Young Rebels Who Do Not Want a Revolution: The Non-participatory Preferences of Fridays for Future Activists in Finland

Abstract

Young people’s lack of participation in elections has been taken as a sign that the young are wary of representative democracy and reject traditional authorities. Instead of election participation, it is expected that the young want more possibilities for direct involvement in political decision-making. Fridays for Future (FFF) is a global, youth-led climate movement that has been able to mobilize millions of young people around the world into political action (de Moor et al., 2020; Wahlström et al., 2019) in times when youth participation is generally declining, especially in traditional forms of political participation. While many have taken this as evidence that young people dismiss representative democracy in favor of a more participatory democracy, in-depth studies of their motivations are still lacking. This article helps fill this lacuna by providing a case study on Finnish FFF participants. Through semi-structured interviews and theory-guided content analysis with 15- to 20-year-old climate activists, the Finnish FFF participants’ attitudes toward political participation are examined. The data consists of 11 one-on-one in-depth theme interviews with young people, who participated in the FFF movement by attending at least one protest in Finland in 2019. The interviews focused on the following themes: motivation for participation in the FFF movement, interviewee’s background, and the participant’s ideas regarding politics, democracy, and political participation. The interviews were combined with material from various news sources to contextualize the information in the analysis phase. Based on the empirical evidence, I argue that although these young citizens have become politically active in a climate protest movement, it does not necessarily mean that they want major reforms to the representative democracy toward a more participatory system. Instead of more participatory possibilities, the Finnish climate activists want a better-functioning representative system with politicians who listen to their demands.

Free-Riding for Future: Field Experimental Evidence of Strategic Substitutability in Climate Protest

“…Second, we also contribute to a recent stream of literature investigating the motivational (preferences and beliefs) structure underlying climate protest participation. Climate protesters tend to be instrumentally (i. e. to attain a change of public policy) motivated (de Moor et al, 2020;Cologna et al, 2021), although there is regional and individual heterogeneity about advocated means (Beer, 2020;Svensson and Wahlström, 2021;Huttunen, 2021;Soliev et al, 2021), but there is also a strong affectiveemotional basis, revolving around feelings of worry, anxiety, frustration, and anger (Wahlström et al, 2019;de Moor et al, 2020), and a perceived moral duty to act (Fernandes-Jesus et al, 2020;Wallis and Loy, 2021). Social expression and self-signaling, identification, and event enjoyment also play a role (Walgrave et al, 2012;Fernandes-Jesus et al, 2020;Wallis and Loy, 2021;Cologna et al, 2021).…”

Future Orientation and Political Participation: The Moderating Role of Political Trust

“…This shows a conundrum for ensuring democratic responsiveness for the concerns voiced by people concerned about the future, but with low trust in the existing political system. As Huttunen (2021) shows, involvement in elite challenging activities does not necessarily entail that these activists reject the traditional representative system or that they want more participatory democracy. Nevertheless, as they exceedingly rely on activities not aimed at formal political decision-makers, there is a risk that their concerns are neglected, further exacerbating their dismay with the functioning of the political system.…”

“…Hence, it cannot be taken for granted that non-institutionalized participation entails a disdain for future consequences. For example, engagement in Fridays for Future protests was driven by intense long-term worries over climate change (Huttunen, 2021). According to this line of reasoning, we may expect that CFC-Future has a positive association with non-institutionalized participation as well.…”

Young people's climate activism: A review of the literature

“…Similarly, Gaborit (2020) also found variance in terms of radicalism, and young people who were further left were more willing to critique capitalism. Piispa and Kiilakoski (2021) found that young people coalesced around the notion of "moderation" and "slowing down", while Huttunen (2021) found that young people wanted favored more responsive politicians over a deeper political revolution-not particularly radical ideas.…”