Across Europe, democratic participation presents a striking paradox. Young people care deeply about issues such as climate change, equality, migration, human rights and social justice. They volunteer, organise local initiatives, join campaigns, use digital platforms to raise awareness and mobilise around causes that matter to them. Yet, many feel they have little influence over the decisions that affect their everyday lives.
This contradiction lies at the heart of one of the most pressing challenges facing European democracies.
The figures help explain why. One in every six people in the European Union is between the ages of 15 and 29, making young people one of Europe’s largest democratic constituencies. Yet they remain significantly underrepresented in political institutions and are more likely to engage through informal networks than through traditional political channels. Across the EU, research points to what could be described as a participation paradox: while many young people are socially active, traditional forms of political participation—particularly voting—continue to decline. Too often, this phenomenon is interpreted as evidence of political apathy. But reducing participation to electoral turnout tells only part of the story.
ParticipACTION was built around a different question. Instead of asking why young people are disengaged, the project set out to understand how they participate, what prevents them from taking part in democratic life more fully, and how institutions can create more meaningful opportunities for engagement. Bringing together young people from Italy, France, Lithuania and Cyprus alongside policymakers, civil society organisations and researchers, the project adopts a bottom-up approach that starts from lived experience rather than assumptions.
The findings emerging from the Italian National Level Assessment reinforce this perspective.
Rather than revealing a generation that has withdrawn from public life, the research paints a far more nuanced picture. Young people continue to participate, but often outside traditional political structures. Volunteering, community initiatives, advocacy campaigns and digital engagement have become important ways of contributing to society and expressing civic responsibility. Many participants described these experiences as more immediate, collaborative and capable of producing tangible change than conventional political participation.
At the same time, participation coexists with a growing sense of distance from institutions.
Throughout the research, many young people expressed frustration with political systems they perceive as difficult to access, insufficiently representative and disconnected from their realities. For participants with migrant backgrounds, this distance is often amplified by structural barriers, limited opportunities for representation and legal constraints that reduce their ability to influence decisions directly affecting their lives. These experiences do not point to indifference. Rather, they reflect a widespread perception that institutions are often better at speaking to young people than with them.
This distinction matters.
If participation is changing, democratic institutions cannot expect yesterday’s models of engagement to work indefinitely. The challenge, therefore, is not simply encouraging young people to participate more. It is recognising where participation already exists and creating the conditions for it to influence decisions, policies and public life.
For democratic institutions, this means moving beyond consultation as a symbolic exercise and creating spaces where young people can genuinely influence decisions. As the ParticipACTION project reminds us, participation becomes meaningful when people feel that their experiences are recognised, their voices are heard and their contributions can shape public life.
Perhaps, then, the real question is no longer why young people participate less. It is whether our democratic institutions are evolving quickly enough to participate with them.