Young Americans are not reliable liberals. But drawing from over one hundred surveys from the present day back to the Great Depression, and from interviews with campaign professionals from the Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders campaigns, Zachary Cook argues that across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, younger Americans have more faith in the power of government to provide better economic outcomes for all, and to effectively regulate business – if the right politicians can be found to do it. While older voters grow more skeptical about the federal government’s power to oversee the private sector, youth are more idealistic about the power of government to “do more,” even while they may distrust current politicians in office. Younger voters are not hostile to capitalism. They do not feel they have to choose sides between big government and big business. Given the current two-party system, this potential trust in the power of government works in the Democrats’ favor when appealing to the youth vote.

This book focuses on the root causes of the generation gap in voter turnout—changes in media consumption habits over time. It lays out an argument as to why young people have been tuning out politics in recent years, both in the United States and in other established democracies.

A brewing generational shift is about to change politics—and our country—forever. A demographic apocalypse is coming for the Republican Party. The surge in young voters for Biden in 2020 was only the beginning. Not only do they overwhelmingly favor the left, but the margins are at such an unprecedented and overwhelming scale that these voters are poised to end the partisan gridlock that has characterized politics for over thirty years. In The Kids Are All Left, political scientist David Faris proves beyond any doubt that this isn't just a typical generational trend that will even out over time and explores the policy transformations that young Americans will pursue. He offers hope for an escape from the political stalemate that has twice this century sent the loser of the popular vote to the White House, but he is realistic about the institutional obstacles that stand between voters and true majority rule. The result is a first look at what America[1] n politics will look like in the 21st century.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book investigates the reasons behind the 2017 youthquake – which saw the highest rate of youth turnout in a quarter of a century, and an unprecedented gap in youth support for Labour over the Conservative Party – from both a comparative and a theoretical perspective. It compares youth turnout and party allegiance over time and traces changes in youth political participation in the UK since the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis – from austerity, to the 2016 EU referendum, to the rise of Corbyn – up until the June 2017 General Election. The book identifies the rise of cosmopolitan values and left-leaning attitudes amongst Young Millennials, particularly students and young women. The situation in the UK is also contrasted with developments in youth participation in other established democracies, including the youthquakes inspired by Obama in the US (2008) and Trudeau in Canada (2015).

This book explores the consequences of lowering the voting age to 16 from a global perspective, bringing together empirical research from countries where at least some 16-year-olds are able to vote. With the aim to show what really happens when younger people can take part in elections, the authors engage with the key debates on earlier enfranchisement and examine the lead-up to and impact of changes to the voting age in countries across the globe. The book provides the most comprehensive synthesis on this topic, including detailed case studies and broad comparative analyses. It summarizes what can be said about youth political participation and attitudes, and highlights where further research is needed. The findings will be of great interest to researchers working in youth political socialization and engagement, as well as to policymakers, youth workers and activists.

Analyzes the manner in which Barack Obama uses race strategically to engage with and win the loyalty of potential supporters. Price uses examples from Obama's campaigns and presidency to demonstrate his ability to authentically tap into notions of blackness and whiteness to appeal to particular constituencies. By tailoring his unorthodox personal narrative to emphasize those parts of it that most resonate with a specific racial group, Obama targets his message effectively to that audience, shoring up electoral and governing support. The author also considers the impact of Obama's use of race on the ongoing quest for black political empowerment. Unfortunately, racial advocacy for African Americans has been made more difficult because of the intense scrutiny of Obama's relationship with the black community, Obama's unwillingness to be more publicly vocal in light of that scrutiny, and the black community's reluctance to use traditional protest and advocacy methods on a black president. --From publisher description.

The importance of the youth vote to any democracy is central to this cross-cultural analysis of the unique role of elections—and the dangers of abstention—in a democratic society. Comparative data from the parliamentary elections of 15 European democracies illustrate the scope of the problem of low youth turnout, and analyses of the reasons for such negligible participation are presented. Specially commissioned interviews conducted in several countries worldwide bring the opinions and views of young people themselves into the study. Additionally, descriptions of specific programmes for increasing youth participation enacted in Chile, Russia, South Africa, and the United States and included, as are proposals for a variety of activities that governmental and nongovernmental organizations can use to draw young citizens into the electoral arena.