Exploring youth political activism in the United Kingdom: What makes young people politically active in different organisations?
| Author | Emily Rainsford |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148117728666 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148117728666
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2017, Vol. 19(4) 790 –806
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148117728666
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Exploring youth political
activism in the United
Kingdom: What makes young
people politically active in
different organisations?
Emily Rainsford
Abstract
This article challenges the current research on youth disengagement by asking what makes young
people active in different political organisations. It applies the classic civic voluntarism model to
explore which factors (skills, attitudes, mobilisation and motivations) best distinguish between
young activists in political parties’ youth factions, the British Youth Council and the 2010 National
Union of Students demonstrations. The results from multinomial logistic regression show that
there are differences especially in the civic and political attitudes. The results also show that
different organisations attract different kinds of young people, which can be used to (re-)engage
young people in politics.
Keywords
civic voluntarism model, demonstrations, political participation, political parties’ youth factions,
youth parliaments, youth political activism
In contemporary society, we see two trends in youth political participation. On one hand,
young people are engaging less in formal politics, seen in a decline in voting and member-
ship in political parties over time (Fieldhouse et al., 2007; Grasso, 2014). On the other hand,
they are engaging more in non-formal politics such as boycotts and demonstrations com-
pared to older generations (Henn and Foard, 2012; Sloam, 2012, 2013). One common expla-
nation for this shift is that young people have a different understanding of politics and feel
alienated from formal politics (Marsh et al., 2007; Mycock and Tonge, 2012). Consequently,
scholars have explored young people’s political participation in a wider sense, including new
ways of engaging such as online engagement (Grasso, 2013; Norris, 2004; Sloam, 2013;
Zani and Barrett, 2012). Youth disengagement from formal politics remains concerning
The School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
Corresponding author:
Emily Rainsford, Department of Politics, The School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle
University, Room 1.28, 40-42 Great North Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK.
Email: emily.rainsford@ncl.ac.uk
728666BPI0010.1177/1369148117728666The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsRainsford
research-article2017
Article
Rainsford 791
because of the potential consequences for their future (non)participation (Hooghe, 2004;
McFarland and Thomas, 2006; Quintelier, 2015), and the detrimental consequences that
being overlooked by political parties (Mycock and Tonge, 2012) may have on their lives
(Mcknight et al., 2015). Furthermore, taking the alienation argument seriously, it seems as if
the problem of youth political participation is less a matter of whether they participate, and
more a matter of where they participate.1 Building on the literature presented above, this
article aims to address the where question and focus the comparison by asking, what makes
young people politically active (in the same way) in different domains?
Three reasons are presented in detail in this article as to why a narrower focus on activ-
ism is important. First, it addresses issues of conceptual stretching that has led to theories
of political participation becoming theories of everything (Van Deth, 2014). Second, it
acknowledges that political participation is not a dichotomous concept (Hustinx and
Denk, 2009). Third, it does not rely on self-reporting and enables an understanding of the
specific context for participation (Morales, 2009). By incorporating these critiques into
the research design, the article aims to contribute empirically to the debate on the defini-
tion of political participation.
Using the classic civic voluntarism model (CVM; Almond and Verba, 1963), this arti-
cle explores whether young activists in different organisations hold different civic and
political attitudes and skills, have been asked to participate or are differently motivated.
They have all turned up to participate, and are therefore all able, willing and available to
participate, but what makes them active in different organisations? To answer this ques-
tion, a unique data set of young activists (N=450) is analysed. The data were collected
using the contextualised survey method developed by Van Stekelenburg et al (2012). As
such, political activists are defined as those who have attended events organised by a
political organisation. More specifically, this article compares activists in three political
youth organisations in the United Kingdom: political parties’ youth factions (YFs), the
British Youth Council (BYC) and those who attended the 2010 National Union of Students
(NUS) Demonstrations (Demo) in London against tuition fees and education cuts. The
article takes a case study approach focusing on the extreme case of political activism
(Flyvbjerg, 2006), but also has breadth by comparing organisations in different domains.
The aim of the article is not to make broad generalisations about young people’s political
participation. Instead, the article makes an original and significant knowledge contribu-
tion by providing a more nuanced understanding of youth political activism.
The article starts with a discussion on the definition of political activism, outlines the
theoretical framework and how the CVM model applies to activism in different organisa-
tions. It then describes the organisations chosen for this study and explains the data col-
lection method and operationalisation of variables before presenting the results of the
multinomial logistic regression. To conclude, there is a discussion of the wider implica-
tions of the findings.
Defining political activism
This article defines political activism as attending a political meeting or event, for three
reasons. First, we need a more focused definition of political participation because of the
conceptual stretching that has occurred (Van Deth, 2014). Numerous studies have urged
and used an expanded definition of political participation to account for the new ways
young people participate (Li and Marsh, 2008; Marsh et al., 2007; Norris, 2002; Sloam,
2013). Although there is no doubt these acts are political, the question is if we legiti-
mately can treat them as the same kind of political participation (Van Deth, 2014). As a
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