Democratic Innovation for Young Rebels

Democratic innovations aim, among other things, to involve groups of people who are generally less involved in political discourse and decision-making. Young people are a particularly relevant target group for democratic innovations. They are often sceptical about conventional forms of participation such as elections or party membership, and see themselves badly represented in representative democracy. Inclusion via the usual channels is only promising for those young people who are already politically socialised and come from socio-economically prosperous backgrounds. It is more difficult to involve youngsters from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, those who are often seen as young rebels against traditional systems and norms. However, rebellion is - according to different democratic theories (see Pausch 2017) - an integral part of democratic socialisation and could thus be seen as a prerequisite for political participation. It shouldn't be sanctioned but made fruitful for dialogue and constructive critique. In this paper, the attitudes and problems of these young people will be highlighted and empirical results of qualitative and quantitative research will be presented in order to discuss empirical experiences and results of democratic innovations. Different democratic innovations shall be analysed according to their value for including young rebels. The examples and results come from various projects, including an EU project (H2020) on the prevention of extremism, a project with young refugees and a project on alternative forms of democratic education as well as of the exchanges of COST-action on Deliberative Democracy and Constitution Making.