Radical Futures ─ Youth, Politics and Activism in Contemporary Europe

Radical Futures? Youth, Politics and Activism in Contemporary Europe features a collection of articles originating from MYPLACE (Memory, Youth, Political Legacy and Civic Engagement), which has mapped the relationship between political heritage, forms and levels of civic and political engagement of young people in Europe, and their potential receptivity to radical and populist political agendas.

• Explores the meanings of activism among young people engaged in a range of organisations and movements
• Draws on new primary data sets from 14 countries collected under a common research design by the authors
• Challenges claims of rising ‘apathy’ among young people as well as counter-claims that their participation has simply shifted to ‘informal’ activities
• Makes critical interventions into theory underpinning the fields of youth studies, democratic theory and participation, memory studies, and far right studies

Hilary Pilkington is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK. She has been coordinator of a number of large, collaborative research projects including the FP7 MYPLACE project. She has published widely on youth and on post-socialist societies including recently co-authoring Punk in Russia: Cultural Mutation from the ‘Useless’ to the ‘Moronic’ (2014) andRussia’s Skinheads: Exploring and Rethinking Subcultural Lives (2010).

Gary Pollock is Professor and Head of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Focused on youth research for more than 20 years, Pollock’s current interests are in utilizing survey data to examine young people in society in terms of their social and political outlook as well as their employment and family trajectories. He is co-editor ofYoung People in Risk Society (2002).