These findings highlight an important point for politicalrepresentation in ageing societies: descriptive representation can indeed foster more substantive youth representation. (7/7)
This pattern persists even when accounting for tenure, direct mandate, or district age composition. These factors do not curb young MPs’ commitment to youth issues, highlighting how central youth representation is to their work. (6/7)
Testing different age cut-offs, I find MPs under 40 speak on youth issues far more often than older colleagues. Forty may not seem young, but in parliament it is. With so few young MPs in the 2013–2017 Bundestag, this pattern may shift as future legislatures get younger. (5/7)
To approximate youth interests, I compared press releases from both youth and civil society organisations. Using keyless scores, I created an inductive dictionary of youth-specific terms that captures youth interests. (4/7)
I argue that young MPs should be more likely to address issues that are important to young voters. The argument goes that young MPs and young voters share common experiences that facilitate the emergence of shared preferences, which young MPs can represent. So far, few research has tested this.(3/7)
In this paper, I examine who represents young people's interests in parliamentary speeches in the Bundestag (2013-2017). While young people are descriptively underrepresented in most national legislatures, much less is known about who represents youth interests substantially. (2/7)
📢 Publication Alert!
I am excited to share that I published my paper on Substantive Youth Representation in German Politics. 📄 You can find my paper here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644008.2025.2584401 (1/7)
Awesome! rentrop@uni-trier.de
That sounds super interesting! I’d love to join you
Yes, that would be nice!
After an amazing two months at @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social, I’m now heading home. I am so thankful for the interesting conversations, inspiring exchanges and fruitful input I have had here. Apart from living in one of the most beautiful cities, I will cherish this stay for a long time!
