Despite being one of the largest pools of future political leaders, young party members are a largely understudied group. While there is an interest to understand their motivations for becoming young party members, we know much less about young people’s political ambition and the factors that impact their decision to seek political positions, to remain party foot soldiers, or to drop out of party engagement entirely. Although there are many experiences that can shape the ambition of young people, one thing is for certain, if you have ambition and you want to get ahead in politics, you must have experience, be “seen” by your fellow party members, and following that, be well-connected.
For young people, being “seen” by, and in turn being well-connected to, peers means having both made strong commitments to the party—devoting a lot of time to meetings, participating in campaigns, and recruiting new members—and maintaining a strong online presence. Today’s youngest party members not only are active as young people online, but also as representatives of their mother party and youth associations. While being active on social media has many benefits for young, politically ambitious party members, it also presents challenges and drawbacks. One of the most concerning drawbacks is the potential exposure to online harassment and abuse.
While there has been a tremendous effort to define violence against women in politics (VAWiP), and to draw attention to and investigate how women in political positions experience different forms of violence, there are fewer investigations that take age as an intersecting category of interest. Even fewer have questioned how young, active, party members experience political violence and harassment and how this may impact their ambition for seeking higher office.
Drawing on unique qualitative and quantitative data I have collected among young Swedish and Norwegian political party members, in this paper I ask how young future politicians experience political violence and the extent to which political violence shapes their ambition and behavior. More specifically, I ask do young, active, future politicians experience political violence and if so, how does this impact their behavior and attitudes towards candidacy and/or remaining in office? Further, are there gendered differences in the experience of political abuse and its impact?
Preliminary findings suggest that young, ambitious party members do experience semiotic, physical, and psychological violence and that these phenomena are gendered. Early findings also suggest that experiencing such forms of violence does alter behavior, but this varies both by gender and with experience level.
If we are to better understand the representation of young people, and particularly, the future of women’s representation, we must look to those who are the most likely future leaders—young party members. To better understand the supply of candidates and especially women candidates, we need to better understand how their early experiences within party politics can impact their future decisions to seek higher office, or to drop out.
