The Mobilised Youth: Present Disputes and Future Prospects

David Veloso Larraz

Oct, 2025

MUSIC:

When I received the invitation to contribute to this volume, The Horizonless Generation, I considered writing about the various topics that actually challenge the bleak future often attributed to the so-called “Generation Z.” From my personal and professional experience, I have found that resignation, apathy, and indifference are not in fact the predominant attitudes among young people. There are numerous examples, such as the Landless Movement or Youth Without a Future, where seemingly negative or apocalyptic labels have been branded to reverse the situations they denounce, triggering the necessary outrage at a reality that is perceived as unfair, serving also as frameworks for collective identification, from which to dispute the present itself.

The widespread perception that young people have no interest in politics is not supported by existing data and studies. In fact, scientific literature indicates the opposite: there is significant vitality in the political involvement of young people [1].[1] Bacalso, C., Bárta, O. & Moxon, D. (2025). Youth political participation: Literature and policy review 1980–2023. European Commission / Youth Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe. Nevertheless, media discourse tends to present a negative portrayal of young people, reducing the enormous complexity and diversity of new lifestyles or, in the worst cases, turning them into scapegoats for society’s woes. As one of the most widespread and socially recognised categories, “youth” is very much part of common sense. This implies that, although it is understood as an age-based stage, its meaning has fluctuated across periods and cultures. Youth is shaped by other variables—gender, social class, ethnicity, and others—that play a significant role in explaining their life trajectories and the social inequalities they face. This is why age is not always the most decisive variable in understanding their situation. This issue is largely reflected in the demands of youth groups for public policies that incorporate a youth focus. One that combats both generalisations and the associated prejudices and stigmas.

Photo_ J Stimp_ CC BY 2.0

In recent decades, major socio-economic transformations have had profound effects on young people. Paradoxically, although opportunities have improved substantially, young people have become among the most vulnerable groups. Hence, in the face of this global dynamic, there is widespread talk of a future without prospects. In Spain, for example, the face of poverty has changed. It is no longer concentrated among the elderly, as it was in the last century, but rather among children and young people. This has practical and discursive implications: it justifies suspending the effective exercise of young people’s citizenship rights until they achieve stability—associated with an age at which such a situation is supposedly left behind. In societies where total precariousness extends to all generations, however, the boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. For this reason, rhetorical strategies that defend the status quo seek to depoliticise and stigmatise young people’s discontent, shifting the focus from structural causes to a supposed emotional frailty. The generational use of the label “snowflake”—analogous to the Spanish expression “the glass generation”—has become a symbol of the narrative’s global spread. In response to these attacks, there has been a wave of public denunciations seeking to place the social scourge of endemic mental health issues at the forefront of the political agenda as well as public policies, especially after the impact of the pandemic on the lives of this group. Despite the sharp increase in mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression and suicidal behaviour among young people in the years prior to the pandemic, these problems had remained largely invisible, regarded as individual issues.

Participation and Movements Against Disaffection

Contrary to popular belief, resignation, apathy, and indifference are not the predominant attitudes among young people.

When young people are asked about disaffection, issues such as the lack of responsiveness from political systems and the marginalisation of their social demands often feature in their responses. This reply is closely related to the crisis that political parties are experiencing worldwide and its impact on liberal democracies. Therefore, from a critical perspective, the decline in youth militancy cannot be understood as an explicit renunciation of politics. In fact, based on these new preferences, many parties have attempted to renew their organisational structures, incorporating the main demands into their electoral programmes and opening up to other forms of participation. However, new political subjectivities, characterised by a preference for more flexible engagement or unstructured activism, generate tensions in articulating these practices, even within new party movements.

Politics does not end in parliament, nor does participation end on election day with the vote. The Chilean uprising of 2019, triggered by increases in public transport fares and which quickly consolidated into a broader critique of the model that had prevailed in the country for the last three decades, represents a paradigmatic case of how young people have transformed politics. Until then, the stability of Chilean democracy was celebrated in the region for its formal soundness, while its essential dimension was ignored, progressively hollowed out by economic and political elites who, cloistered in the bubble of Santiago’s most exclusive neighbourhoods, displayed a profound indifference to growing social inequalities. But in just a few months, the student movement was able not only to destabilise the consensus that underpinned this political order, but also to build an alternative that put its leaders in power.

On the other side of the Andes Mountains, however, another global trend is making headlines: “the conservative shift among young people.” The political radicalisation of a significant proportion of young men was a determining factor in the rise of the far right to power in Argentina. This success is part of a populist moment that polarised the political dispute between those who proposed disruptive solutions and those who had not renewed their formulas for dealing with a prolonged economic crisis—marked in the last election year by an annual inflation rate of close to 200%. But although data and studies highlight the increase in support for the radical right among young people, its ideology is not actually shared by the majority of young men [2].[2] Milosav, Ð., Dickson, Z., Hobolt, SB, Klüver, H., Kuhn, T. y Rodon, T. (2025). The youth gender gap in support for the far right. Journal of European Public Policy. Available here: https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2481181

Age is not always the most decisive variable in understanding their situation, life trajectories and the social inequalities they face.

In contrast, in the United States, since Trump’s first victory, the progressive shift among young women has been sharp and of greater ideological depth. At first glance, one might think this is due to the mirrored behaviour of their male peers, but conservatism among young men has increased modestly. This ideological shift among women seems to be largely in response to the rise of feminism and the escalation of violence against women, such as the constitutional onslaught ending universal abortion rights Such a conservative shift, already described as historic, is largely framed within electoral cycles that polarise discontent against the ruling party, rather than as an ideological process linked to the radicalisation proposed by far-right forces. The recent victory of 34-year-old socialist Zohran Mamdani,—the youngest mayor of New York since 1892, who won 62% of the votes of young people under 30—who, through counter-hegemonic ideas, has managed to gain broad support from the youth, exposes the cracks in this cultural process, promoting disenchantment and fuelling enmity among the subordinate social classes.

In protests that have been taking place across countries such as Peru, Paraguay, Nepal, Madagascar, and Morocco since the second half of 2025, young people have emerged as a major force challenging political immobility. These uprisings have not only channelled political demands but also questioned the legitimacy of the elites and their mechanisms of political representation. It was in 2012, during the civic renaissance that we would come to call the Arab Spring, that budding social networks began to be used to coordinate protests. This form of politics marked a turning point in which digital agency became a constitutive dimension of the identities and practices of social movements. From a Eurocentric perspective, that wave of mobilisation was initially met with scepticism and distrust, denying the possibility that something similar could sweep away the foundations of liberal democracies in the global North. While it is true that this new global cycle of protests has already contributed to the fall of several governments, it is still too early to assess its transformative impact. This is especially true because, in several cases, they have ended with the eternal dilemma of “what to do next”, once everything returns to normal. What is already clear is that Generation Z is very much on the map and is being acknowledged for its enormous potential for change.

The GenZ 212 movement—named after Morocco’s international telephone prefix—was not structured around visible leaders or formal organisations, but, imitating its predecessors, used a gaming platform as a space to coordinate marches and define its demands. This strategy, aimed both at circumventing the control mechanisms of mainstream social media and at fostering alternative forms of community, also finds parallels in other recent experiences, such as that of Nepal, where the use of Discord has enabled young people to articulate collective demands, connect local struggles with global causes, and shift political action from physical space to collaborative digital environments.

Utopian idealism has given way to a more pragmatic approach shaped by the need to build “a liveable future”, focusing on the environment, mental health and quality of life.

Contrary to what is sometimes thought, international issues have always influenced social movements, whether in terms of their strategies, their ideological content, or the intellectual training of their activists. The difference is that, nowadays, the link between the local and the global is constructed on a day-to-day basis. Generation Z has taken the genocide in Gaza as a central cause in the defence of human rights, building new forms of transnational solidarity and coordination with other organised civil society groups. This orientation reflects the interdependence between echelons, the shared vulnerability of territories, and the desire to transform ways of life through a culture of care that is both widespread and cooperative with other populations.

As evidenced by the examples provided, hashtag activism is used to spread awareness about GBVF and call perpetrators to account. In the face of the lack of justice, survivors receive, their frustrations with the system and sustained humiliation by officials, social media has become a space for solidarity, resistance and non-traditional forms of awareness.

Towards a New Political Culture: Care and a Liveable Future

As the last cycle of mobilisations faded, the achievements, unfinished business, and defeats that remained etched in memory began to weigh heavily on the shoulders of younger generations, sparking new expectations for change. In the current context of interconnected crises that are multiplying their impact on humanity, the emergence of a new ethos of care is overturning many categories still anchored in the last century. Young people have not turned their backs on politics. They just do not fully identify with the classic and formal ways in which modern social conflict has been organised. In this sense, they are also following in the footsteps of early-21st-century activists, who sought to rethink an alternative to new capitalism and to reverse disenchantment in the face of the crisis of grand narratives.

Over the years, the utopian ideal that “another world is possible” has given way to a more pragmatic approach shaped by the need to build “a liveable future”, focusing on the environment, mental health and quality of life. The environmental movement illustrates this political and generational transition [4].[4] Benedicto Millán, Jorge Alberto, Betancor Nez, Gomer (2025). Conference Proceedings International Conference Youth Activisms, 24-25 October, 2024. UNED. The new wave of youth activism—with Greta Thunberg as its most prominent figure—is characterised by a shift from sustainability and individual practices to a discourse focused on the immediacy of the emergency and the reframing of climate justice. Fridays for Future, for example, has built its moral authority on the legitimacy conferred by its generational status: young people and future generations are those who will suffer the most serious consequences of climate change. Science plays a central role here, both in diagnosing the problems and in proposing solutions, but collective practices are not only based on this technical know-how, but they also integrate the intersectionality of climate impact for populations in the global North and South.

Photo_ Dying Regime_ CC BY 2.0

For its part, the new wave of feminist movements has placed care at the heart of renewed demands regarding the welfare model and social policies. Care is also part of a new understanding of militant commitment, establishing itself as the basis for participation, the strengthening of bonds and sisterhood in the face of gender-based violence. In the Global South, feminists have promoted intersectionality as the cornerstone of the movement’s global actions, understanding that the struggles for gender equality cannot be divorced from territorial, post-colonial and migrant issues. In 2016, a women’s strike called by the “Ni Una Menos”—Not One Less—movement was held in Argentina in response to the latest wave of femicides ravaging the country. This action had a major impact and inspired the coordination of the International Women’s Strike on March 8 of the following year (2017), which would ultimately become the first global strike against gender violence. This transnational experience contributed to the growing importance of intersectionality within the feminist movement, which acknowledges the diversity of forms of violence and inequalities faced by different groups worldwide, thereby broadening the struggles and demands to build a new generation of public policies.

Ultimately, although some political and media narratives have attempted to create conflict through a kind of “intergenerational populism,” pitting young people against older generations—suggesting that their economic difficulties are the result of accumulated wealth by previous generations—this narrative has not resonated with most youth groups. Far from accepting this logic, young people have displayed widespread distrust of such polarisation, choosing instead to defend their rights from a perspective that calls for greater cooperation. Issues such as job insecurity and access to housing are interpreted as the structural result of an economic transformation affecting society as a whole. The fight for affordable housing has led to the creation of new organisational approaches, such as tenants’ unions, which place responsibility on market dynamics and the lack of public regulation rather than on their parents’ property ownership. In this sense, youth collective action is more oriented toward building alliances with other groups, rethinking intergenerational solidarity, and developing a welfare model that addresses the social problems faced by young people in the 21st century.

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