A matter for concern?
The future of the youth agenda in Europe
‘Building Tomorrow’s Future’: European Conference on
youth work & youth policy, Bonn, Germany
Dr Howard Williamson
Professor of European Youth Policy
©University of Glamorgan
Overview
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Looking to the future
The social condition of young people
Protest
A broken generational contract
Alliances and responses of the young
There is no end to history
Youth policy and Europe
Democracy in retreat
Beyond Hebe’s dream
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Some recent observations
• Plan B for Youth
– Context, Challenge, Solutions, Conclusion:
educational and work opportunities for young
people and a share in political power
• The Locust and The Bee
– Toxic levels of mistrust, but crises can be both
barren and fertile, need to cultivate capacities
• Indignez-Vous
– Inequalities and (threats to) human rights; “our
outrage at injustice remains intact to this day”
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Stéphane Hessel 1917-2013
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French resistance fighter
Concentration camp escapee & survivor
Human rights campaigner
Diplomat / ambassador to the UN
Poet and writer
Humanist and progressive
Indignez-Vous! (Time for Outrage!)
[Occupy and the Indignados]
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Looking to the future
• Young people
– 94 million Europeans aged 15-29
– Only 34% employed & 5.5m (21%) unemployed
• The risks of speculation
– Rumsfeld, horse manure and pods!
• Everybody tries
– Journalists, political scientists. historians
– Social scientists, politicans
• New alliances amongst the young?
– Socially disadvantaged
– The intellectually disaffected
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The social condition of young people
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To be young is to be excluded?
Young people have to make their worlds
The balance of opportunity and risk
Fractured and fragmented transition pathways
A new youth? Dependence AND autonomy
Vulnerable youth
Human, social and identity capital
The importance of ‘youth policy’
The increasing ‘youth divide’
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Protest
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North Africa and the Middle East
Greece, Spain and Portugal
The rest of Europe
The lost generation finding a voice?
An audacious reclamation of autonomy?
Not the end of history?
Occupy
Indignados
UK Uncut
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A [broken] generational contract?
• Worsening futures:
– Unemployment and ‘scarring effects’
– Demographic shifts and the fiscal burden
– The slowing of economic growth rates
– The benefits to labour/capital of any growth
– Heavier demands on household incomes
– Downward pressures on salaries
– Class demographics – the only way is down
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A generation sacrificed / betrayed?
• Parliamentary Assembly/Youth Assembly
– Resolution to build ‘a better future together’
– Invest in youth, strengthen voice, access to rights
– But hardly any Parliamentarians turned up!
• Mason’s ‘graduate without a future’
– Wages don’t rise, can’t buy property, locked out of
occupational pensions, holes in the welfare net
• European Forum Alpbach
– More and more qualifications, endless internships,
no guarantees, sense of betrayal
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New alliances amongst the young?
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Generation X and then Generation Y
Generation Einstein & Generation Frankenstein!
The English riots 2011
Solidarities in the IPOD generation
A ‘showdown between the generations’?
Blocked opportunity structures
Different responses?
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Responses of the young
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Reaction
Radicalisation
Revolt
Retreat
Relocation and Reverse Colonialism
Re-alignment – through shared anger and frustration
amongst young people with very different, though sometimes
overlapping, histories…..
• New economic, social & political arrangements?
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– networks, services, non-capitalism
There is no end to history
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The financial crisis
2008 – the right-wing’s ‘fall of the Wall’
Yet little being done on governance
Where is the safe haven for human capital?
Reconstruction of broken institutions
Democracy, egalitarianism, rationality
The capitalists have to learn now…
Or do they? No room for complacency
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Youth policy
• By design/intent, default or neglect
• Positive/purposeful v. negative/punitive
• Youth transitions – complex and reversible
• Youth transitions – vulnerability and risk
• In the mainstream / on the margins
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Promoting inclusion / Combating exclusion
Opportunity, experience, participation
Government, NGOs, communities, families, themselves
Proliferation of ‘youth policy’ at all levels
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European developments in youth policy
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1968 les événements – youth participation (voice)
1985 UN IYY - youth development
1989 The fall of The Wall – intercultural learning
EU – Youth for Europe to Youth in Action
CoE – international youth policy reviews since 1997
EU/CoE Youth Partnership since 1998
EU 2005 European Youth Pact
CLRAE Revised Charter on Youth Participation
CoE 2008 Agenda 2020
EU 2009 Investing and Empowering
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Democracy in retreat?
1945-75 ‘maximal democracy’
Public sector Keynsianism
1975-2008 declining democracy
Public sector monetarism, private Keynsianism
What now for flexible markets, (in)secure
labour, democracy, certainties and securities?
• Globalisation, rising inequalities, resistance to
‘solidarity transfers’, regional nationalisms
• Cameron’s ‘knee-jerk xenophobia’
• ‘We are Europe’
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Beyond Hebe’s dream
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The need for a variety/diversity of youth work
The need for training and professionalism
Balancing ‘forum’ and ‘transit zone’
Balancing autonomy and support
Balancing citizenship and employability
Enabling personal change for positional change
An ever more diversified youth agenda
– Housing, health, racism, faith, generations
– Access, inclusion, information, mobility
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Beyond Hebe’s dream - scenarios
• Youth policy and youth work futures in Europe:
– The abandonment of youth
– Containment and privilege
– An equitable ‘package of entitlement’
• The need for convergence and a united strategy
– A long-term joint political strategy
– A comprehensive review and peer learning process
– One single coherent programme
– A support structure for research and development
– A European Youth Agency?
©University of Glamorgan
Conclusion
• Stepping out of economic and social
orthodoxies – and taking risks
• Addressing the back door rewriting of social
contracts
• Combating the neutering of democracy
– World Forum for Democracy
• Youth policy and supporting constructive new
alliances amongst the young
©University of Glamorgan
Between autocrats & automatons
• Undemocratic power structures and decisionmakers
• Robotic and authoritarian workplaces
• Living and loving, learning and earning must
be governed by more egalitarian, democratic
and humanistic arrangements….
• or must they?
©University of Glamorgan
Show indignation - agitate
Get involved - participate
Challenge conventions - dispute
Offer alternatives - speculate
Stand up for values - integrity
Stand up and be counted - solidarity
“It is better to die on your feet than live on your
knees”
(Dolores Ibárruri, Spain, January 1938)
©University of Glamorgan