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Giving Youth a Voice
Dr Elvira Graner, Syeda Salina Aziz, Fatema Samina Yasmin
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Understanding young people and their ideas about politics and social justice is a major challenge for policy makers, development partners and academics alike. By their sheer numbers, this group is a core constituency and the provision of services part¬icularly to this group is crucial in order to support them for setting up their lives, both pro¬fessional and personal. In addition, they can act as crucial agents for social change, as has been demonstrated in the Arab world quite vividly over the past year. In spite of this relevance, there are only a few studies that specifically concentrate on young people. Some of these have been done at a large scale, such as the Indian Youth Survey in 2009 or the ones conceptualised by Colombo University in Sri Lanka in 1999 and 2009. For Bangladesh, smaller studies have been provided by the British Council (2009) and by BRAC's Research and Evaluation Division (2006).
Currently, the Institute of Governance Studies (IGS) of BRAC University has taken up the challenge to undertake such a study, in the form of a Bangladesh Youth Survey (BYS). Altogether 6,700 interviews were made in all 64 districts in Bangladesh, based on the standard definition of youth (those aged 15-30).
Overall, the questions we asked comprised of several thematic fields, such as the assessments about their family and community, and, above all, the state. The latter section included aspects of policies that are of particular relevance for youth, such as education, vocational training, and access to labour markets. It also includes more general aspects, such as assessing the performance of the current government, core government institutions, corruption. This article is the first in its kind to present some of the key findings to a wider audience. The focus here is on the youth as young voters.
Youth as politically active citizens Student's involvement in party politics has been a particular feature of Bangladeshi politics throughout the country's history. At the same time, student politics is quite the debated issue. The study reconfirmed that student politics is not too popular among most youth: more than 80 percent voiced disapproval of student politics, yet nearly half think that young people can join politics at a later stage. Interestingly, those standing in support of involving students in politics are higher in the age group 18-25, in urban localities. At the same time, the majority reject that students should engage themselves in the violent forms of politics, such as hartal.
When asked about their criteria for voting, the highest consensus was reached on the criteria whether a party or a candidate is concerned about local issue (84 percent highly agreed), followed by the criteria of considering youths interest (74 percent highly agreed). While political manifestos were nearly as important (54 percent) voting based on the suggestions made by their friends was strongly objected (3 percent). Taking into consideration the image of political leaders of a party or the candidate's affiliation with a particular party are also considered important factors (at 33 percent and 27 percent, respectively). These results are even more pronounced when the respondents were asked to rank nine potential criteria (see graph).
Young voters and their ideas of democracy and fair elections Overall, the participation of the youth as active voters is at the core of any democratic action. At the same time, not all of them are registered as voters (78 percent for those who are 18 and above). In addition, there are pronounced gender disparities (female 78 percent vs. male 69 percent). Among those who are registered as voters and who are older than 21, only 61 percent have actually participated in at least one national election. A crucial question for us was also to ask about their affiliation to any particular political party. Only 2 percent of the respondents stated that they are members of certain political parties. Although this figure is equal to the findings from the British Council's Study "The Next Generation" we somehow assume that this number is underreported and that respondents might be reluctant to disclose their involvement with any political party. Again when we have asked them if they have always voted for the same party, 30 percent agreed which also gives support to the assumption of underreporting.
Holding a free and fair election has always been a challenge for Bangladesh. While we did not include the critical question about the caretaker government, we have asked for several other 'important factors' in order to conduct a free and fair election. Overall, there was a “strong agreement” for the empowered election commission (of more than 75 percent) in addition to nearly 20 percent who "somewhat agree" to this statement. Parties respect for each other seem important by 91 percent of respondents. Mandatory election budget disclosure and candidates with no criminal records also seem important with 72 percent and 66 percent support respectively. Among all respondents, the regional and gender variations are not very pronounced, although women and people living in rural areas are generally more supportive compared to men and youth living in urban areas.
When asking about democracy, we have provided them with five definitions and requested them to rank the three that they consider to be most important. The majority of youth stated that 'holding regular election' was most important (74 percent), a similar finding as in IGS' last year's Governance Barometer Survey (GBS) or the recently conducted Daily Star-Nielsen opinion poll. Other options include the ability to access the information (38 percent), the rule by consent (32 percent) or the ability to participate in decision making (30 percent). Among all, 'Free public debate' as a meaning of democracy got the lowest ranking (at 26 percent).
Finally, the survey responses largely reflect the positive attitude of Bangladeshi youth. They understand the political atmosphere of the country quite well and are able to distinguish the flaws of the system. At the same time, this does not limit their eagerness to participate in the decision making process. There lies the hope for us; a conscious, informed and involved group of youth who will be the ideal force to act as an agent of change to transform the existing political system of Bangladesh.
(The writers are with the Institute of Governance Studies, BRAC University.)