Tripping on the road to democracy: unravelling the link between youth participation in elections and development delivery in South Africa

Abstract

Youth participation in elections is widely used as a measure of the legitimacy and vitality of democracies, yet across many democratic countries, including South Africa, young people are withdrawing from formal political processes. Existing literature often attributes this decline to apathy, which ultimately frames youth as disengaged or indifferent. This study highlights a gap in existing research, which often overlooks the relationship between democracy and development and how young people’s perceptions of development, whether real or perceived, shape their electoral engagement, particularly within the context of South Africa’s post-1994 social contract, which envisioned democracy not only as a vehicle for political freedoms but also as a means to deliver development. The study employed a qualitative research methodology grounded in social constructivism and informed by a participatory action research approach to engage forty-four youth across rural, suburban and urban areas. This framework positioned the youth participants of this study as situated epistemic agents whose lived experiences and everyday knowledge shaped the inquiry of this research. Through in-depth interviews and the researcher’s involvement in activities such as educational voter board games, workshops with youth organisations reflecting on Democracy at 30 as well as youth manifesto workshops, the research accessed grounded accounts of how development, democracy and participation are understood and enacted. The findings reveal that, for young people, democracy derives its meaning through development which makes the two concepts inseparable. This means that to them, democracy is meaningful only when it materialises as improved living conditions. When development is absent, democracy is reinterpreted through terms such as “false hope” or “counter-productive,” which are grounded in lived experiences of deprivation. Furthermore, the study found that communities and women’s bodies function as primary sites where development delivery or its failure are judged and embodied, respectively. These experiences produce fragmented forms of citizenship that influence whether young people vote, withdraw or support alternative political parties. As a result, the reconfiguration of political power in South Africa’s 2024 elections demonstrates that democratic mechanisms such as voting still remain capable of translating societal demands for more accountable and development-oriented governance.