Breaking the Cycle of Alienation: The Impact of Youth Representation on Democratic Engagement

Abstract

The underrepresentation of youth in politics fuels a vicious cycle of political alienation. Due to the low presence of youth in political institutions, their specific interests are not adequately represented and therefore policies important to youth are not implemented which leaves youth with feelings of apathy and disconnect to the formal political systems. This research aims to test whether the cycle of political alienation can be broken by increasing youth representation in political institutions. I hypothesize that increased youth representation in parliaments and governments can trigger higher electoral participation and higher satisfaction with democracy from young people. To test my hypotheses, I constructed an original dataset using survey results from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), Worldwide Age Representation in Parliaments (WARP) dataset and I hand-collected data on the age of the country leader. The finished dataset includes information on 59 countries, for over 200 elections and over 200 leader ages from 1996 to 2021. My results derived through bivariate and multivariant statistics reveal that higher youth representation in parliaments slightly increases youth voter turnout and increases youth satisfaction with democracy (for the 35 or under age category). Additionally, the age of elected leaders plays a role in shaping young people's satisfaction with democracy. Although the effect of youth representation on the cycle of alienation is not particularly strong, it is statistically significant. This suggests that increasing youth representation in politics could have broader positive impacts on mitigating the cycle of alienation.