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Abstract
This article looks critically at the new global youth, peace and security agenda, that has been marked by the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 in December 2015. It argues that this agenda needs to be situated within the broader context of the securitisation of development, and that the increasing interest in youth as a security subject and actor is shaped by three overlapping sets of global security concerns: the concept of the youth bulge is a euphemism for the problem of growing surplus populations worldwide; the ideal of youth as peacebuilders is a model for eliciting youth support for the current global social and economic order; and the spectre of globally networked youth being radicalised by extremist groups has legitimated joint state and private sector projects that are taking an increasingly active role intervening in the online lives of young people around the world. The article draws on an analysis of a collection of core documents that form the heart of the global youth and security agenda; and it argues for the need for greater critical reflexivity in considering the growing attention being paid to youth as a social category in global development and policy discourse.
Notes
1. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 42.
2. Williams, “Youth, Peace and Security.”
3. Katz, Improving Poor People.
4. Griffin, Representations of Youth.
5. Envoy on Youth, “UN Security Council”; Youth Policy, “UN Security Council.”
6. Comaroff and Comaroff, “Reflections on Youth,” 280.
7. CIA, Restless Youth.
8. Sukarieh and Tannock, “In the Best Interests of Youth?”; Sukarieh and Tannock, Youth Rising?
9. Duffield, Global Governance.
10. Kennelly, Citizen Youth.
11. Hettne, “Development and Security.”
12. Buzan and Hansen, Evolution of International Security Studies, 214.
13. Stern and Öjendal, “Mapping the Security-Development Nexus,” 11.
14. Chandler, “Security–Development Nexus,” 368.
15. United Nations, Human Security, 5.
16. Pugh, Gabay, and Williams, “Beyond the Securitization of Development,” 195.
17. US Department of State and USAID, Joint Strategy.
18. Security Council, Resolution 2250, 1.
19. Global Forum, Declaration on Youth, 1.
20. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 5, 7, 40.
21. Urdal, “Clash of Generations,” 608.
22. LaGraffe, “Youth Bulge.”
23. US National Intelligence Council, Global Trends, 21.
24. UNDP, “Youth, Peace and Security.”
25. World Policy Institute, “In His Own Words.”
26. Fletcher, Breitling, and Puleo, “Barbarian Hordes.”
27. Hendrixson, “New Population Bomb.”
28. Therborn, “NATO’s Demographer.”
29. Cincotta and Doces, “Age-Structural Maturity Thesis,” 102.
30. Arnett, “Adolescent Storm and Stress”; Offer and Schonert-Reichl, “Debunking the Myths of Adolescence.”
31. Sukarieh and Tannock, Youth Rising?, 107.
32. Security Council, Resolution 2250, 1.
33. Bricker and Foley, “Effect of Youth Demographics”; Cincotta and Doces, “Age-Structural Maturity Thesis.”
34. Leahy et al., Shape of Things to Come.
35. Global Forum, Declaration on Youth, 4.
36. Urdal, “Clash of Generations.”
37. Staveteig, Increasing Incidence of Civil Wars, 11.
38. Shaw “Urbanization of Drone Warfare,” 19; Sassen, Expulsions, 1, 10.
39. Baumann, Wasted Lives.
40. Wacquant, Urban Outcasts.
41. Denning, “Wageless Life.”
42. Sassen, Expulsions.
43. Ballard “Geographies of Development”; Srnicek and Williams, Inventing the Future; Tyner, “Population Geography I.”
44. Sommers, Outcast Majority, 14.
45. Sukarieh and Tannock, Youth Rising?, 120.
46. Huber “Youth as a New ‘Foreign Policy.’”
47. Hallsworth and Lea, “Reconstructing Leviathan,” 142.
48. Harvey, Seventeen Contradictions, 108; Shaw, “Urbanization of Drone Warfare,” 20.
49. Security Council, Resolution 2250, 2.
50. Global Youth Summit, Youth Action Agenda.
51. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 36.
52. Global Forum, Declaration on Youth, 1.
53. Williams, “Youth, Peace and Security.”
54. Global Youth Summit, Youth Action Agenda, 1.
55. Global Forum, Declaration on Youth; Security Council, Resolution 2250; United Nations, Guiding Principles.
56. Global Forum, Final Report, 9.
57. Zembylas, Charalambous, and Charalambous, Peace Education, 25.
58. Zembylas and Bekerman, “Peace Education in the Present,” 197.
59. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 170.
60. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 180.
61. United Nations, Guiding Principles, 1, 2.
62. Paris, “Peacebuilding,” 56.
63. Security Council, Resolution 2250, 4.
64. Global Forum, Declaration on Youth, 4.
65. Ahearne, “Neoliberal Economic Policies”; Huber, “Youth as a New ‘Foreign Policy’”; Pugh, Cooper, and Turner, Whose Peace?
66. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 29, 30.
67. Bergmann, Paradoxes of Peace; Izzi, “Just Keeping Them Busy.”
68. Gur Ze’ev, “Philosophy of Peace Education,” 315.
69. Pugh, “Political Economy of Peacebuilding,” 38.
70. Pugh, Cooper, and Turner, Whose Peace?; Turner and Kühn, Politics of International Intervention.
71. Gur-Ze’ev, “Philosophy of Peace Education,” 331.
72. Global Youth Summit, Youth Action Agenda, 1.
73. Sukarieh and Tannock, “The Deradicalisation of Education.”
74. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 35–36.
75. Baker-Beall, Heath-Kelly, and Jarvis, Counter-Radicalization; Novelli, “Countering Violent Extremism.
76. Global Youth Summit, Youth Action Agenda, 2.
77. UNDP, Arab Human Development Report, 180.
78. Sukarieh and Tannock, “The Deradicalisation of Education,” 8.
79. Bott et al., Internet as a Terrorist Tool.
80. Byford, “Obama.”
81. Security Council, Resolution 2250, 2.
82. Ahmed, “Resolution 2250.”
83. Besheer, “UN Youth Outreach.”
84. Greenberg, “Counter-Radicalization via the Internet,” 167.
85. Briggs and Feve, Countering the Appeal; Greenberg, “Counter-Radicalization via the Internet”; UNESCO, Social Media and Youth Radicalization.
86. Ferguson, Countering Violent Extremism, 7; Briggs and Feve, Countering the Appeal, 14.
87. One95, “About One95.”
88. Global Forum, Final Report, 7.
89. EVP, “University Teams.”
90. Saltman, Dow, and Bjornsgaard, Youth Innovation Labs, 4.
91. EVP, “University Teams.”
92. Greenberg, “Counter-Radicalization via the Internet,” 166.
93. Buckingham, “Radicalization Social Media and Young People.”
94. Ferguson, Countering Violent Extremism.
95. Bott et al., Internet as a Terrorist Tool, 8.
96. Briggs and Feve, Countering the Appeal.
97. Greenberg, “Counter-Radicalization via the Internet,” 171.
98. Ban, “Secretary-General’s Remarks.”