How do institutional participatory frameworks within the European Union govern, absorb, and constrain extra-parliamentary youth activism? Pušnik (2024) critically examines the institutionalization of youth civic engagement at both the supranational level of the European Union and the national level in Slovenia, interrogating whether official participatory structures empower young people or neutralize disruptive democratic critique. Grounded in a Foucauldian analytics of government (governmentality), the study traces the emergence of institutional youth engagement back to the European student mobilizations of 1968, arguing that modern participatory frameworks were historically designed to govern dissident energy and align youth action with state and supranational priorities.
Focusing on contemporary consultative instruments, specifically the EU Youth Dialogue and the Council of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for Youth, the author demonstrates that institutional mechanisms systematically privilege conventional representative practices—most notably electoral turnout and formalized consultation—while disregarding or delegitimizing autonomous, extra-parliamentary, and contentious political action. Concurrently, the study reveals how neoliberal rationality operates within these architectures to depoliticize structural inequalities by shifting the burden of democratic engagement entirely onto individuals. Rather than redistributing decision-making power, these mechanisms cultivate an idealized identity of the active economic citizen who participates only within strictly prescribed, non-disruptive parameters. The author concludes that institutionalized youth participation largely functions as a disciplinary technology that pacifies radical civic impulses outside the ballot box rather than fostering expansive democratic agency.
Learn more about this article here:
Pušnik, T. (2024). INSTITUTIONALISATION OF YOUTH POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN THE EU: A NEOLIBERAL ATTEMPT TO CASTRATE THE POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT OF YOUNG PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE BALLOT BOX. Teorija in praksa, 341–362. https://doi.org/10.51936/tip.61.2.341