Understanding the public participation of young people in border regions of mainland Portugal: youth as local development agent

ABSTRACTAlthough young people are recognized as stakeholders who should be involved in public participation, engagement by youth advocates in local development and decision-making is scarce. Young people’s input tends to be seen as less valuable, especially when the prevailing positions on development overemphasize economic interests. This article is based on research conducted in rural border regions in mainland Portugal. We conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives of the municipalities (n = 36), a questionnaire (n = 3968) and biographical interviews with young people (n = 50). The results suggest that young people see themselves as capable of contributing to the development of their regions, whilst demonstrating innovative views, with some even proposing a paradigm shift that encompasses a new way of thinking about sustainability and quality of life. We argue that local bodies of governance would benefit from an intentional involvement of young people in local policy making processes, especially when they are focused on local development.KEYWORDS: Local developmentyouth participationcommunity resilienceborder studies Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was co-funded by national funds, through the Portuguese research funding agency (FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, IP) and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (COMPETE 2020) (PTDC/CED-EDG/29943/2017 – POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029943). This work was also supported by the FCT, IP, within CIIE’s multi-year plan (grants UIDB/00167/2020 and UIDP/00167/2020).