Therese O'Toole

Tuning out or left out? Participation and non-participation among young people

The issue of political participation, and particularly youth political participation, has received a great deal of attention in recent years. The reason is obvious. The turnout in the 2001 general election was 59%, down 12% from the turnout in 1997, and 25% from a post-war high of 84% in 1950. In relation to young people, in 2001 it is calculated that the turnout rate for 18–24 year olds was only 39%— down 27% from the 1997 election turnout. Similarly, membership of political parties has declined significantly, with both major political parties having barely more than 300,000 members. Party membership, particularly of the Conservative Party, is ageing and youth political parties barely exist in numerical, if not in organizational, terms. To put it another way, the combined membership of British political parties is a little over two-thirds of the membership of the largest UK interest group, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. These figures worry politicians, journalists and the ‘chattering classes’. The government is also concerned. In 1997 it commissioned the Crick Report, Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools, which recommended that citizenship education should be compulsory for secondary school pupils, in order to tackle problems of declining political and civic participation among young people. The government subsequently announced that these classes would form 5% of the national curriculum from September 2002. Not surprisingly, these issues have also proved interesting to social scientists and funding bodies. In particular, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) established a Democracy and Participation Programme with £3.5 million to investigate declining political participation in the UK. There is little doubt, then, that the democratic deficit which is associated particularly, although not exclusively, with the young is widely viewed as a matter of concern for the future health of the British polity. This article will examine how researchers of political participation have attempted to explain this decline. We argue that work on this issue has been limited in its capacity to explain declining electoral turnout and levels of interest in formal politics—both among the population in general and among young people particularly. In the first section of this paper, we review research on political participation, arguing that much of it is constrained by a narrow

Governing through Prevent? Regulation and contested practice in state-Muslim engagement

In this article, we consider the implications of the ‘Prevent’ strand of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy for the UK state’s engagement with Muslims. We argue that the logics of Prevent have been highly problematic for state–Muslim engagement. Nevertheless, we suggest that the characterisation of state approaches to engaging Muslims as a form of discipline is incomplete without an analysis of: first, differences in practices, habits and perspectives across governance domains; second, variations in approach and implementation between levels of governance; and third, the agency of Muslims who engage with the state. Through this approach we show how attention to the situated practices of governance reveals the contested nature of governing through Prevent.

Contemporary grammars of political action among ethnic minority young activists

Abstract Despite public and media attention to ethnic minority young peoples political engagement in recent times, often expressed in crisis narratives about disengagement, disaffection or extremism, there has been little consideration of the range, or distinctive forms, of political action among ethnic minority young people. The purpose of this article is to address this by presenting qualitative research on political activism among ethnic minority young people in Birmingham and Bradford. We find evidence for ‘new grammars of action’ and highly ‘glocal’ (as distinct from transnational and diasporic) political orientations among the activists with whom we worked, as well as the significance of religious (as distinct from ethnic) identities in informing some activists’ political engagements. We conclude that, while there is evidence for changing political subjectivities, there is a need to take account of the interplay between old and new grammars of political action.

Balancing tolerance, security and Muslim engagement in the United Kingdom: the impact of the ‘Prevent’ agenda

In this article, we consider how engagement with Muslims by the state has been conducted under the UK governments counter-radicalisation ‘Prevent’ agenda. New Labours ‘hearts and minds’ approach to Prevent emphasised, and innovated, engagement with Muslim ‘communities’. This approach was widely criticised, however, particularly in the way it merged Prevent with ‘Community Cohesion’. By contrast, the current Coalition governments new Prevent strategy operates with a much thinner conception of engagement and stipulates that in future, Prevent and cohesion work will be kept separate. This new strategy signals less community engagement and a hardened line on the types of Muslim groups that can be engaged with. However, local actors driven by operational or normative concerns are pursuing somewhat different objectives, often outside of central funding streams. Such unintentional localism may sustain more participatory and inclusive modes of engagement with Muslims.

Acts and practices of citizenship: Muslim women's activism in the UK

ABSTRACT Drawing on the growing literature on Muslim women’s activism, this paper explores grammars of action that frame political mobilizations of Muslim women in the UK. By taking a broad view of political activism, we identify acts and practices of citizenship through which Muslim women activists engage with, reinterpret and challenge social norms. The article critically engages with dominant readings of post-migration minorities’ political mobilization through the lens of citizenship regimes and draws attention to more processual and agency-centred perspectives on citizenship. We focus on two salient themes that Bristol-based Muslim activists were concerned with: mobilizing against violence against women, manifested in the anti-FGM campaign by Integrate Bristol, and attempts to re-negotiate the terms of participation in religious spaces, manifested in claims for more inclusive mosques. In both instances, mobilization was not confined to the local community or national level, but supported by and embedded in related transnational struggles.

A 'system of self-appointed leaders'? Examining modes of muslim representation in governance in Britain

Research Highlights and Abstract This article Contributes to theoretical debates about the significance of group identity and political representation; Contributes to academic research into the shift from formal and hierarchical to more informal and network-based styles of governance; Contributes to research on the integration of Muslims in Britain by elucidating the emergence and diversification of Muslim representative organisations in Britain since 1970; Demonstrates the multifaceted and dynamic nature of Muslim representative claims-making in contemporary UK governance by identifying and analysing a range of modes of Muslim representation. Since the turn of the century Britain has seen a proliferation of Muslim civil society organisations and an increase in the number of points of contact between Muslim spokespersons and government. Yet, this increased participation in UK governance has been a source of fierce controversies centring on the role of conservative male leaderships and the influence of radical Islamic groups. Drawing on interviews with 42 national elites who have engaged in UK Muslim–government relations in the past decade, this article charts the emergence of national-level Muslim representation and assesses its relationship to democratic participation and accountability. Building on the work of Michael Saward, we argue that unelected civil society representatives can act as an important supplement to elected representatives. We show how four modes of Muslim representation have emerged in the last decade—‘delegation’, ‘authority’, ‘expertise’ and ‘standing’—creating dynamic competition among representative claims.

Prevent: from ‘hearts and minds’ to ‘muscular liberalism’

That approach was much criticised: for its vague objectives and its overlap with community cohesion, which, it was argued, undermined and securitised community cohesion. There was, furthermore, widespread suspicion among many Muslim organisations – the prospective partners of Prevent – that Prevent was essentially a spying programme. As research from the Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance project showed, notwithstanding these problems, due to the leeway that local authorities had in interpreting and implementing Prevent, in some places local actors used Prevent to develop mechanisms for engagement between local authorities and Muslim community and civil society organisations, sometimes creating new political opportunity structures for the inclusion of Muslim voices in local decision-making across a broad range of issues.

A ‘System of Self-appointed Leaders’?: Examining Modes of Muslim Representation in Britain

Research Highlights and Abstract This article Contributes to theoretical debates about the significance of group identity and political representation; Contributes to academic research into the shift from formal and hierarchical to more informal and network-based styles of governance; Contributes to research on the integration of Muslims in Britain by elucidating the emergence and diversification of Muslim representative organisations in Britain since 1970; Demonstrates the multifaceted and dynamic nature of Muslim representative claims-making in contemporary UK governance by identifying and analysing a range of modes of Muslim representation. Since the turn of the century Britain has seen a proliferation of Muslim civil society organisations and an increase in the number of points of contact between Muslim spokespersons and government. Yet, this increased participation in UK governance has been a source of fierce controversies centring on the role of conservative male leaderships and the influence of radical Islamic groups. Drawing on interviews with 42 national elites who have engaged in UK Muslim–government relations in the past decade, this article charts the emergence of national-level Muslim representation and assesses its relationship to democratic participation and accountability. Building on the work of Michael Saward, we argue that unelected civil society representatives can act as an important supplement to elected representatives. We show how four modes of Muslim representation have emerged in the last decade—‘delegation’, ‘authority’, ‘expertise’ and ‘standing’—creating dynamic competition among representative claims.

Montserrat Guibernau: Belonging: Solidarity and Division in Modern Societies

radically challenge and replace old symbols by new ones, or to imbue old symbols with a different meaning akin to supporting the emerging status quo. Belonging to a group or community can only be represented through symbolism and ritual. In turn, symbols only have value, meaning and power for those who are able to recognize what they stand for. The richness and complexity of symbols tolerate a degree of ambiguity in their definition, one that allows for a certain measure of emotional creativity on behalf of individuals constructing their own sense of belonging. Symbols are powerful because they are able to prompt strong emotions and emotions stand as a powerful trigger for social action, including political mobilization. Among the most potent symbols are those that indicate belonging to a particular group, be it the nation, a faith, or any other group or community. The most original part of Nira Yuval-Davis’ book considers what she refers to as the ‘ethics of care’ as a specific feminist political project of belonging, which developed as an attempt to demonstrate and transcend gendered constructions of belonging. She examines feminist ethics of care and feminist transversal dialogical politics and argues that ‘a feminist political project of belonging should be based on transversal “rooting”, “shifting ”, mutual respect and mutual trust without neglecting to reflect upon the relevance of power. I find of particular interest the book’s study of the continuity and the changes taking place within contested political projects of belonging, reflecting both the continuity and the changes within these projects. In Yuval-Davis’ words: ‘it is not, or not just, ideological and emotional “consciousness-raising”, which homogenizes discourse, but specific relations of power’.

A ‘system of self-appointed leaders’?

Research Highlights and Abstract This article Contributes to theoretical debates about the significance of group identity and political representation; Contributes to academic research into the shift from formal and hierarchical to more informal and network-based styles of governance; Contributes to research on the integration of Muslims in Britain by elucidating the emergence and diversification of Muslim representative organisations in Britain since 1970; Demonstrates the multifaceted and dynamic nature of Muslim representative claims-making in contemporary UK governance by identifying and analysing a range of modes of Muslim representation. Since the turn of the century Britain has seen a proliferation of Muslim civil society organisations and an increase in the number of points of contact between Muslim spokespersons and government. Yet, this increased participation in UK governance has been a source of fierce controversies centring on the role of conservative male leaderships and the influence of radical Islamic groups. Drawing on interviews with 42 national elites who have engaged in UK Muslim–government relations in the past decade, this article charts the emergence of national-level Muslim representation and assesses its relationship to democratic participation and accountability. Building on the work of Michael Saward, we argue that unelected civil society representatives can act as an important supplement to elected representatives. We show how four modes of Muslim representation have emerged in the last decade—‘delegation’, ‘authority’, ‘expertise’ and ‘standing’—creating dynamic competition among representative claims.