Repairing Urban Youth’s Political Disengagement
Why Not Just Any Representative Will Do
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22017647 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eline Severs (0000-0002-5681-5343, Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Kevin Meyvaert (0009-0002-1155-8061, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Politics and Governance (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2183-2463 • E-ISSN: 2183-2463 |
| Publisher | Cogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT) |
| DOI | 10.17645/pag.11997 |
| OpenAlex | W7165737477 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 40 |
This article investigates the experiences with and expectations towards politics of Brussels-based youngsters living in socio-economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. Drawing on six focus groups, we detail how young people understand political representation—whether, how, when, and by whom they feel represented. The analysis centres on youth’s lived experiences with politics, analyses their conceptions of political representation, and unpacks the normative beliefs and expectations that underpin their accounts. Specific attention is paid to how Brussels youth articulate the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation, and whom they conceive as preferable descriptive representatives. In response to widespread feelings of misrepresentation, young people frequently put forward the figure of a “cultural broker”: a locally rooted intermediary expected to translate everyday community experiences of precarity and discrimination into political voice. Conceived as an alternative to conventional political actors—widely perceived as socially distant and insufficiently attuned to their lived realities—this figure nonetheless reproduces enduring dilemmas of representation related to selection, accountability, and legitimacy. Its appeal thus signals not participants’ rejection of representative democracy as such, but a demand for representatives who are socially proximate and experientially knowledgeable and can correct epistemic injustices
Appeal · Democracy · Disadvantaged · Feeling · Normative · Politics · Precarity · Children's Rights and Participation · Social Media and Politics · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics
The new life stage of emerging adulthood at ages 18–29 years
The Future of our Democracies
The Precarious Generation
Politics, Protest and Young People
Democratic Deficit
Age Inequalities in Political Representation
Needles in a haystack
The Dark Side of Descriptive Representation
Young Europeans
Towards a Conceptualization of Young People’s Political Engagement
Youth, activism, and social movements
Youth political participation in the EU
The politics of youthful antipolitics
Political representation from the people’s perspective
Political Participation and Cumulative Disadvantage
Generational (re)alignment
Intra-generational inequalities in young people’s political participation in Europe
Overlooked de- and realignment? Cohort differences in consideration sets
Not All Cues Are Created Equal
See Jane Run
Rethinking Women's Substantive Representation
Hierarchies of Representation
Power, privilege and disadvantage
No Participation Without Representation
The Democratic Disconnect
Young People's Attitudes towards Democracy and Political Participation
Analysing Women's Substantive Representation
The Diminishing Value of Representing the Disadvantaged
Candidate Age and Youth Voter Turnout
Preferable Minority Representatives
Differences in political participation between young and old people
Do young voters vote for young leaders
The Myth of Youth Apathy
Political Participation in France among Non-European-Origin Migrants
Preferable Descriptive Representatives
Life-Cycle Transitions and Political Participation
Eviction and Voter Turnout
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |