FCOM 111- New Zealand’s Politics
Added on - 07 Mar 2020
The essay explains why lack of youth participation in New Zealand has been a policy issue in the country. It also discusses why lack of appreciating the youths value in governance is a major discouraging factor for the young people.
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Running head: POLITICS1New Zealand’s PoliticsStudent’s nameInstitutionDate
POLITICS2IntroductionThe fact that youths participation in the voting process gives them an opportunity to choosethe right government makes the young aged inability to register as voters remain a policyproblem in New Zealand. Those youths who are enrolled to vote do not show up on thatvoting day. This has lead to a loss in new Zealand as the young people who do not register orregistered but do not show up on that voting day are expected to be the leaders of tomorrow.The essay explains why lack of youth participation in New Zealand has been a policy issue inthe country.1. Explain why it is a policy problemEvery citizen has a democratic right to vote and elect their leaders in the country. NewZealand's system of government requires that people aged eighteen years and above enrolland vote. There has been an advanced problem of disappearing youth vote in New Zealand.Lack of participation of youth in the voting process has been a big issue influencingdemocratic process in the country(Cohen & Kahne, 2011). Even though statistics show thatNew Zealand enjoys a high turnout voters enrolment of about 79 percent, young people agedbetween 18 to 24 ( 19 percent do not register as voters).2. BackgroundYouths turnout in election process has been dismal in New Zealand. In research, there havebeen discovered five classes of youths who do not vote in New Zealand. These classesinclude: convinced and confident, disillusioned and distrustful, politically absent, ‘tentativeTriers' and living for the weekend. ‘convinced and confident' and ‘tentative triers' are wellmotivated and accept to vote, but they do not turn up on the voting day(Duhn, 2010). Othersinclude disillusioned and distrustful, living for the weekend and politically absent. These arepeople who are not well motivated to vote, but they do vote because they cannot see theimportance of voting. Other classes include the disinterested who have weak knowledge aboutpolitics, have no motivation to show up on the voting day hence they do not vote.3. AnalysisIt has been discovered that in New Zealand the circumstances that hinder the ’convinced andconfident’ and ‘tentative triers’ from going to vote are unavoidable events and circumstanceswhich they did not know about while others are intimidated and overwhelmed by the process
POLITICS3of politics hence they decide not to vote. The other three which include disillusioned anddistrustful, living for the weekend and politically absent are less motivated to show up on thatvoting day(Furlong, 2016). The barriers that hinder them from showing up include the lack ofknowledge about politics and lack of motivation. Others affected mostly by low rates ofliteracy and lack or very low access to means of transport and communication around themwhile others are completely apathetic to issues that they consider do not have any effect ontheir daily lives.Also, the New Zealand’s government has been showing less concern to the youths concerns,and this contributes to their lack of voter registration. The lack of appreciating the youthsvalue in governance is a major discouraging factor for the young people. Young people innew Zealand are not interested in political matters because of profound or total lack ofknowledge about political issues(Ichilov, 2013). Others have very little or no motivation tocontribute fully and willingly on voting day. Other people do not go to vote due to individualsconvictions regarding the ineffectiveness to that their vote. They believe that to vote is not thebest way of influencing politics or bringing changes to New Zealand.Another factor that makes the young people of new Zealand not to vote is that they follow upwhether their parents voted the previous elections. This is because the young people followwhat their parents are doing. If the parents did not show up on previous election day, theyoung would consider it not important, and something, not compulsory which is done onwilling limpness(James, 2015). This leads youth to unconcerned about the politics. Some ofthe other barriers that affect New Zealand young people from voting include the negativeattitude of seeing to vote is not the solution to bring the changes in New Zealand. The youngfind it difficult to navigate that voting process due to decline or lack of civic teachers andeducation in schools, apathy, political alienation, lack of understanding and inconvenience.4. Discuss policy solutionsIn New Zealand, the nonpartisan organization and political parties are finding ways andsolutions to minimize and end these barriers which hinder the young people from voting.These parties have come up with some solutions which they must do to draw young peoplesattention to politics. In the New Zealand have taken a step of addressing the inconvenienceaspect on youths by raising the number of polling stations to avoid congestion and time
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In brief, the lack of active civic education by the government for the youths has been the key contributor to this menace. Also, the public institutions in the country do not value the young people's ideas, and this has been discouraging them from getting registered as a voter. Again, the public officials' lack paying attention to youth concerns contributes to their ignorance in the whole election process.