Dynamics of engagement among youth in Arab Mediterranean countries

Abstract

Faced with the general period of political demobilisation since 2011, there is a need to look beyond the manifest forms of political participation and to better understand the dynamics of engagement among today’s Arab Mediterranean youth. In this article, we inquire into the life experiences of young people and, especially, explore the agentic dimensions of their apparent disengagement. What societal processes shape their negative attitudes toward engaging in public political life? What prospects are there for further politicisation of youth in the post-2011 era? In order to address these questions, we adopt a processual view of engagement, indicating that young people’s agencies are geared towards the goals of livelihood, employment, and attaining personal advancement and markers of social adulthood. These in turn represent spheres of life that may aggregate instances of felt injustices and thresholds of politicisation processes.