"Youth wings can function as catalyst sites: they are intermediary environments where democratic and undemocratic norms and repertoires are learned, transformed, normalized, contested, and carried into formal politics. These spaces are sites of democratic possibility and democratic risk: they can strengthen voice, efficacy, and participation, but can also reproduce exclusion and hierarchy." – Brit Anlar, Universiteit van Amsterdam
How do political youth wings shape the future of democracy? MEN4DEM's latest report, Youth Wings as Catalysts, explores the important role these organisations play in socializing young people into political life and examines how they can foster either democratic or anti-democratic masculinities.
Drawing on research across political science, gender studies, and democratic socialization, the report argues that youth wings are more than recruitment spaces for political parties. They are environments where young people learn not only political ideas and practices, but also political styles, norms of leadership, humour, belonging, and ways of engaging with disagreement. These everyday experiences can strengthen democratic masculinities grounded in care, equality, accountability, and pluralism, or reinforce anti-democratic masculinities characterized by hierarchy, exclusion, aggression, and contempt for democratic constraints.
"What circulates within youth wings is not only ideology or policy platforms, but also political styles, ideas about authority, and ways of participating that connect everyday life with formal politics." – Brit Anlar
The report identifies four key intervention points for political parties, youth wing leaders, organisations working with political parties, oversight bodies, and campaign teams to help strengthen democratic political cultures and prevent the normalization of anti-democratic practices.