The State for Youth or Youth for the State: Discourses of Youth Policy in the EU and Russia

Abstract

The article is focused on youth politics in the UK, Germany, Finland, and Russia. Based on a constructionist approach, we analyze the rhetoric of youth policy, subjects of problematization, as well as the image of the country and youth of the future presented in the documents. The empirical base of the article is 21 youth-policy documents (laws, state programs, and youth strategies) of Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, and Russia. The analysis of normative documents showed that the discourse of youth policies in the European Union is dominated by the rhetoric of entitlement, and the motifs are equality of opportunity and access, rights, independence, empowerment, sustainable development of society, participation, and citizenship. The discourse of Russian youth policy is distinguished by the rhetoric idiom of ‘unreason’. The main motifs of the rhetoric are traditional values, education, and patriotism. European youth-policies, which emphasize rights and opportunities of youth, are oriented toward the development and support of young people, while the Russian youth policy is “state-centric”, oriented to the development of the country.