• 1 See Seyla Benhabib et. al., The Democratic Disconnect: Citizenship and Accountability in the Transa (...)
• 2 Pippa Norris, Democratic Deficit: Critical Citizens Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres (...)
• 3 Fareed Zakari defines “Illiberal democracy” as “democratically elected regimes, often ones that hav (...)
• 4 For the sake of simplicity and based upon the extensive research done for this issue, young people (...)
• 5 Roberto S. Foa et. al., “Youth and Satisfaction with Democracy: Reversing the Democratic Disconnect (...)
• 6 Ibid., 2.
• 7 Alex Bogdan, “Ahead of highly anticipated UK general election in 2024, satisfaction with democracy (...)
• 8 Aaron Martin, Young People and Politics: Political Engagement in the Anglo-American Democracies, Lo (...)

1The democratic disconnect that has been affecting nearly all Western democracies these past years is a cause for concern around the world and a major research topic among scholars who try to understand the origins of this global phenomenon.1 Characterised by an erosion of trust in political leaders, a distrust in institutions and a disengagement of citizens from the political life of their countries,2 the democratic disconnect is redefining the political landscape and producing a major shift away from traditional forms of political participation. Abstention rates are reaching unprecedented levels, political parties’ membership is plummeting, and populist parties with their abrasive discourse against elites and institutions have never been so successful across Western democracies. Donald Trump’s re-election as President of the United States on 5 November 2024 notwithstanding a very divisive first term and the assault on the Capitol after he lost the election against Joe Biden highlights the staggering momentum gained by those disruptive populist forces which undermine the democratic health and stability of Western societies. There are even some well-founded fears that the United States might become an “illiberal democracy”3 on the same model as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Once sacred and cherished, democracy is today going through a crisis of legitimacy and popularity. Democracy no longer inspires hope of better days and seems unable to deliver the promises of social justice, fairness, and prosperity for all. At the heart of this major crisis of confidence in the democratic model, one group stands out: young people.4 In 2020, a major study entitled « Youth and Satisfaction with Democracy: The Democratic Disconnect? » was conducted by the Centre for the Future of Democracy, University of Cambridge, over several decades across a hundred countries. It revealed that “This is the first generation in living memory to have a global majority who are dissatisfied with the way democracy works while in their twenties and thirties”.5 One of the key findings of this survey was that the United Kingdom and the United States were among the two Western countries in which young people were most disaffected with democracy.6 Three years later, the polling institute Ipsos KnowledgePanel carried out a survey on people of all ages in seven countries (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Croatia and the United States) on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with democracy. The survey revealed that one in two people in those seven countries expressed a strong or very strong discontent with the way democracy works – or rather does not work – in their nations. Interestingly, the results of the 2023 survey echoed the findings of the 2020 survey conducted on young people insofar as the United Kingdom and the United States counted the greatest number of people who were dissatisfied with democracy. The United States came first (57%) while the United Kingdom stood slightly behind (49%). Besides, it was in the UK and the USA that people felt most acutely frustrated by a system that, according to them, benefits the rich and forsakes the most vulnerable (71% in the UK, 67% in the USA).7 It thus appears that the United Kingdom and the United States, two of the oldest and most emblematic Western democracies, are both facing a very similar challenge as regards the erosion of trust in their democratic institutions in the 21^st century.8

• 9 The ‘grey vote’ refers to the older body of voters.
• 10 David Bell and David Blanchflower, “Young People and the Great Recession”, Oxford Review of Economi (...)
• 11 Martin, 2012, op. cit., 2. See also Sarah Pickard, Politics, Protest and Young People. Political Pa (...)
• 12 Bobby Duffy and Kirstie Hewlett, “How Culture Wars Start”, The Policy Institute, London: King’s Col (...)

2In that context of growing discontent towards democracy among young people in the United Kingdom and the United States and considering the many different questions that it raises, it seemed important to dedicate a volume to the study of “Youth, Politics, and the Crisis of Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States” to enrich the academic debates on this major issue. There are several reasons why it is particularly interesting to focus on this specific group of people: first, young people are too often ignored by politicians who prioritise older and senior voters as they consider that wooing the ‘grey vote’9 will be more politically rewarding due to the high turnout among older voters. As a result, young people end up being very much excluded from the political sphere while at the same time being blamed for their lack of political engagement. Second, although lumping all young people together as if there were no differences between them would be totally inaccurate, we can nonetheless argue that they stand at a critical stage in their civic development: just starting their life as fully-fledged citizens yet still in the process of getting to know the intricacies of democratic life, they do not always find it easy to identify with political figures and subscribe to political programmes which very rarely address their concerns. Yet, they tend to be the most exposed to the harsh reality of economic precarity, unemployment and poor housing. Usually the first victims of economic crises, their young age makes them particularly vulnerable to anxiety and concerns as regards their future. David Bell and David Blanchflower, two scholars specialised in youth underemployment argued that, when the 2007-2008 economic crisis hit the UK and the USA, it was primarily « young people aged 16-24 [who] suffered disproportionately during the recession”.10 First victims and yet very rarely at the centre of politicians’ priorities, young people are frequently portrayed as apathetic, selfish or immature in their approach to politics. The negative stereotypes and unflattering representations about them convey the image of a generation having lost all sense of civic engagement and all interest in the political and democratic life of their countries.11 Thus, it seems only fair to question those representations and reappraise the outlook we tend to have – collectively – on youth and their political participation. Finally, our intention to focus on the United Kingdom and the United States specifically derives from the fact that lately those two nations seem to have been following very similar paths thus confirming what Professors Bobby Duffy and Kirstie Hewlett once declared, “Where America leads, Britain often follows”.12 These past decades, a series of severe crises have profoundly marked the two countries and damaged their social and national cohesion. The 2007-2008 economic crisis severely impacted the American and British economies and left millions of people in very difficult situations; then in 2016, both the UK and the USA shocked the entire world with two outstanding populist victories, the UK in June 2016 with the victory of Brexit and a few months later the USA with the election of Donald Trump; finally, a major value crisis has emerged around a whole array of issues but more particularly sensitive issues such as immigration, abortion, and national identity. All these crises have very logically and inevitably led to a crisis of confidence in democracy which is particularly palpable among young people in the United Kingdom and United States alike.

• 13 For one of those views, see for instance Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of (...)
• 14 Danny Dorling, “The 2024 UK General Election result by age group”, July/August 2024, available at h (...)
• 15 British Election Study ,“Age and voting behaviour at the 2019 General Election”, 27 January 2021, a (...)
• 16 CIRCLE, “The Youth Vote in the 2024 Election”, available at https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election, (...)
• 17 Maggie Astor, “Taylor Swift’s Call to Vote Sent Hundreds of Thousands to Registration Tools”, The N (...)
• 18 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Dev (...)
• 19 See Pippa Norris, Digital Divide: Civic Engagement, Information Poverty, and the Internet Worldwide(...)

3The crisis of confidence which characterises the relations between youth and politics is often illustrated by the abysmal abstention rates. Indeed, the statistics of youth participation in British and American elections would tend to suggest a major lack of interest and prove pessimists right.13 In the latest general elections which took place in July 2024 in Britain, only 37% of those aged between 18 and 24 turned out to vote14 while it was ten points higher in 2019.15 In the United States, 42% of those aged between 18 and 29 cast a ballot in 2024, six points below the 2020 election.16 In the US, democratic apathy among the young is so widespread that only a highly popular pop singer like Taylor Swift seems capable of galvanising hundreds of thousands of her young fans into registering to vote.17 Looking at those figures, one could easily jump to the conclusion that the young are a lost cause, a bunch of self-absorbed narcissists more interested in their videos on Tik Tok and Instagram than in the democratic life of their countries. But this simplistic and caricatural depiction disregards a whole repertoire of actions and deeds that are specific to young people and therefore ignores the more complex and multi-faceted approach that young people have towards political engagement. Judging young people’s engagement solely upon an examination of participation or abstention rates is not only short-sighted and misleading but also inaccurate. Two eminent researchers in political sociology, Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, who extensively worked on democracy and citizenship, argued that “New forms of political self-expression extend the boundary of politics from the narrow domain of elite-led electoral campaigns into increasingly autonomous forms of public self-expression”.18 Based upon Inglehart and Welzel’s works as well Pippa Norris’s,19 a growing academic literature thereafter emerged which specifically examined the wide range of innovative and creative initiatives developed by young people to influence politicians and policymakers. In doing so, they aimed at deconstructing the conventional stereotypes and pejorative representations overwhelmingly associated with young people. Among the two most prominent studies one can mention Young People and Politics, Political Engagement in the Anglo-American Democracies (2012) by Aaron Martin and Politics, Protest and Young People. Political Participation and Dissent in 21st Century Britain (2019) by Sarah Pickard. In her book, Sarah Pickard analysed the different ways in which young people redefine political participation and theorised the concept of “Do-It-Ourselves politics” which she described as:

• 21 Ibid., 7.

4What Sarah Pickard underlines here is that young people do engage in politics, but they do so with their own codes and norms “in accordance with their ethical, environmental and political values, whereby politics is everywhere, not just for elections”.21 If the ballot is not their favourite mode of participation, protests, marches, online petitions or campaigns on social networks on the other hand are much more appealing to them and successfully mobilise masses of young people around national as well as transnational causes. The massive protests across the UK against the increase of university tuition fees and drastic public spending cuts in education during David Cameron’s mandates or the protests by thousands of school pupils and students against gun violence after a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, are but a few examples of youth civic engagement these past years. In addition to those national movements, transnational causes such as environmental protection and the fight against global warming, the defence of reproductive rights and the fight to eliminate violence against women resonate passionately with young people.

• 22 Ibid., 1.

5Following that vein in recent academic research, our issue on “Youth, Politics, and the Crisis of Democracy in the United Kingdom and the United States” is also an attempt at providing a more accurate understanding of the complex and multi-faceted approaches that young people in these two countries have in relation to political engagement. Far from considering that the young are a lost generation who is by essence apathetic and selfish, we explore the motives behind their engagement or lack of engagement and aim to propose a different narrative that stops assigning the blame on young people and refocuses attention on politicians’ responsibility when it comes to marginalising young people from politics. To do so, we begin with an interview with Roberto S. Foa, co-founder and director of the Centre for the Future of Democracy at the University of Cambridge and one of the leading researchers involved in the global survey aforementioned on “Youth Attitudes Towards Democracy”. Roberto S. Foa gives a very interesting insight into the reasons for this major disconnect clearly pinpointing economic exclusion as a prime factor of disengagement. This disengagement, he explains, follows two stages: first “democratic apathy” and then “democratic antipathy” leading some youths to turn to anti-establishment populist parties, thus paradoxically re-engaging in traditional political participation to support non-traditional movements or parties. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the role played by politicians themselves. In « From Paternalistic Stereotypes to Overtly Negative Storytelling: A Critical Narrative Analysis of How Conservative Leaders Talk About Young People (2005-2022) », Alma-Pierre Bonnet posits that the growing youth disillusionment with politics in the UK is partly due to the negative representations of young people in Tory leaders’ speeches. He provides a critical analysis of this storytelling and in doing so sheds light on its biased discourse: conventional wisdom lays the blame on youth for their political disengagement but for decades politicians have disengaged from young people’s concerns thus further widening the gap between the two. One political leader in the UK stands out as an exception in the traditional political landscape: Jeremy Corbyn. In their article “Towards new generational forms of political engagement in the British Labour party? The political uses of the festival “The World Transformed”” Nicolas Jara-Joly and Denis Rayer explore how young party members influenced the renewal of political activism within the Labour Party by producing new forms of engagement and activism. To this purpose the authors chose to examine the forms of hybrid engagement through the lens of the festival ‘The World Transformed’, “a space of mobilization, participation and sociability created by young activists themselves as a linkage between social movement and party activism.” The 2017 General Elections saw an unprecedented turnout of young people massively voting for the Labour candidate. This exceptional mobilisation was termed ‘youthquake’ and describes “the surge in political awareness, engagement, activism and electoral turnout of young people in the 2017 General Election”.22 The ‘youthquake’ shows that when politicians address young people’s anxieties and concerns, when they offer them a distinct political offer, then young people do mobilise, and they do so massively. Not only was the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership able to galvanise young people, so was the Scottish National Party with its inspiring emphasis on Scotland’s independence. The referendum on Scottish independence organised in 2014 was the first democratic event to allow young people aged 16-17 to take part in a vote and 75% of them cast a ballot thus showing their great interest in this momentous issue. Claire Breniaux’s article ““Independence Referendum and Youth Membership in Scotland” is the result of extensive field study and proposes an update on the theories of youth party membership with a specific SNP youth membership model. Finally, young people also mobilise massively when they feel that one of their dearest causes is at stake and that their future is threatened. This is what happened in 2022 in the United States with the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act. In “How youth-led climate movements played a role in the passage of the United States’ first ever climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act” Mélanie Meunier highlights how the extraordinary mobilisation of thousands of young Americans was decisive in the adoption of the Act. From school strikes to get-out-the-vote campaigns to sustained pressure on politicians, it was the massive mobilisation of young American people at multiple levels that changed the course of action.