Civic Education via Democracy Assistance: The Role of Young Donors in Supporting Youth Participation in Democratising Countries

The main purpose of the paper is to analyze externally driven youth empowerment strategies in Eastern European countries. Specifically, the paper demonstrates the attempts of third-wave democracies in building and increasing the activism of young people in authoritarian and democratizing countries. Given their democratizing potential, young people become a common target group. However, whereas a role of youth engagement in political and social changes has been already widely examined, studies regarding civic education aid to support the idea of responsible citizenship, participation and activism in other countries are scarce. Thus, in our paper we aim to fill this gap. Civic education, i.e. activities aimed to teach citizens of recipient countries basic values, knowledge, and skills relating to democracy, has become a popular form of promoting democracy by Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia in countries that currently struggling with democracy. Our goal is to demonstrate these efforts and to analyze programs aimed at educating and activating young people to be more socially responsible for their local community, region, and country. In our study we take a closer look at study tours, internships, scholarships, and exchange programs organized by NGOs from young donor countries (young democracies) for young people from Ukraine; Belarus; Russia (Kaliningrad Oblast); Moldova; and Georgia. The impact evaluation of civic education efforts is based on surveys conducted among young people from four countries before and after participation in a program to measure their political orientation. Despite an important contribution to a better understanding how youth participation is being built through civic education, this paper also reveals a potential of cross-border cooperation of different organizations focused on educating young people and its role in diffusing democratic ideas and behavior.