Background Document - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy

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There are two opposite trends regarding young people and political parties. One is that the academic world has not considered young people and politics as a key research topic, and political parties have not considered young people as an issue of concern within their party. On the other hand, it seems that young people have different interests in politics than their elders. There is an overall understanding that there is a dramatic decline in the political involvement of younger generations, and decreasing levels of youth participation in elections, political parties and traditional social organisations. Research shows that generally, young people conceptualise politics differently, ‘seeing it as an arena for the older generation, and not linked directly to their own lives’. 4 They also have a broad mistrust of political parties. Research also shows that, overall, young people who are not involved in politics have the feeling that political parties are not addressing their interests and they feel powerless in relation to the political system. They simply believe that they can’t have an impact. And even if they are members of political parties, they cannot see themselves playing important roles or being leaders in these parties. “We are not going to be able to solve the gender problem in our political parties without the support of men within the women’s committee. We have been missing that kind of strategy as women in Kenya.” In some countries, a two-party system seems to deter the political interests of young people as they feel they have a lack of alternatives. It is worth noting that one of the reasons the Greens party overall attracts more young members than the traditional political parties is that the Greens party agenda tends to be much closer to young people’s political concerns. There are two voices in conceptualising the decline of young people’s political interests. Some see the decline in interest in politics as a reflection of the increased individualism within the population. Indeed, some argue that the lack of interest in a formal model of political engagement is due to the new era of neoliberal discourse to which young people have been submitted. The neoliberal discourse has in some ways shifted interest from society to the individual. Members of the younger generation would be primarily interested only in themselves. Ward suggests that the new form of political engagement could be conceptualised as political consumerism, whereby citizens would consume politics as consumers would consume goods. While the pessimistic voices see the increased individualism of society and the consumption of politics as a threat to the future of democracy, the optimistic voices look rather at the wide variety of political actions, formal and informal, which have emerged over the last two decades and point the finger at the political parties not be- 4 Ann and Shuib, 2011, 175 WOMEN IN POLITICS DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY PAGE 12 MRS PENINAH MWASHEWA NATIONAL LABOUR PARTY, KENYA
ing able to keep up with and ‘being disconnected from young people’. 5 Indeed, the optimistic voices do not see any threat to the future of democracy but rather a revival and a renewal of democracy due to the diversity of political action that the political parties have to grapple with. These informal political actions create new modes of expression and participation that seem to appeal to young people. The new modes would be elite challenging forms of participation. They would, for instance, focus on single issues or what Norris calls a ‘cause-oriented style of politics’ 6 , or what Giddens calls lifestyle politics. Others mention other forms such as the rise of networks, issue associations and lifestyle coalitions. Overall, the combined optimistic and pessimistic voices would point to an inadequacy of traditional democratic arrangements for contemporary youth. Beyond the two voices conceptualising young people’s attitudes and behaviours towards politics there are factors that determine their engagement. Major research in the USA shows that those who get involved in the new/informal forms of political engagement are those who are also more likely to get involved in formal forms of political engagement. In other words, young people who show political apathy in getting involved in formal political actions are also impossible to reach through other means of political action. Indeed, factors which determine political engagement are linked to education and overall social status and social economic background. The higher the education, the higher the political involvement of the parents, and the higher the social economic background of the parents, the more likely young people will engage in politics, whether formal or informal. Other factors would be the multiple challenges young people have to face nowadays which may have an impact on their political attitudes and behaviour. Young people ‘have to cope with dynamic social conditions during their transition to adulthood, which confront them with increasing demands for flexibility on the labour market, with self-reliance concerning welfare security, and with demands for increasing activity with respect to participation in the democratic process’. 7 Although the political engagement of young women is not weaker than that of men, it is nonetheless different. Young women tend to be less involved in formal politics and more involved in the informal ‘civic form of engagement’, such as socialmovement-oriented activities, that are for instance voluntary work, collecting money, and collecting signatures, and it seems also that ‘youth participation in politics using the new technology continues to be structured by gender’ in the same way. 8 There are varying factors to explain the difference. Due to the burden of duties such as caring commitments, household domestic duties, but also the requirement of the full participation in the workplace which involves working long hours, young women would lack opportunities and resources to fully engage in formal politics. In fact, a parallel could be made between women having a late entrance in professional careers due to their other domestic/caring commitments and women entering the political scene late for the same reasons. However, they are nonetheless a huge political force. Another factor that could contribute to explaining the difference of interest in politics is women’s socialisation. Women’s political socialisation is ‘understood here as the process whereby they internalise the view that politics is a man’s world’. 9 A study of junior high school students found a significant gender gap in political interest in the United States. Boys had more interest in politics and boys and girls did perceive politics as something that held greater interest for boys. Except for Finland where 5 Carnegie UK Trust, 2008b, 14 6 in, Odegard and Berglund, 2008, 594 7 Gaiser and Rijke, 2008, 542 8 Cicognani et al., 2012, 562 9 Gidengil et al., 2010, 335 WOMEN IN POLITICS DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY PAGE 13
Page 1 and 2: DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DE
Page 3 and 4: DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DE
Page 5 and 6: Of course this search will also bui
Page 7 and 8: CONTENTS 9 Young women in politics
Page 9 and 10: YOUNG WOMEN IN POLITICS From househ
Page 11: litical parties ‘rely on the stat
Page 15 and 16: youth population. Overall, it could
Page 17 and 18: dialogue across party lines. It als
Page 19 and 20: The program was broadly understood
Page 21 and 22: BIBLIOGRAPHY Ann, Teo Sue and Shuib
Page 23 and 24: WOMEN IN LOCAL LEVEL POLITICS Socia
Page 25 and 26: While contesting the post of an ele
Page 27 and 28: In fact training and capacity build
Page 29 and 30: enforcing these norms in ways that
Page 31 and 32: WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP POSITIONS AT TH
Page 33 and 34: amidst a scenario where only 0.6% w
Page 35 and 36: Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2006. M
Page 37 and 38: WOMEN IN TRANSITION COUNTRIES Strug
Page 39 and 40: A year later, women in the Arab Spr
Page 41 and 42: INSTITUTIONALISED MALE DOMINANCE AN
Page 43 and 44: OPENING SPACES AND INCREASING ACCES
Page 45 and 46: GENDER AND DEMOCRACY Danish democra
Page 47 and 48: ulation were now able to read about
Page 49 and 50: y American, French, German, and Bri
Page 51 and 52: THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S REPRESEN
Page 53 and 54: On the municipal level, development
Page 55 and 56: and set new standards of female cit
Page 57 and 58: NETWORKS AND TOOLKITS Some resource
Page 59 and 60: EMPOWERING WOMEN FOR STRONGER POLIT
Page 61: MAKING DEMOCRACY WORK FOR WOMEN: IN
Page 64:
CHRISTIANSBORG SEMINAR The ’Chris
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Background Document - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy

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