European Youth Dialogue as a Governmental Technology: Construction of the Youth Voice

Abstract

In recent years, the EU Youth Dialogue (EUYD) gained significant popularization as an important political mechanism through which young people in dialogue with policymakers from the local to the EU level jointly formulate youth policies. In an ethnographic study of the sixth cycle of the EUYD, I applied the Foucauldian analytics of government to analyze how the voice was constructed. In contrast to the representations that EUYD annuls hierarchies and offers a space for equal discussion between young people and policymakers, thus producing a genuine voice, I argue that the construction of the voice is always under the influence of various power relations that form specific voices. I illuminate how, through concrete techniques and micro-practices, EUYD worked as a disciplinary technology that sought a docile voice of the youth and at the same time offered a space for shaping the subjectivity of young delegates as active and responsible EU citizens.