Youth Active Citizenship in Europe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction

   • Shakuntala Banaji

   Pages 1-36

3. Motivations for Joining and Engaging in Youth Organisations in the Italian Context

   • Antonella Guarino, Elvira Cicognani, Bruna Zani

   Pages 37-61

4. Youth Organisations as a Developmental Context: A Developmental Psychological Perspective

   • Clara Mikolajczyk, Katharina Eckstein, Peter Noack

   Pages 63-88

5. Between Emotion and Reason: The Role of Affective Networks and Events in Sustaining the Daily Experience of Environmental Activism

   • Joana P. Cruz, Carla Malafaia, José Eduardo Silva, Isabel Menezes

   Pages 89-119

6. Preaching to the Choir: Patterns of Non/diversity in Youth Citizenship Movements

   • Sam Mejias, Shakuntala Banaji

   Pages 121-157

7. When Facebook Is (Not) Enough: Hybridity in the Media and Political Strategies of Leftist Youth Organisations

   • Alena Macková Macková, Sam Mejias, Jakub Macek

   Pages 159-187

8. The Cost of Intensive Civic Participation: Young Activists on the Edge of Burnout

   • Mai Beilmann

   Pages 189-219

9. Conclusion: Rhetorics and Realities of Active Young Citizens Across the European Union

   • Shakuntala Banaji

   Pages 221-246

10. Back Matter

    Pages 247-256

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This volume engages with the contested concept of ‘active citizenship’. It analyses the use and understanding of active citizenship in youth civic and political initiatives in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK. Using ethnographic data and insights from the cross-European project CATCH-EyoU, the contributors to this collection illuminate the experiences of young people taking action for social change. It does so at a unique moment when a resurgent populist political right is deploying racial prejudice and neoliberal protectionism in both established media and new digital media to fuel xenophobic nationalism. The book asks a range of questions, including: What is life like for active young citizens with an interest in the civic and political spheres? What practices, relationships and motivations characterise their participatory movements, organisations, initiatives and groups? The chapters use casestudies to analyse how friendship and emotion, social media, diversity-work, racism, precarity and burnout feed into motivating and developing or curtailing sustained pro-democratic activism.


Youth Active Citizenship in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including politics, sociology, education and cultural studies.

• organizational ethnography
• motivation
• politics
• young people
• burn-out
• affective citizenship
• democracy
• media
• psychology
• sociology of citizenship

“Back in the day, some imagined that networked technologies would automatically promote democratic politics. Now, with the resurgence of right-wing populism, we know that it’s more difficult than that. This book takes the debate much further, offering detailed and compelling insights into the experiences of young activists, and the challenges they face. It offers a vital practical and theoretical resource for those who are rethinking what we mean by active citizenship in a digital world.” — David Buckingham, Emeritus Professor at Loughborough University, and Visiting Professor at King’s College London, UK

• Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

  Shakuntala Banaji

• London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

  Sam Mejias

Shakuntala Banaji is Professor of Media, Culture and Social Change, and Director of Graduate Studies, LSE, UK.


Sam Mejias is Research Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications, LSE, UK.

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