Young people and politics

Young people’s relationship to democracy is a dynamic one. Over time, how youth, participation and citizenship are defined has changed, reflecting the persistent and changing norms and conventions of Australian society and politics. As suggested by Scott Morrison’s response to the student-led ‘School Strike 4 Climate’, there are both firm and contested ideas about who young citizens are and their role in Australian democracy. These reflect how ‘youth’, as a life stage, is conceptualised, how citizenship is defined, how people develop and express political views and behaviours and create, share and consume political media, what constitutes participation and how people exercise their rights and responsibilities in Australian democracy and shape its ongoing evolution.

This chapter looks at how young people’s relationships to politics have changed and diversified over time. It first considers how young people’s citizenship and their role in democracy can be conceptualised. The second section looks at young people’s status in Australian politics – in formal processes, policy and advocacy. The final section discusses how young people’s political interests and participation in democracy are evolving in relation to the constraints and opportunities of Australian democracy.

Conceptualising young citizens

Like most concepts in social science, ‘citizenship’ and ‘youth’ are not ‘natural’ – actually, they are highly contested! Not only has their meaning changed over time, there are also lively and continuing debates about how we should think about these terms – and therefore who can participate in democracy and how.

Citizenship

Citizenship is a key term in theories of democracy because it defines who belongs to a particular community – or to a state such as Australia. In this regard, citizenship refers to a legal and administrative status – specifically membership of a political community. Citizens have rights – for example, to vote and to help decide how their community or country is governed. Liberal theories of democracy present the exercise of rights as the most important form of political participation; citizens need knowledge and experience to understand and use their rights well. Citizens also have democratic duties and responsibilities. For example, communitarian theories argue that citizenship is fostered through a sense of belonging, which requires that people join communities and associations to learn about and contribute to democracy in ways that benefit the broader group – or ‘common good’. This way of thinking about citizenship connects to the idea of ‘active citizenship’, which is often evoked in youth policy,2 and suggests that to qualify as citizens young people must demonstrate that they contribute to civic associations.

Throughout history, many people have pointed out that these rights, and opportunities to exercise the responsibilities of citizenship, are not experienced equally by all. For instance, until the 20th century in most democracies, women were citizens but lacked some political and civil rights, such as the right to vote or to own property. So radical theories of democracy – such as feminism – argue that citizenship is necessarily exclusionary, producing ‘second- or third-class citizens’ because some members of political communities are less valued and more marginalised and disadvantaged than others. They point out that citizenship is enacted when people and groups challenge who ‘counts’ as a citizen by undertaking ‘acts’ such as speaking, marching or posting content online to express opinions or to protest an event or issue – thus constituting themselves as members of a public. These different theories of citizenship all affect how young people are perceived in Australian politics.3

Youth

While ‘youth’ can refer to a stage of life somewhere between ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’, the term is ambiguous because it is hard to determine when childhood stops or adulthood starts. Historically, psychology and developmental sociology have viewed ‘youth’ as a universal, biological stage through which young people should pass on normal pathways to (full) ‘adult’ citizenship.

However, there is no distinct age at which young people become ‘adult’ or ‘full citizens’ in Australia. Young people can leave formal education at 15 (depending on the jurisdiction) but are not paid ‘adult’ wages until they are 21; they can be held criminally responsible for their acts from the age of 10 and be jailed in adult prisons from 17, and yet, for the purposes of youth support payments, they are generally not considered ‘independent’ until they are 22.4 While (in certain industries) there is no minimum age at which a young person can gain employment and pay income tax, they are not allowed to vote until they are 18.

Broadly speaking, youth policy defines ‘young people’ as aged 12–25 years, but the ambiguity reflects the fact that the experience of youth is not ‘fixed’ – it is shaped by context, policy and lived experience and in relationship to social institutions, like the family and education and justice systems. Sociologists White and Wyn describe youth as a ‘relational term’ – meaning it is mostly defined in relation to what it is not.5 Just as young people are ‘not yet adult’, they are largely constructed in mainstream political discourse as not yet (full) citizens. This contributes to the idea that young people are only fully of value ‘in the future’ – and that they need to be monitored and managed towards ‘good citizenship’ in the interests of protecting society’s future.6 Over time, concerns about whether or not young people will develop into ‘normatively good’ citizens have manifested differently in scholarship and policy but have frequently been anchored to the question of how people acquire political knowledge and behaviours – or political socialisation.

In the 1950s, scholars of political socialisation were particularly concerned with how children and young people develop political orientations and the way families, schools and existing community and government structures help young people to learn and ‘practise’ civic skills.7 In the 1960s and 1970s, as young people were increasingly questioning traditional values, creating new cultures and leading or participating in social movements, researchers and policy makers asked questions about the participatory rights of children and young people. This is exemplified in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990). The convention has a specific article that lays out children and young people’s ‘right to participation and to be heard in decisions that affect them’ (article 12). Since the 1990s, significant interest in how to realise young people’s right to participate in community and government decision making has arisen. Sometimes this is termed ‘youth development’ – helping young people to grow into good adult citizens. Governments and non-government organisations have also introduced programs and strategies to enable youth participation as ‘active citizens’ – where young people participate in approved ways in adult-managed processes.8

Rather than linear progress in the understanding and recognition of young people as political actors, these phases are better thought of in terms of emerging, contrasting and sometimes overlapping concerns, approaches and debates about the nature of youth citizenship and participation.

The status of young people in Australian democracy

Young people’s status in Australian democracy is ambiguous. As described above, a range of laws and different age thresholds govern young people – although only those young people aged 18 and over are ascribed full political rights and can vote and run for office. A number of Australia’s political parties have federal and state ‘youth wings’ that are open to members of various ages. For example, the Young Liberals’ federal branch is currently open to those between 16 and 31,9 while Australian Young Labor is currently open to those between 14 and 26.10 Statistics regarding young people’s membership or involvement in party activities are seldom published, however, making accurate assessment of how many young Australians are actively involved in political parties difficult.

What young people can – or should – do has been increasingly ‘governed’ (regulated by policies and laws) since the middle of the 19th century, when parliaments in Western countries started to legislate in areas such as education (compulsory schooling), justice (laws and institutions for ‘juveniles’) and work (minimum working age).

Rather than being enabled, some researchers argue that young people have been monitored and ‘interventions’ applied to direct their learning and behaviours.11This is another way in which young people are constructed as ‘trainee citizens’, as is exemplified by ongoing debates about the age at which people should be allowed to vote.

Another feature of young people’s relationship to democracy in Australia is that youth interests are inconsistently represented at different levels of government. Treatment of these interests has historically depended on the political priorities of the parties in government. Various attempts to engage with young people in policy processes at a federal level have been developed at different times since the 1980s. For example, in 2007, the newly elected Labor government appointed a minister for youth and re-funded the national youth peak body (the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition). The government invested in national research and consultations to create a National Youth Strategy (2010).17 It also created ‘experimental’ mechanisms for engaging with young people in agenda setting and policy making, such as the Australian Youth Forum – an online platform to promote discussion by and with young people on policy issues. A federal Office for Youth Affairs has also existed at various times. Its purpose has largely been to research government action on youth issues and to support the planning and co-ordination of policies and services that affect young Australians.18

Since 2013, Australian federal governments have supported a National Children’s Commissioner, who advocates for the rights and interests of children, and reviews and reports on legislation, policy and practice that affects them. After its election in 2013, the Liberal–National (Coalition) government defunded most federal-level youth policy initiatives, abolished parliamentary representation and closed the Office for Youth.

In response to the challenges of representation, an active ‘youth sector’ has emerged in Australia, made up of a range of ‘interest groups’ – organisations seeking to represent and advocate for the interests of young people and to influence public policy. These include community and non-government organisations of varying sizes, such as large charities, service providers, social movement organisations and associations. There is also a network of national, state and territory peak bodies for youth affairs. Young people are extensively involved in or lead many of them. An important contribution the youth sector has made to youth politics is in the area of participation, by advocating for young people’s right to be heard, particularly when it comes to issues and policies that affect them. These organisations consult with young people about relevant issues and advocate for young people’s participation in policy and decision making; many provide training and resources to assist communities, organisations and government bodies to better engage young people in their agenda-setting processes and other activities. Popular engagement mechanisms include youth advisory committees, youth executives, in-person and online consultations and forums, and the co-design of relevant initiatives.

Engaged and active citizens?

Much research on youth political participation has focused on levels of political knowledge or ‘civic literacy’, electoral participation and membership of traditional civil society organisations (such as churches and charities). These are ‘institutional’ measures of participation. Studies using these measures identify increasingly low levels of knowledge, trust, membership and support for traditional political actors (e.g. politicians), institutions (e.g. parties) and ‘repertoires’ of participation (e.g. voting or joining a political party or union) among young people.19 For example, 2004 research by the Youth Electoral Study showed that only 50 per cent of surveyed Australian high school students would enrol to vote if it was not compulsory. Some scholars and commentators interpret this as indicating greater apathy and/or poor civics knowledge among young people.

However, other researchers argue that these studies’ definitions of ‘politics’ and ‘participation’ (e.g. as elections and voting) do not reflect the broader ways young people think about or practise politics. They show that young people engage in a wide range of non-electoral, ‘cause-oriented’ participatory practices, including signing petitions, buying a particular brand or product because of a political belief, taking part in demonstrations and joining online or local issues-based groups.20 Rather than participating in politics mainly due to a sense of obligation to particular forms of democracy and democratic institutions (e.g. political parties or government), the theory is that young people participate because of causes or issues, such as violence, climate change or corruption.21

Lance Bennett uses ‘dutiful’ and ‘self-actualising’ to describe two ways of thinking about contemporary citizenship.24 Dutiful citizens are guided by ideologies, mass movements and traditional loyalties to particular parties and the values, processes and institutions that constitute representative government. In contrast, self-actualising citizens respond to personal political concerns and connect informally to issues through family and friendship groups, lifestyle and identity. They value participatory forms of governance where different members of society inform and influence government decision making. Thinking about dutiful and self-actualising citizens helps to move away from debates about whether young people are ‘more’ or ‘less’ politically active now than they have been in the past. While young Australians are less involved in traditional organisations, such as churches, charities and political parties,25 they do participate in online and local activities run by community groups, organisations and networks and create their own campaigns and actions. A 2018 Mission Australia survey of 28,286 15- to 19-year-olds found that 36.8 per cent participated in volunteer work, 36.4 per cent in arts/cultural/music activities, 27.4 per cent in student leadership, 22.6 per cent in youth groups and 18.8 per cent in religious groups.26

The internet is key to changes in how people participate.27 The extent to which the internet mobilises new political actors or improves engagement is widely debated. It is generally accepted that social life is increasingly mediated by digital technologies and networks. The internet plays an important role in youth political practice as a means for: seeking news, information and opinions on social and political issues; communication and cultural expression; and joining and/or participating in online organisations and interest groups.28

Conclusions

Youth is not a fixed or natural category but one that is fluid and changing – produced by the way young people are constructed in policy, social structures and different contexts. As such, young people occupy an ambiguous place in Australian democracy. Young people in Australia enrol to vote and participate in elections in high numbers. However, they are more likely to value and engage in non-electoral and non-institutional forms of political participation – especially local, individualised collective action (such as signing a petition or joining a march) and loose, cause-oriented networks that campaign on particular issues. In this regard, the views and behaviours of young people reflect generational shifts in the values and norms underpinning contemporary democracy – signalling exciting new ways forward.

References

About the authors

Dr Philippa Collin is principle research fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. She researches the politics of youth and the role of digital media for participation, citizenship, health and wellbeing. Philippa is the author of Young citizens and political participation in a digital society: addressing the democratic disconnect (2015) and co-author of Young people in digital society: control shift (2019). She is co-director of the Intergener8 Living Lab and is a stream leader in the Wellbeing, Health and Youth Centre of Research Excellence in Adolescent Health.

Jane McCormack has conducted research in academic, advisory, commercial and non-government organisation contexts across a range of topics, including social media and the wellbeing of children and young people, and young people’s participation in democracy.