engleski

ROLE OF YOUTH COUNCILS IN LOCAL GOVERNANCE

Despite universally accepted idea that youth civic engagement harvests many benefits, both for young people in question and their larger communities, there is still limited engagement of young people in policy formulation and local youth councils almost everywhere play marginal or even symbolic role in local decision making. In the same manner Croatian legislation requires establishing youth councils at local and regional level of government. The idea is to form an advisory body that will protect youth rights and promote their interests at the local level. Based on survey distributed among youth council’s chairman in four Croatian regions, Istria County, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Vukovar-Srijem County and Osijek-Baranja County, paper aims to assess the role of youth councils in local governance. There are two main working hypotheses: 1. Youth councils represent a form of participation of citizens in local governance and 2. Participation of youth in local governance ensures their institutional positioning with the purpose of taking over the leading roles in the administrative system. Data is interpreted by descriptive statistics. Additionally, this data is supplemented with reviews of legislation, other documents and official websites. Findings indicate that formal youth engagement in local democracy is lacking. Many municipalities have sent out multiple calls for candidates, but youth councils still haven’t been established. On the other hand, where they were established, youth councils engaged in a wide range of activities. Additionally, results indicate that formal youth participation in local governance serves more than the one role intended for them by the legislator - boostering youth participation. Equally important is that youth councils serve as a way to present young people and promote them among senior political party members and to jump- start future careers in politics.

youth councils, local governance, youth participation, youth policy, Law on youth councils

nije evidentirano