Willow, C. (1997). Hear! Hear! Promoting Children and Young People’s Democratic Participation in Local Government. London: Local Government Information Unit.

In the preface to Carolyn Willows report, Councillor Phyllis Starkey and Dennis Reed turn the discussion around on youth and governance: “a commitment to involve young people in democratic processes recognizes the value of the contribution they can make, but for the health of our society it is also urgent and necessary that they are involved. Too many young people believe that politicians will never listen to them. Convincing children that democracy works for them could not be a higher political priority.”  Often, we hear of the imperative for politicians to begin listening to young people. It is refreshing to hear adults instead implore us of the need to convince children that democracy is a worthwhile venture. It is true that many young people no longer are engaged in politics because they believe that it is divorced from their daily lives, that regardless of their perspectives, it is not their system. This is the belief of many adults even, that they have no voice within the political system, let alone as agents in the governance of their own communities. Somehow, we have been convinced that we are not agents in the production and reproduction of society.

Willow returns to this theme on page 14 when she asks “why should people who have not been asked their views, and genuinely consulted in early life, develop participative behavior later? Their eagerness to learn, ask questions and be involved has been thwarted, and so they enter adulthood not expecting officials or public bodies to consult them.” By not engaging children and young people in decision-making around their communities, and even putting up barriers from doing so conveys and affirms that they do not have an agentic role in the construction of their society. While children are often framed as consumers or clients of services, young people are not seen as actors in these systems. At worst, this can be seen as a form of disciplining, of fostering political apathy and passivity in our youth. This disciplining could be taken as setting up a socio-politically impotent citizenry.  Some who are disciplined in the “right” ways through leadership programs can and will become the authorities that will be the officials who then reproduce the disciplining system.

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In the introduction, Willow places this report in the context of the United Kingdom in 1997 when there was a picture being painted in the media of children and young people as potential agitators, she speaks of newspapers that are “dominated by terrified teachers and wayward children” leading to hostility towards young people.  On page 5, Willow points to how when children are in the public spaces of an adult dominated society, they are viewed with suspicion and seen as vectors of risk, especially when they congregate in groups. This report is a sharing of examples around the United Kingdom of local governments using different methods to engage young people in decision-making. In doing so, this survey led to the conclusion that there is no one way of involving young people in decision-making. Regardless of the modality, there are often surprising and lasting effects for all those involved. Participating in local governance is a relatively rare opportunity and forum in which several generations need to listen to one another, to engage in thoughtful dialogue, and to stimulate action around shared goals. This is a powerful activity as it signals to children that they matter in their own communities, that they are contributors –not the disrupters as the media may paint them to be– of their own communities.

Also, children and young people are primary users of many counsel services including education, play and recreation, youth services, residential and foster care, they also benefit from other facilities and policies involving housing, transport, police and fire services, environmental health, leisure and antipoverty strategies(page 3). And yet, children are still often seen as “hidden citizens” (page 5) and worse, objects rather than subjects, humans with rights to have their voices listened to and their perspective taken seriously on matters that affect them. Taking the democratic approach over a client approach recognizes that young people should be involved in all aspects of decision-making, and recognizes their contributions to public life. It speaks to the control that children and people more generally have over their lives, that they can speak for themselves about themselves. Supporting participation also extends the conception of local governance as just service providers to governance as mechanisms for empowering people to exercise agency in their own lives and their own communities. By seeing children and young people not as passive recipients of services but as citizens with opinions and contributions about the directions of their lives, their community and society, they become people (page 9).

Encouraging participation is vital to the reproduction of democracy itself. John Stewart argues that participation in democracy is vital to democracy itself. Too often, a representative is reduced to a passive role, and just ‘be a representative.’ To be a representative requires her to be active, but in order for her to represent, it requires citizens to inform the representative, to be in conversations with their representative. Without the active engagement of her constituents, the representative cannot participate truthfully in democracy. Thus, the promotion of a more engaged citizenry through active participation, and especially to instill that at an early age, is vital to democracies.

Seeing children as agents of participation affirms and fosters a sense of citizenship, “where people have a sense of belonging, of being included in communities and wider society” (page 5). Fostering a sense of belonging is vital to building a sense of dignity that human rights asserts.

In Willow’s summary of political arguments for promoting children and young people’s participation she highlights “the society which does not value the contribution of all its citizens breeds inequality and divisiveness. Participation reduces the chances of alienation and disconnection in later years.” Especially in light of the above, I do not disagree with this. However, I find that this summary does not fully capture the complexity of what Willow was arguing earlier. Youth governance is a mechanisms of mitigating disconnectedness presently as well as in the future. It demonstrates the equal value of all citizens, youth of all stripes, and people of all ages and abilities. It demonstrates the goal of equality (one of the principles of children’s rights) and actively strives to make connections between people, and between citizens and the mechanisms that implements their decisions. When implemented with an eye towards inclusiveness, it includes the marginalized, to bring all those who are part of a community into the conversation to respond to their needs and promote equality.

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In stating the legal case for children’s participation in local governance, Willow underscores how well placed local authorities are to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child as it touches all aspects of people’s lives, that they have an “immediate and direct impact upon the everyday lives of children and young people” (page 8).

When children are surveyed about their concerns, we find that children have opinions and concerns not unlike adults at all (page12). And yet, children are often rendered voiceless and thus disempowered to address these concerns.

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Despite Bob Franklin’s assertion that “the burden of proof always rests with those who wish to exclude others from participation; children should not be obliged to argue their case for possessing the same rights as everyone else,” society continues to use the case for participation from this stance (1995 in Willow, 1997). Rather than assuming that children only attain civil and political rights once they become adults, child rights affirms the human rights of those 18 and below, including civil and political rights. Furthermore, children’s rights extend the rights of children as this particular group of humans are in particular need of their rights to be protected (in part due to their evolving capacities) and so are granted additional and special rights. As Beresfrod and Croft point out, “the rights of children are especially vulnerable. This is an added reason to involve them, not to exclude them” (1993, page 79 in Willow, 1997 page 13).

Gerison Lansdown points out that the capacity to think with and make decisions with the responsibility towards others in mind is built through the exercise of that responsibility itself. “It is the very act of respecting children’s rights to participate in decision-making that contributions to the development of the capacity to exercise a sense of social responsibility” (1995, page 31 in Willow, 1997, page 13). We are constantly putting the cart before the horse by resting the burden of proof for competency to participate before extending the right to participate. We fail to see and honour the capacity of the act of participation to extend the child’s inherent sense of active agency, to develop a sense of social responsibility when offering an opinion.

Lansdown clarifies that children’s rights to participate “is not the same as granting the child autonomy. Autonomy, which allows the child the right to determine decision-making, must necessarily be circumscribed by assessments of the child’s competence and understanding of the choices available to them and the implication of those decisions” (Lansdown, 1995 in Willow, 1997). The responsibility of assessing the child’s competence and understanding while fostering these rests on the duty bearers of child rights, such as adults who care for them and the State; it does not permit them to withhold participation rights on the basis of the tools it has yet to provide.

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My reflections:

  • It is our responsibility to bring young people into governance structures and mechanisms.  Rather than discipline young people into passive reproductive clients of society, it is the role of child rights and democracy workers to engage children in the co-construction of society for a more equitable and responsive community.
  • Especially in representative democracies, we must work to foster a more active citizenry if we are to ensure the vitality of democracy itself. A representative democracy requires a participative democracy in order to be truly democratic.
  • Promoting participatory governance with a democratic orientation and approach then extends local governance beyond a mechanism for service provision to an environment that empowers people to be agents of their own lives, to be engaged contributors of their communities, and producers of a society that reflects, serves, and enables them to fulfill their potentials.
  • We spend so much of our energy placing the burden of proof on children to demonstrate the capacity to make responsible decisions. When we recognize children as agent to being constantly making decisions around strategies for their own development than we see that their capacities for making socially responsible decisions can be scaffolded. Rather than curtailing the opportunity to develop this competency, it is the role of duty bearers to accord children their rights to development in tandem with their rights to participation by building their capacity. By inviting children into an environment that supports the development of socially responsible decision-making, we accord children these two principles of children’s rights while demonstrating that they matter in the development of our communities, that they are welcomed actors in the social and political life of our communities.