Youth Political Participation in the Midst of the South Africa General Elections : A Case Study Analysis in the Langa Township

Sammanfattning: Declining youth political participation among democracies has been a major issue and a widely researched debate in recent years. Most research has targeted youth in democracies in general but has failed to acknowledge the youth living in poverty such as those living in South African townships. This thesis was a case study investigation in the Langa township in Cape Town. It aimed to understand the perceptions and opinions of youth in the township regarding political participation. It aimed to understand why the trend is showing that political participation is declining and to further understand how these young people choose to participate as well as how they best believe they can make a difference. This study included interviews with ten youth respondents from Langa. Due to the small number of respondents, the conclusions drawn from this study should not be applied to the entire youth population in townships, nor the entire youth population in Langa. More research is needed in this field with larger sample groups to make more general conclusions representative of the entire population. From this thesis, a conclusion can be drawn that the pedagogical political participation model can explain youth political participation to a certain degree. However, there are additional reasons outside of the framework that helps explain political participation. It was found that youth in Langa lack confidence in their government due to the lack of development and major issues that the township is faced with. This refers to issues such as housing, electricity, water, employment, and education. This lack of confidence leads them to withdraw from formal participation methods such as voting. Due to these pressing issues, the respondents find that more change can occur through informal methods of participation such as protesting. Therefore, this study concludes that youth in the Langa township prefer informal methods of participation with the main focus on protests. This is because it is the best option to voice their opinions, create awareness, grab the politician’s attention and create change