The Millennial generation in the context of political power: A leadership gap?

Abstract

This article focuses on the leadership roles of Millennials in politics and the public sphere. This group is a potentially influential political force, yet its members do not pursue traditional forms of civic engagement – they are reluctant voters and are widely considered to be neither ideologically aligned nor politically knowledgeable. The empowerment of the new generation provides a platform for analysing several dimensions of leadership, especially with a focus on the nature of the challenges embedded in political leadership in liberal democracies and the intergenerational leadership transfer in politics. In the initial part of the text a brief review of the literature on the Millennial generation and its political orientations is presented. It reveals the analytical potential of the theme for providing new findings on the nature of leadership. Next, the categories of sacredness in leadership are used to understand how political leadership in Western societies evolved. Finally, theoretical and empirical findings connecting generational identity and changing notions of political leadership are combined in order to identify their implications for the further development of political leadership in Western democracies.