Political activism and engagement in Arab states has taken many shapes and forms over the decades. Some are direct and usually top-down, whereby the strongmen allow the space, but a lot of the contentious politics took place indirectly or away from the formal political apparatuses. This included, with varying successes and causes, labor, professional and student unions, civil society, and rights-based activism.

Youth’s activism and movements are not new despite the attention the different uprisings and revolutions erupting across the Arab world since 2010. Youth groups have been engaged in all sorts of activism from political and social to environmental and human rights, but the results are mixed at best. A lot of research and studies tried to capture and understand the role of the youth over the past decade, and especially considering the setbacks and failures of the 2010s uprisings. The 2019 POMEPS series on Youth Politics, which APSN translated into Arabic, was one of them.

While several years passed since the POMEPS essays, the developments in the region and especially those surrounding youth’s economic, social, and political conditions, implore us to revisit the topic. With tightening economic conditions, high unemployment and closed public and political spaces, followers of regional politics would be amiss to not sense and see the growing frustrations.

Accordingly, The Arab Political Science Network (APSN) and the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI) organized a webinar on Youth in / and Politics that brought together three researchers currently working on youth and social movements with a focus on Arab countries. The speakers shared their reflections on the current research on the topics; what role (if any) youth groups have in politics under current conditions; what tools are available at their disposal and what spaces are being contested.

Note: The webinar is in Arabic.