The Internet Generation: Engaged Citizens or Political Dropouts

An investigation of political disengagement among young people in North America and Europe Despite rising levels of education and mounting calls for increased democratic participation, recent years have seen a significant decline in voter turnout in many countries and the erosion of the sense of civic duty that brought earlier generations to the polls. Henry Milner looks at the United States, Canada, Britain, Scandinavia, and the European Union to probe the decline of youth voting and attentiveness to politics, drawing lessons from observations of institutions, which could break down the wall between political life and “real” life that underlies political abstention among the Internet generation. Finding civic education the key to instilling habits of attentiveness to public affairs, especially among potential political dropouts, Milner sets out a series of ways to bring the issues—and the political parties’ stance on them—to the classroom, including visits, simulations, and innovative use of media, old and new.