Abstract
This chapter gives an in-depth analysis of the 2017 General Election and the ‘youthquake’ narrative about increased political interest, participation, engagement and activism of young people in Britain. This chapter explains why the vote was propitious to engage young people in electoral politics and it underlines important intragenerational differences based on gender, level of education and social grade or class. The chapter starts by outlining the background to the 2017 vote. It then provides quantitative and qualitative explanations for the increase in political participation of young people in terms of ‘push and pull factors’ related to party leaders, policies, political parties and political communication. Last, the chapter addresses the highly contested statistics on electoral turnout and the ‘youthquake’ that did indeed occur in young people’s political participation.
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Pickard, S. (2019). Young People and the 2017 General Election: ‘The Youthquake’. In: Politics, Protest and Young People. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57788-7_10
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