Playful democracy: innovative and interactive methods to foster youth participation in democratic processes

Engaging youth in societal affairs is vital for fostering democratic education and addressing contemporary challenges such as depoliticization and radicalization. Traditional civic engagement methods often fail to resonate with young people, as they do not align with their preferences or experiences. As the communication means and habits especially of young generations increasingly are digital, innovative solutions may be found to engage youth in decision-making. This study examines how youth and local authorities collaborate on societal issues, using co-creation—an approach that aims to give citizens real influence and increases the relevance of their participation (Ansell & Torfing 2021). In this context, we conduct experiments testing games and other tools preferred by youth as communication platforms. We refer to this approach as playful democracy. How can playful and interactive tools be identified and implemented to be a positive contribution to democracy, effectively engage youth in democratic processes, foster co-creation, and produce outcomes that local authorities can utilize? In context of Erasmus+ project ReCoCreaYOUTH, we conducted so called Playful democracy project weeks in upper secondary schools, where the central focus was the collaboration between students and local governments, specifically municipalities, to co-create public value. The pedagogical aim was to make learning more interactive and engaging (e.g. authenticity), thereby increasing students’ understanding and interest in democratic processes, as well as their awareness of and participation in decision-making. Transversal competence areas as well as skills and abilities for a good life are highlighted in the Finnish National core curriculum for general upper secondary education (2021), including elements such as communal and participatory school culture and building a sustainable future. By emphasizing areas such as citizenship and sustainability, the teaching methods incorporate cross-cultural approaches, characteristic to the project week. Hence, Playful democracy has provided didactically oriented perspectives alongside the core objectives of the pilot. The study will investigate the appeal and usefulness of playful democracy, which is related to inclusion, as well as its other democratic qualities. Co-creation is said to have democratic potential in its ability to democratize creative problem-solving, as well as its capacity to enable the sharing of power among distributed actors in the creation of public value (Ansell et al. 2023). Two sets of criteria are used to evaluate the playful democracy design and implementation. The basic principles of human-centred design (ISO standard 9241-210:2019) reflect the ambition to engage participants throughout the process as well as to ensure that all necessary components of competencies and resources are employed. The concept of democratic goods (Smith 2009; Jäske & Setälä 2019; Gilman & Peixoto 2019) assesses the “democratic quality” of innovations such as designs to increase or deepen citizen participation. The aim of the analysis is to identify factors of engagement and the components of the interaction between municipalities and youth.