Proposal: Research on Opposition, Building Trusts, and Youth-Led Movements in the Euromediterranean Region
Implementation: 2024 to 2027
Call: HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01 – Past, present and future of democracies
Topic: HORIZON-CL2-2024-DEMOCRACY-01-01
Type of Action: HORIZON-RIA – HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions
Proposed Budget: 2 999 036,25€
Keywords: Participatory/Participation, New participatory democracy models, Youth, Political participation, Democracy, Engagement.
Objective: In the Euromediterranean region, countries with varying degrees of democratic tradition coexist alongside those with authoritarian regimes. Despite this diversity, a key sector of the population -the youth- has developed new ways of engaging with politics.
However, they remain one of the most underrepresented groups and are susceptible to manipulation due to their extensive use of social media and the digital world. Despite the role that young people tend to play in democratization processes, such as the one experienced 10 years ago in the countries of North Africa, the political elite does not attempt to align with their positions. Instead, they tend to delegitimize the points of view and actions carried out by young people.
The main objective of the project is to encourage young people to participate in the electoral and democratic processes in different political systems, challenging the status quo. This will contribute to changing the mutual perception between youth and the political elite. This can be achieved by fitting into the existing culture of opposition and convincing the rest of the population of the need for new forms of participation while respecting the rights of all.
Thanks to the actions that will be implemented in this project, young people will be trained to abandon the use of violence and equipped with tools to detect radicalization. At the same time, the political leaders will also recognise the importance of embracing these new methods of comprehending society and the desires of young people.
This will generate fresh forms of participation that will strengthen democratic processes in countries where democracy is weak or non-existent and enhance and modernize fully democratic systems. The previous experience of the members of this consortium, combined with the presence of several partners in European university networks, will enable the scale and optimization of the results to reach a large proportion of young people in the Euromediterranean region.
Partners:
- Universidad De Burgos
- IM Cultural Institute
- Panepistimio Dytikis Makedonias
- Universidad Del País Vasco/ Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
- Associacio Novact
- Institutul Român Pentru Acțiune, Instruire Și Cercetare În Domeniul Păcii
- Young Educators – European Association
- DAMJ
- Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies
- Kaakkois-Suomen Ammattikorkeakoulu Oy
- The Civics Innovation Hub Ggmbh