What were the origins of the ANC Youth League, where has it gone wrong and how can it once again become an organisation that represents and supports South Africa’s youth? For most of its existence, the ANC Youth League has played a powerful role in the politics of the ANC, and therefore of South Africa. In this book, Youth League member Rebone Tau tells the story of the league, from its formation in Soweto in 1944 to its banning, reconstitution and current standing, highlighting key incidents that led to the organisation’s rise and fall. The book explores the radicalising role played by the league’s early leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and O.R. Tambo; the formation of the ANC Youth and Students Section in exile, first led by Thabo Mbeki; the return from exile in the 1990s and the leadership of Peter Mokaba; the controversies around the presidency of Julius Malema and his subsequent sacking; and the absence of Youth League leadership in the #FeesMustFall movement and current South African politics. Finally, the book considers the role that the Youth League could play in the future. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Youth League insiders, this is a fascinating glimpse into a vital and volatile institution in South African politics.

In an adaptation full of sparkling wit and cynical humor, this political comedy follows the meteoric rise of ambitious young Stensgaard, an office-seeker who’s willing to say anything to win an election. Forming the “League of Youth” to lobby against his opposition, Stensgaard schemes, romances, and manipulates in his rush to power. Ibsen’s most popular play in his lifetime, THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH caused fighting in the streets, with conservatives claiming it was an attack on their party and liberals claiming it was an attack on theirs! A thought-provoking comedy that’s sure to feel shockingly familiar.

The study of Soviet youth has long lagged behind the comprehensive research conducted on Western European youth culture. In an era that saw the emergence of youth movements of all sorts across Europe, the Soviet Komsomol was the first state-sponsored youth organization, in the first communist country. Born out of an autonomous youth movement that emerged in 1917, the Komsomol eventually became the last link in a chain of Soviet socializing agencies which organized the young. Based on extensive archival research and building upon recent research on Soviet youth, this book broadens our understanding of the social and political dimension of Komsomol membership during the momentous period 1917–1932. It sheds light on the complicated interchange between ideology, policy and reality in the league's evolution, highlighting the important role ordinary members played. The transformation of the country shaped Komsomol members and their league's social identity, institutional structure and social psychology, and vice versa, the organization itself became a crucial force in the dramatic changes of that time. The book investigates the complex dialogue between the Communist Youth League and the regime, unravelling the intricate process that transformed the Komsomol into a mere institution for political socialization serving the regime's quest for social engineering and control.

An autobiographical account of a young nurse's involvement in World War I

A simple man from the provinces, Friedrich Radszuweit merged popular culture, consumerism, and politics as the leader of the League for Human Rights, Germany’s first mass homosexual organization. The Seduction of Youth is the first study to focus on the League and its leader, using his position at the centre of the Weimar-era gay rights movement to tease out the diverging political strategies and contradictory tactics that distinguished the movement. By examining news articles and opinion pieces, as well as literary texts and photographs in the League’s numerous pulp magazines for homosexuals, Javier Samper Vendrell reconstructs forgotten aspects of the history of same-sex desire and subjectivity. While recognizing the possibilities of liberal rights for sexual freedom during the Weimar Republic, the League’s "respectability politics" failed in part because Radszuweit’s own publications contributed to the idea that homosexual men were considered a threat to youth, doing little to change the views of the many people who believed in homosexual seduction – a homophobic trope that endured well into the twentieth century.

In 2003, President Hu Jintao instructed Communist Youth League cadres to 'keep the Party assured and the Youth satisfied'. This laconic recognition that winning the support of Chinese youth requires a more responsive engagement with their interests and demands, provided the League with a new youth work mandate to increase its capacity for responsiveness. This original investigation uses a combination of interviews, surveys and ethnography to examine the often contradictory and self-defeating ways the League implemented this mandate locally and nationally. By doing so, it also sheds light on Xi Jinping's decision to downgrade it politically and organizationally in 2016. This book introduces a previously unexplored organization and develops 'juniority' as a conceptual tool that captures the ways generational power is institutionalized and fuels youth political apathy. For this reason, apart from China scholars, this study will be of particular interest to those working on comparative youth politics and sociology.