Addressing the Democratic Disconnect

Abstract

In Australia and the UK ordinary young people are identifying and acting on issues that matter, and in everyday ways they are shaping the kind of society they want to live in. This book has sought to engage directly with their views and experiences of participation, to explore how they reflect on and respond to the dominant discourses of youth participation that underpin concerns and hopes about the future of democracy. The experiences of the young people in this study unfold at the intersections of policy, new organisational practices and everyday life. These intersections illuminate the dynamics underpinning the democratic disconnect: a gap between institutional understandings and expectations of young citizens and the nature and substance of youthful forms of political identification and action. This gap — or disconnect — is widely seen to be a ‘problem’ of youth disengagement with democracy, a problem that tends to be viewed as either one of ‘civic deficit’ or ‘new forms of engagement’ (Harris et al., 2007: 20–21). However, the young people in this study demonstrate that the multiple and varying ways they identify and relate to issues that matter and attempt to shape the communities and society they live in are part of an unfolding process of being political. This is fundamentally a dynamic process, the uncertainties of which require more engagement on the part of traditional institutions and political elites.

We are giving people a chance to think through what is the community that they want to live in. In 50 years what is the world that they want to leave their kids. And then once we’ve had a chance to articulate that, we actually give them opportunities and skills so they can start making it a reality, and I think that there is a lack of that in our democracy at the moment for young people.

— Kira, 24, part-time university student, AYCC