Youth work, agonistic democracy and transgressive enjoyment in England

Concerns abound in media and political commentary regarding the purported political apathy of youth. This chapter shares the narratives of active engagement with politics on the part of a number of young people, as part of their efforts to resist the threats to youth services posed by the discourses and practices of neoliberal austerity. The analysis in the chapter links the young people’s engagement to the tenets of agonistic models of democracy, namely pluralism, contestation and tragedy. The chapter concludes with consideration of the implications of participants’ narrated experiences for the study of politics and political engagement in coming years