general turn-out allows extremist parties to receive far higherproportional representation in parliaments than they should, since even acomparatively small group of people can gain a substantial number ofrepresentatives 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 havea proper representation of their interests in political institutions—we also haveto safeguard our democratic systems. If we bear in the mind that young peopleare interested in ‘politics’ but not in electoral politics we can target our measuresmore effectively to try to increase the turn-out of young people and strengthentheir connection with electoral politics. This is something that needs to be donefor everyone’s sake. Below we suggest a package of measures that wouldintroduce electoral politics to young people at an earlier stage. The measuressuggested would update the ways of participation, which correlate with howyoung people connect with each other, what kind of issues they find importantand how political parties connect with the electorate. Our proposed packagerequires the participation of governments, civil society and political parties alike,since we do not believe in any ‘silver bullet’ solutions for the alarmingly low levelof electoral participation.

Proposed measures

As authors we want to start with measures that would introduce electoralpolitics to young people at a younger age. The first measure we suggest isbringing politics into upper secondary schools and vocational training colleges.In Norway, in parallel with the parliamentary and local elections that areorganised every second year, ‘school elections’ are organised in whichsecondary-level pupils (15–19-year-olds) vote in a model election. The youthorganisations of political parties organise debates and run campaigns in theschools, exposing young people to politics and voting well before they canformally take part in elections. As these events are run by the youthorganisations of real parties, the model election offers students a direct channelto join in and hear young people discussing politics, before casting a vote onwhich party they think is most suitable. This also lowers the threshold for joininga party, since young people do not have to approach a political party as theparties come to them. Furthermore, organising school elections offers an initialexperience of voting and this must be considered crucial because, according toresearch by Shephard and Patrikios (2012, 2), young people who do not vote intheir first election do not appear to start voting at a later stage. Therefore,offering young people their first voting experience in a controlled andencouraging environment, in which they have been exposed to politicaldebates, might lower the threshold for voting in their first actual election, as theywill already have had a positive experience from voting in informal schoolelections.

A second proposal is to lower the statutory voting age to 16. Many youngpeople feel neglected by politicians, which is logical considering that young

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people cannot vote. We believe that 16-year-olds are more than capable ofmaking an informed decision on who best represents their interests. In mostcountries, with some notable exceptions, young people can join political partiesat the age of 15 but voting is only possible after turning 18 years of age. We arenot claiming that lowering the voting age would be an easy instant solution tothe problem, but if it were to be done, everyone would be eligible to vote intheir first election whilst still in school, and we believe that the encouragementand organising of debates in schools would make more young people vote.

Third, the local level is where every individual’s opportunity to achievetangible change is the strongest. Therefore, local youth councils should beestablished. These councils would have the right to be present on all localgovernment committees, representing the voices of those who are not yet ableto vote. A very good way to elect the representatives to these local youthcouncils would be to organise elections in each school. As is noticeable, we placea lot of emphasis on using elections and voting to select youth representativessimply to familiarise young people with the practice of voting. Young peoplecertainly know how elections function, but the actual practice of casting a ballotremains distant and this is something that desperately needs to be changed. Atthe same time, we should not rely on grand top-down schemes to generatepolitical interest but should build it from the bottom up. We believe that onlybottom-up changes will lead to sustainable measures. Local youth councils are acost-effective way in which young people can participate in local decision-making.

Fourth, each EU country should have an independent youth parliament thatnot only gathers once or twice a year but also produces resolutions in eachsession. We believe that we have to open up the political system and offermore ways for young people to participate and familiarise themselves with thepolitical system. However, we also think that parliaments and parliamentariansshould respect the work of national youth parliaments more, since only byengaging with young people can the politicians gain their trust. Unfortunately,national youth parliaments and parliamentarians have only started to connectwith each other in a few places and this lack is regrettable since it createsnegative consequences for the parliamentarian, for the national youthparliamentarians and for society at large. Therefore, we suggest that in orderto make sure that young people feel that their work in the national youthparliaments is respected, getting an answer from the government as to whythey are in favour of or against the proposals of the youth parliament shouldbe the minimum requirement from the government. Research by Shephardand Patrikios (2012, 16) argues that in many countries national youthparliaments have become more of a platform to communicate to participantsabout how parliamentary democracy works rather than a well-functioningdirect channel from youth to parliamentarians. This is something that needs tobe kept in mind. And although it is true that the national youth parliaments arenot representative of all youth, they offer a great opportunity for politicians toengage with young people and transmit their messages through mediapopular with the young.

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Fifth, young people are increasingly connecting with each other, working andparticipating in society online and, therefore, electronic voting needs to beenabled. As research shows, young people are really interested in single-issuetopics such as climate change and the rights of minorities. Therefore, eachEuropean country should introduce a citizens’ initiative. We find it disappointingthat the European Citizens’ Initiative, as implemented today, makes it nearlyimpossible for initiatives to be adopted by the European Parliament. The factthat young people are really interested in single-issue topics is something thatshould be noticed by politicians and political parties. In order to reach the youthaudience, it is no longer enough to put forward messages that resonate withindustrial cleavages. However, all EU countries are different and the currentongoing economic crisis has potentially reignited industrial cleavages amongyoung people.

Thus far, politicians have widely ignored citizens’ initiatives, but, especially forthose who hope to connect with young people, these should be seen as a hugeopportunity to meet with activist youths and drive forward the initiatives thatyoung people are interested in (single-issue topics). Young people often cite alack of trust for politicians as the main reason for their apathy towards electoralpolitics (Henn and Foard 2012, 49). Citizens’ initiatives should be seen as a greatopportunity to address trust questions because the results are more visible andthere is less need for political horse-trading, making it easier to see whether theaim 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 berejected and some severely amended. However, consideration and parliamen-tary scrutiny should be given to each initiative. No-one governs a country in avacuum and we should respect, embrace and address the participation of ourcitizens.

Sixth, individual politicians are not the only ones who should rethink theirapproach to connecting with young voters. As we have witnessed, electoralparticipation has been steadily declining in many European countries acrossthe population at large. This is something that political parties should addressby going back to basics and by making sure that they have sufficient contactwith the electorate. Politicians have to be closer to the citizens and activelyvisit their constituents and address their concerns. Again, we would like to useNorway as an example as, during the latest parliamentary election campaign,our sister party, the Norwegian Conservative Party (Høyre), visited more than400,000 households in person! The technological tools that make this approachfeasible 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 todo this due to our strong focus on communities. The communication ofpolitical messages to young people should be adjusted according to thechanges in their values. It is not possible to get young people to vote usingthe same arguments and language that are used for older cohorts of voters.However, so far political parties have not succeeded (or have not beeninterested) in finding the correct way to communicate their policies to youngpeople. Why haven’t the parties promised support for ongoing citizens’

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initiatives to show young people how some of their policies could betranslated into real-life ones?

Conclusion

All in all, the current situation in Europe regarding the disengagement of youngpeople from electoral politics is really alarming. Many measures should beintroduced and many politicians and parties must change their way of thinking,since not only do young people need to reconnect with electoral politics, butpoliticians and political parties must reconnect and adjust their behaviourtowards young people. We prefer a bottom-up approach to the problem andthat is why we have suggested pragmatic and practical measures that wouldintroduce young people to electoral politics at a younger age, which weconsider to be crucial for getting young people to vote without making itobligatory. The risks of disengagement to our democratic system are over-whelming, but even though the risks are great we should not resort to top-downapproaches but patiently create bottom-up interest in electoral politics.However, this will not work unless politicians and political parties adjust theirbehaviour to the changed values of young people and to their desire offurthering single-issue topics. This is especially important in the EU, because webelieve that without building political interest from the bottom up we will notsee more people voting in European Parliament elections except to cast protestvotes.

References

European Parliament. (2009). Turnout at the European elections (1979–2009). http://www.europarl.europa.eu/aboutparliament/en/000cdcd9d4/Turnout-(1979-2009).html. Accessed 15September 2013.

Henn, M., & Foard, N. (2012). Young people, political participation and trust in Britain. ParliamentaryAffairs, 65(1), 47–67. http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/1/47.full.pdf?html. Accessed 15September 2013.

Print, M. (2007). Citizenship education and youth participation in democracy. British Journal ofEducational Studies, 55(3), 325–345.

Shephard, M., & Patrikios, S. (2012). Making democracy work by early formal engagement? Acomparative exploration of youth parliaments in the EU. Parliamentary Affairs, 66(4), 1–20.

Sloam, J. (2007). Rebooting democracy: Youth participation in politics in the UK. Parliamentary Affairs,60(4), 548–567.

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Konstantinos Kyranakis is President of the Youth of the European People’sParty. He holds a law degree from the University of Athens and an MA incommunication management from the American College of Greece.

Juha-Pekka Nurvala is the First Vice-President of the Youth of the EuropeanPeople’s Party. He holds a first-class honours degree in international politicsfrom King’s College, London, and is currently studying for an M.Sc. in politicaleconomy of Europe at the London School of Economics.

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