“By political participation we mean activity by private citizens designed to influence government decision-making” (Huntington & Nelson 1976).

Political engagement is a crucial part of being an active citizen, or a citizen overall. Members of a society are asked and allowed to participate in the political life and contributing to decision making that in fact, affects us all. Some would say that it is a privilege to live in a democratic country and be able to decide who and why oversees our country. We are able to put even the smallest of our own opinions into the politics of our countries. Yet majority of us, young people, the future of this world, refuse to take part. Why? Well, it could be true that young people are not so convinced by all the political stuff considering the way they are treated by the government; cuts in funding, higher university fees, expensive housing, (almost) impossible access to mortgages, the list goes on. Despite all of this, the article below is aimed at explaining the age gap in political involvement as well as encouraging all of you to be more politically involved!

As mentioned before, political engagement is declining significantly, but what is the extent of this decline? As the graph below shows, the voter turnout in the United Kingdom has drastically changed from being 75% in the 1970s and staying rather stable throughout the next 20 years, to dropping to a shocking 49% of young people participating in voting by the 2000s (Hoskins, 2017).

Similarly, there has been a drop in voter turnout in Germany. In contrast to those, the number of young people voting in the United States has actually risen, despite it being lower than in UK and Germany in the 1970s. The graph also indicates that in all three countries, the percentage of young people voting is always lower in comparison to the whole population. Meaning; people over the age of 24 are more involved in politics than those below.

So why are we experiencing this drop in political engagement?

There are many theories attempting to explain this gap. Sociologists suggest that there is increased individuality within young people in the (late) modern society. This could be an explanation to why political engagement is declining. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992) argues that people began to distrust ‘experts’ (scientists, politicians etc.) in the 1970s. People started to feel uncertainty and risk about the way the world is progressing. According to Beck (1992) this was caused by the division of opinions about facts within the experts during the time. People began to not only question expert knowledge but also manage uncertainty in all aspects of their everyday lives;

‘newly formed social relationships and social networks now have to be individually chosen; social ties, too, are becoming reflexive, so that they have to be established, maintained, and constantly renewed by individuals’ (Beck 1992: 97).

This could be an explanation to why political engagement such as voting started to decline. People, especially young generations, started to question their identity and lost interest in politics.As Sloam (2007) suggests, political engagement is determined by people’s individuality and belonging. In his study, he found that those who strongly identified themselves with their communities were also more involved in local community projects and issues.

However, despite the fact that young people are accused of not participating in politics at all, studies found that  64% of  registered to vote young people (18-24 year olds) actually voted for the EU referendum. This proves that young people are politically engaged- just maybe not engaged enough. In comparison,  74% of 55-64 year olds and 90% of those aged 65 and over (Bruter and Harrison 2016) . The results were shocking, further data stated that 75% of young people voted ‘remain’ although the final vote still led to (ever so famous) BREXIT.

Although the data shows than young people are less engaged with politics, there is evidence that they are involved in different types of politics, ‘alternative politics’ as Dalton (2009) puts it. Young people tend to be more involved in active politics such as protests, petitions or campaigns, this could be caused by the different lifestyle we have from the older generations. It could be because it seems more instantly effective, more in the moment, more involved, also more likely to end up on our Facebook or snapchat to show to our friends and be able to say: ‘I am involved!’. This is all great but voting for your local council is also important! Lack of engagement in politics within young people has led to some big changes in our society that will affect us all directly sooner than we think.For example, BREXIT; the change will affect our ability to travel, study abroad, it will affect our consumer rights in aspects such as buying goods from abroad… all these things that young people are doing.

So why is it important for young people to engage with the politics? Well it should be obvious that the politics affect us all directly in one way or another? The economy, jobs, university fees- all of those were decided upon by politicians and as much as it may seem that politics are so far away from us- they are ever so relevant and we should use the opportunity to have our say as citizens. We can agree that individuality has had an effect on young people’s involvement in politics, and that the current political state of the country discourages (not only) young people from voting and engaging with politics. However, these changes in the society can only be shaped by participating in politics therefore I strongly argue that Young people should be more engaged with politics as they decide about their futures.