EMPOWERING A GENERATION: ADDRESSING THE DECLINE OF YOUTH POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN CANADA

Matt Edmonds

Research questions

What are the causes of the decline? What are the potential consequences? How can “political dropouts” be made

active? How can youth be motivated to become

more involved? How can young people’s political efficacy

be improved?

Framework

Addressing youth at all levels of engagement Looking at all forms of political participation Focus on potential actions by political

institutions Three main avenues of approach

Decreasing costs of and barriers to participation Enhancing long-term political interest

(assets/currency) Delivering short-term motivations to participate

Declining participation

Overall turnout down: from high of 79.4% in 1958 to 58.8% in 2008

Youth turnout low: 43.8% vs. overall 62.8% in 2006

Current young generation voting at lower rate than past young generations.

Youth party membership significantly decreasing.

Explaining the decline

Reported reasons for not voting (youth): Lack of interest 16.1%

Political attitudes attributed to performance of politicians and parties 90.2%

Personal reasons incl. busy, apathetic, disillusioned 25.3%

Negativity 28.0%

Personal/Administrative 51.9%

Other 3.8%

(Pammett and LeDuc 2003)

Why are young people are less likely to vote? Not represented, age

gap 40.4% Lack of

info/understanding/knowledge 33.9%

Uninterested/apathetic 31.3%

Too busy or mobile 3.3%

Explaining the decline

Life-cycle effects (busy, personal stake) Poor experience with first voting opportunity Generational shift to distrust hierarchical

institutional arrangements Absence of hardships leads to focus on

“higher order” issues like environmentalism Generational culture – need for instant

gratification Government is seen to be doing a “good

enough job” in the modern day

The problem

Overall turnout decline attributed to youth involvement decline

Parties not renewing memberships Less responsive governance Future government accountability Health of democracy

Iraqi youth vs. Cdn/US youth

Decreasing costs of participation Election administration – easy voting

Registration – personal contact Mail – simpler process needed Advance voting – minimal gains in other

countries Proxy – demonstrated to enhance turnout;

manipulation concerns Online – currently unreliable for high-level

elections, but Harvard is developing promising system

Decreasing costs of participation Parties & mobilization agencies

Must innovate to connect with youth Low-commitment options Ask youth to participate, show the path Mobilization efforts particularly important for

youth with little knowledge/education Create social networks – essential for mobile

youth Provide incentives and demonstrate payoffs –

politics is a high-risk game, must sell returns Connecting interest to action

Decreasing costs of participation Access to information

Traditional news media poorly targets youth

Targets older demographic (who have money)

Most information too complex Need for easily-accessible information at

different “tiers” of complexity for youth with varying levels of political knowledge

Decreasing costs of participation The “series of tubes,” a.k.a. the internet

“Web 2.0” or “the semantic web” Dissemination of information – high

exposure, context-appropriate Parties and politicians

Social media links Targeted ads – Facebook Twitter – 140 characters max. YouTube

Decreasing costs of participation Peer-to-peer information sharing

Other youth provide the information filter for “tiers”

Personal source = greater attention Blogs – 1.4 created per second

Online democratic participation Obama’s change.gov issue

submission and vote Town hall questions on

whitehouse.gov

Increasing long-term assets

Education and political knowledge #1 factor in effective youth participation Civics classes should be mandatory Deliver education as close as possible to

first voting opportunity Election simulations in schools Satire in education?

Increasing long-term assets

Salience Political parties and focus on youth issues Big picture issues, firm stance Problem with centric brokerage parties

Cynicism Addressed through increases in political

efficacy Scandals and negative perceptions – better

management Penetration of the good and the bad

through better information access

Increasing long-term assets

Parties Raise profile of youth issues Younger people in important positions Increasing mobilization efforts between

campaigns Youth organizations Winning the PR battle against anti-party

attitudes

Increasing long-term assets

Political information Constant easy access needed Regular updates

through socialnetworks

Social media provides filter

Increasing long-term assets

Families Youth attitudes are largely learned from

families Not just youth, but individuals of all ages

must be targeted Engaging families as

a whole; providing parents with resources

Increasing long-term assets

Political satire Primary source of political

information for thousands of youth

Increasingly serves newsfunction

Entertainment breaks the interest gap

Can increase cynicism Not as prevalent in Canada

as US Multiple programs needed to

reach broad youth audience

Short-term interest boosts

Catalyzing events Elections on very divisive issues vs. “Harper’s

tired of waiting for his majority” Risk of increasing cynicism

Engaging narratives Not necessarily of direct political relevance Exciting stories connected to campaigns draw

interest First point of contact, not entire focus Provides material for entry-level political satire

Short-term interest boosts

Parties Campaign directly to youth Take the risk and devote resources to low

turnout group,or perpetuate the problem

Charismatic leaders extremely important

vs.

Short-term interest boosts

Political information During elections, make the most out of media’s

focus on politics Filtering essential – delivering resonant

messages amongst a glut of election reporting Institutions must deliver targeted messages

through effective channels Social media also fulfills this function Political satire is accessible and also sticks to

top issues; youth make up large chunk of target market

Short-term interest boosts

Post-election “Honeymoon phase” of satisfaction with

democratic process Continue campaign-level mobilization Transition from short-term to long-term

interest and participation

Other issues

Dumbing down politics: long term harms? Necessary to get youth into political sphere Individuals will climb the ladder to higher

tiers Other means of increasing participation

not investigated in this project: Electoral system reform (PR, MMP) Mandatory voting Paying youth to vote

Civic Network Project

1. Provide effective information and education Meetings, events, podcasts, videos

2. Connect citizens to action-based groups Civic involvement matchmaking

3. Develop and share project blueprint How to repeat anywhere else

www.civicnetwork.ca

EMPOWERING A GENERATION: ADDRESSING THE DECLINE OF YOUTH POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN CANADA

Matt Edmonds