BLOG 1 Young People and Political Engagement

How Extinction rebellion has empowered youth activism in the UK

Protests fuel political engagement by attracting attention to issues and inspiring action. They are a key form of participatory democracy and encourage active critical citizens within society. Perhaps this is the moment of political awakening for the young generation?

Extinction rebellion (XR) has been extremely influential as a protest movement campaigning for climate action using non-violent civil disobedience. Co-founder Roger Hallam spent years academically researching tactics for social change. (Extinction Rebellion: Last chance to save the world?, 2019)

Unlike environmental movements before, many people were inspired to get involved. This is evident on 31^stOctober 2019 when a ‘declaration of rebellion’, sparking the movement, outside the houses of parliament garnered over a thousand supporters. (Taylor, 2020).

One of XR’s key aims is the creation of a citizen’s assembly. ‘Citizens assemblies demonstrate the power of the people first-hand’. (Fry, 2019). Being comprised of public representatives, this would ‘break the political stalemate that we are currently seeing in the ruling of climate issues’. (Fry, 2019) and prevent political bias from marginalising societal groups and issues. This shift in thinking allows young people to feel a sense of political involvement and not become disengaged by a lack of accountability to their generation. (Berry, 2012)

XR helped coordinate school strikes within the wider global movement, schools for climate change, spearheaded by 15-year-old activist Greta Thunberg. (Taylor, 2020). Many Politicians, including the Prime Minister, ignored the positive effect this has on creating young global critical citizens, choosing to focus solely on disruption to learning. (Climate strike: Schoolchildren protest over climate change, 2019). Others such as Claire perry stated in the house of commons ‘it’s an absolutely amazing thing to see’. (Extinction Rebellion: Last chance to save the World?, 2019).  For many young people this was their first taste of political activism.(Saunders et al., n.d.). Promoting individualism and thus DIY citizenship is key in predominantly a liberal model of citizenship education as seen in the UK. While missing school disproportionately affects working class students, the clear message behind this movement meant a lack of political literacy did not hinder participation.

Inequality of provisions within schools and family backgrounds has led to varying levels of political literacy and awareness in young generations. Voter turnout rates allow us to assess this further. While many forms of political participation exist, the act of voting and thus electing members of parliament is arguably the most influential form as disengagement threatens democracy and political representation becomes skewed. (Derksen et al., 2018). This is evident in the power of the ‘grey vote’ which in turn generally undermines youth issues and leads to other forms of participation being favoured by younger generations. (Sloam, 2007). This is illustrated in the graph below on the 2017 general election. (Derksen et al., 2018). While the amount of 18-24 year old voters increased by 16% from 2015, there are considerably less young people voting compared to older age groups.

In particular, with the school strikes many were secondary students or younger who are not able to vote yet so protesting became their only option. XR protests, have altered the political climate young people find themselves in by giving them the power to be heard and thus enact change albeit through radical means.

 

“save the children” – (Murray, 2019)

In April 2019 thousands of people occupied key London sites leading to mass arrests and bringing worldwide attention to their cause. (Taylor, 2020). While the disruption to thousands of Londoners was heavily criticised, the tactics used to disrupt day to day life attracted young people to get involved by forcing recognition among politicians’ who weren’t listening to their concerns.

After talks with senior politicians such as Claire Perry, seen in the BBC video below, show the dishonesty and complacent attitude the government previously held. A state of emergency was declared and consequent shift in conversations around the crisis.

 

“As an older person, you’re doing it for your next generation – but we’re actually doing it for ourselves.” –  Daze Aghaji an XR youth member, (Murray, 2019)

The urgency to spark climate change action, not only for future salvation but current environmental protection, is a key difference many in older generations struggle to understand. This puts youth issues at a clear disadvantage within the political climate.

XR Youth, while similar to XR aim to challenge the systems young people have grown up in that affect how environmental politics has been sidelined. (Murray, 2019). Tackling ageism elements in XR’s decision making, XR Youth have empowered a new wave of youth environmental activism in cities and countries around the world, which have been largely successful. (Taylor, 2020).

XR youth have organised their own forms of civil disobedience such as protests around YouTube videos on climate change denial and specifically the video suggestions based on addictive algorithms. So, one climate change video can lead someone to a chain of climate denial ones. As this platform predominantly attracts younger generations this is a particularly worrying trend to see. Online participation is incredibly useful among this demographic and XR use this tactic quite well to encourage participation in politics. (Fry, 2019).

Much of the media attention garnered was due to the number of arrests made. While this is viewed by many and XR as key for sparking nationwide conversation and change, XR Youth members do not want to praise them, as they can have lifelong consequences for younger generations prospects compared to older activists. This could hinder younger generations participation in the protests. ‘Adults need to be accountable to the young people, and if that means going on the streets and getting arrested in the thousands so we can have a chance of getting to the government and saying what we think should happen, then I think that should be the strategy.’ (Murray, 2019).  What do you think of this as a strategy?

Perhaps media coverage is not always communicated in the intended way. Anna Fry looks at how XR uses the dialogue model; conversations between different groups within society including, the media, government and the general public to encourage debate. She goes on to look at some of the factors that have affected this communication. One main problem XR have is a lack of social diversity, members are predominantly middle-class and highly educated. (Saunders et al., n.d.). They have also been accused of virtue-signalling, hindering certain views (Lynch, 2020), and stigmatising individuals who do not feel as strongly as they do. While this can increase political participation as individuals want to feel they are doing the right thing under XR’s societal pressure, particularly young generations given the message broadcast. Alienating individuals can affect XR’s reputation and thus future political change they try and instil, especially older generations who need to be convinced for environmental issues to be tackled effectively between generations.

What next?

The extinction Rebellion protests have been very influential in sparking political participation and ultimately social change in young generations previously ignored by wider democracy. While youth participation in politics has a long way to go to alter the disproportionate effect older generations have. Movements like XR breathe a breath of fresh air into the lungs of hopeful youths and widen the possibility that change is just around the corner.

Bibliography

Taylor, M., 2020. The evolution of Extinction Rebellion. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/04/evolution-of-extinction-rebellion-climate-emergency-protest-coronavirus-pandemic> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Fry, A., 2019. A Case Study: Extinction Rebellion’s Methods of Climate Change Communication. [Blog] Kent Blogs, Available at: <https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/files/2019/09/A-Case-Study-Extinction-Rebellion’s-Methods-of-Climate-Change-Communication.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Saunders et al., C., n.d. Extinction Rebellion’s Activists in Profile | A CUSP report by C Saunders, B Doherty and G Hayes. [online] Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity. Available at: <https://cusp.ac.uk/themes/p/xr-study/> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

BBC News. 2019. Climate strike: Schoolchildren protest over climate change. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47250424> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Berry, C., 2012. Parliamentary affairs. [online] Oxford Academic. Available at: <https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/67/3/708/1449444> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Sloam, J., 2007. Rebooting Democracy: Youth Participation in Politics in the UK. [online] Parliamentary Affairs. Available at: <https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/60/4/548/1581141> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Extinction Rebellion: Last chance to save the Earth?. 2019.Directed by B. Zand. BBC: BBC.

Derksen et al., N., 2018. Increasing Youth Voter Turnout. [online] Lse.ac.uk. Available at: <https://www.lse.ac.uk/PBS/assets/documents/Increasing-Youth-Voter-Turnout.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Derksen et al., N., 2018. Increasing Youth Voter Turnout. [online] Lse.ac.uk. Available at: <https://www.lse.ac.uk/PBS/assets/documents/Increasing-Youth-Voter-Turnout.pdf> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Murray, J., 2019. ‘Older generations can’t understand’: XR Youth on being heard. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/19/older-generations-will-never-understand-extinction-rebellion-xr-youth-on-being-heard> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Lynch, S., 2020. Opinion: XRs virtue signalling hypocrisy undermines the climate crisis cause. [online] The Independent. Available at: <https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/extinction-rebellion-newspapers-protest-press-freedom-murdoch-climate-change-b405001.html#r3z-addoor> [Accessed 23 February 2022].