Are young people not Politically involved or are they just not voting?

In today’s blog, the subject that I will be addressing is something that I believe is very important in the grand scheme of things, this being youth political engagement. This is significant because it gives an indication to the idea that there are those who believe in participating in political situations such as debates and protests. I feel that the number of youths involving themselves in political engagement is rising however, it is evident that the number of youths voting is not growing at the same rate, I will be finding evidence to back my argument. Starting off, when we are speaking about political engagement, Patrick Conge (1988) describes it as members of the public taking part in any activity with the ambition to change policies and the government. An example of this is people taking part in political campaigns such as live television debates or going to protests for or against certain government policies.

However, being involved politically doesn’t necessarily translate to voting turnout. Sloam (2017) explains how there has been a huge fall in turnout for general elections in the UK, this is apparent in the graph shown below (fig 1), as it shows the different age groups and the turnout percentage from the 1990s to 2017. The graph shows that from around 1995 the turnout for the age group of 18 to 24 had not risen over 60%, even hitting an incredible low of 40% in 2005, not reaching the surface of 60% until 2015. What this graph tells us is that young people do not vote in the same kind of numbers that others from other age groups do, so the question that we would need to ask is why are young people not turning out to elections in recent times? Sloam (2017) explains that there is loads of evidence to suggest that although young people in the UK are not voting in the numbers at elections, they are however still interested in politics. Sloam (2017) explains how there are a handful of political activities that they interact with such as: demonstrations against university tuition fees, campaigns against closing parks or youth clubs in local communities amongst other things. So, there are key issues that young people do engage themselves with but it seems in recent times that they can be deterred from voting due to the dislike of politicians or political parties.

Figure 1:

Continuing on the topic of how young people are actually engaging politically, demonstrations and protests seem to be the key way they are now involving themselves politically. In figure 2 (European Values Survey, 2008), it shows how overwhelming it is in the UK to participate in demonstrations, especially in comparison to voting. In my opinion, demonstrating has become the way of expressing an opinion without having to go through with voting, it is a way of catching the attention of the people in power by showing strength in numbers. When you compare it to how the young people vote in comparison to other countries (figure 3) , you can see that it is just in the UK that the young people don’t believe in the voting system. In germany, the youth turnout is twice as large as the UK youth turn out and sweden it is close to treble the amount of turnout.

Figure 2:

Figure 3:

Matt Henn and Nick Foard (2011) offer ways for the government to reconcile with young people of Britain. They asked young people about what could be done that would lead to them gaining more trust for the government, and there was wide belief that the political parties do not do enough to connect with young people of the UK. 16% of the respondents wanted to feel like they were listened too, and 10% wanted to be visited by politicians at their schools, colleges and universities. As figure 4 suggests, the young people of the UK felt disenfranchised by the political government, which could be argued as the case for why they choose not to vote.

 

Figure 4:

To conclude, I think that young people finding innovative ways to engage in politics is very encouraging as it shows that just because they feel their voice may be small, they will still go out there way to be heard. However, them not being noticed by the current politicians in the government, leaves them in a delicate position as the young people of today are the future of tomorrow. Paying attention to them now, will give an indication of how the future may turn out politically, appreciating that they are politically engaged, ensures that they feel influential and upholds our position as a democratic country.

Conge, P. (1988). Review Article: The Concept of Political Participation. Comparative Politics. 20 (2), 241-249. Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/421669?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. Last accessed 18th February 2017.

European Values Study/World Values Study (2008), Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, national election studies.

Henn, M. and Foard, N. (2011). Young People, Political Participation and Trust in Britain. Parliamentary Affairs, 65(1), pp.47-67.

Sloam. J and Ehsan, M(2017) Youth Quake: Young people and the 2017 General Election. [Online] Intergenerational Foundation. Available at: https://moodle.roehampton.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/734808/mod_resource/content/1/Youth-Quake_Final.pdf [Accessed 18th Feb.2018].