Last October, I concluded my four-month secondment at the International Office of the European Youth Parliament (EYP) in Berlin. During this time, I rarely ever thought specifically about the questions that I had been working hard, sometimes painfully, to distil in the previous months of PhD work in Royal Holloway. What captured my thoughts and attention every working day in these four months was much bigger than my own research.
In EYP, unlike in academia, questions are big, intangible even: How do we slow down the degradation of the Arctic? How can we make borders safer? Do we even need borders? Can we imagine a sustainable reconstruction of Ukraine once the war is over? And the people in charge of thinking about these questions and proposing solutions are not overworked researchers that could recite papers and authors by heart after years of university-level training. Young Europeans, many of which are not even of age to graduate high school – let alone vote – are leading the discussion.
Working within the IP-PAD framework, where we constantly expose ourselves to the connection between youth and the political world, it’s easy to lose perspective on how truly exceptional – statistically speaking – is that the European Youth Parliament exists at all. And decades after its founding, it keeps proving itself as a successful space for the civic education of over 20,000 adolescents and young adults across Europe.
A quick glance at the first wave of our IP-PAD survey, filled out by 5000 adolescents aged 16-21, from Austria, Greece, Netherlands, Poland and the UK, allows me to illustrate this exceptionality. Roughly one third of respondents in all five countries declare that they are willing to engage in the classic forms of political participation, such as voting, or singing a petition; numbers that decrease significantly when they are asked about (slightly) more contentious and time-consuming forms of political participation such as taking part in demonstrations or volunteering in a political party. Similarly, most young people surveyed express little to no interest in political affairs, and few frequently discuss politics in school or among their friends and peers.
Next to young people of similar age from the general population “EYPers” – as they call themselves – confront us with a strikingly different reality. A few workers and hundreds of volunteers come together to plan creative ways of raising money, spend their evenings budgeting for an event, or pick up a phone (scary!) to call and reserve hostel rooms, venues, and restaurants. Their aim? To create the perfect environment so participants of the next regional, national or international session can hold well-intentioned, rational discussions about challenging and important topics.
In the political oasis that EYP is, there is also space for personal and professional growth. According to its published statistics, the majority of EYP participants feel more confident and accomplished as public speakers after a session, they report greater knowledge of public affairs, and they believe that their skills to be team-leaders have improved. And the impact of this training extends far beyond the sessions themselves, judging by EYP’s vast alumni network. Many people that took part as students carry these skills and motivation into their future lives, becoming active citizens and leaders in businesses, third-sector organizations, and even political parties. Fact is, EYP truly excels at training young engaged citizens, by far surpassing what most civic education courses in schools are able to offer and achieve.
However, a question quickly arises: who is benefitting from these outstanding practices and results? The doubt is pertinent, especially when access to the political process remains a challenging task for many citizens. In Western democracies, we still observe just how much patterns of political engagement reflect structural disparities in power – rooted in class, gender, migrant origins or (dis)ability. These barriers condition interest in political issues, beliefs of political self-efficacy, democratic satisfaction, and, ultimately, these barriers condition whose voices and demands are heard and prioritised by political elites and the media, and whose remain overshadowed in the public discussion.
EYP is not immune to theses challenges, as it faces very similar barriers to “adult” political systems. It’s entryway often relies on established school networks; deciding to become a member requires prior confidence to discuss abstract topics; participating in a session demands proficiency in English; and staying as a volunteer requires a family environment that sees it as a good opportunity for education, and not just a distraction from formal studies. As a result, the organisation risks accidentally mirroring, and perhaps even reproducing, the exclusivity of politics, limiting who can enjoy the tools and resources to become an exemplary citizen.
A closer examination of the ways and outcomes of non-formal civic education initiatives, with EYP being only a prominent example, reveals the need to reflect on their true impact for the whole of European youth. Is a more entrenched, elite-like leadership what Europe needs? If the answer is a resounding – or even a quieter – “no”, then there still remains a long way to go. Fortunately, the enthusiasm, network of volunteers and know-how are already in place in organisations such as EYP itself.
One way to move forward could be to pay attention to initiatives and research in the field of deliberative democracy, which have long developed and tested methods for reducing selection biases in citizens’ assemblies. In this sense, introducing elements of randomisation to some of the sessions could help with reaching students who might have never taken part otherwise. Complementarily, it might be a good idea to create more opportunities for members to share the classic EYP simulation model with relevant actors outside of the organisation, for example by organising workshops for civic-education teachers, so they could implement the dynamics of an session in a smaller scale in class, or even to policymakers who are in charge of designing the curriculum of the courses. Steps in this direction could help reducing the barriers of entry that prevent many young European citizens from engaging in good quality civic education and, indirectly, from contributing to democratic life.
The European Youth Parliament truly stands out as a powerful demonstration of what the dedicated efforts of civic youth-led initiatives are able to achieve. During my time working in its International Office, I frequently wished in awe that young people everywhere were more similar to the few volunteers I met than to the landscape that the IP-PAD survey presents us with. I wished that adolescents cared a bit more, that they were a little more willing to engage in important discussions, and that they had slightly higher hopes for what politics could do for and, most importantly, with them. But most young people have never been given the opportunity to do any of these things, and so it will remain if early political inequality is not taken with all the seriousness that it deserves. Reflecting on what causes it, even if unintentionally, and on how citizens’ initiatives, policymakers and researchers could work towards an alternative, is necessary if we want a more active, inclusive and diverse young European citizenry.
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