Young let down by Starmer and Sunak?

This week the leaders of the UK’s two biggest political parties, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, laid out their visions for the country. Liz Emerson, IF Co-founder, uses the lens of intergenerational fairness to assess their proposals on the key issues that most affect younger and future generations

Democratic rotation: could a lottery system revitalise US political institutions?

The American political system is gridlocked and its democratic norms are shaken. In the second of two articles for IF’s Worldwide Blog Week on renewing the legal and political institutions of the United States, Julia M. Puaschunder, an economist and psychologist at ​​Inter-University Consortium of New York, considers the history of the lottery system in… Read more »

What an election in Ontario tells us about housing, voter dissolution and intergenerational fairness

Umair Muhammad is the Knowledge to Action Lead at Generation Squeeze, a Canadian organisation dedicated to promoting the rights and wellbeing of younger generations. In this blog, he sets out the lessons to be learned from recent elections in the province of Ontario. The wrong sort of record On 2 June, a record-setting election took… Read more »

Jaded ‘Jeunesse’: abstention, protest and the generation gap in French politics

Sarah Pickard is a Senior Lecturer at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and is the author of Politics, Protest and Young People. In this blog, she assesses the role of young people in French politics, especially during the presidential and legislative elections earlier this year. Voting and protest Young people’s political participation has been… Read more »

The leadership will change – will any policies?

Alec Haglund, IF researcher, explores whether the 2022 Conservative leadership race will provide an opportunity for a renewed national debate and discussion about solving the country’s problems. Empty talk For a democracy to be healthy and thriving, there must always be space for an open discussion about how to improve people’s lives and how to… Read more »

The EU referendum: six years on

Today is six years since the EU referendum. In this blog, IF’s Digital Campaigns Officer, Liam Hill, considers the impact of the EU referendum on the UK’s economic and political landscape, and what effects the referendum and Brexit have had on intergenerational fairness. The events and the process Brexit has always been better seen as… Read more »

Local elections – will you vote?

Many areas of the England, Scotland and Wales will have local elections tomorrow, 5th May. With turnout historically very low, particularly among younger people, Liz Emerson, IF Co-founder, investigates what issues younger generations can influence locally and why voting locally matters. What does your local councillor do? Local councils are responsible for a wide range… Read more »

Wellbeing of Future Generations: How narratives of intergenerational fairness change the debate

The Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill, if passed, will make a significant contribution to the protection of the rights of future generations. The passing of the bill is dependent on several factors, one of which being how intergenerational fairness is framed in debate. IF Student Intern, Hanna Burt, discusses the use of intergenerational fairness as… Read more »

“There are simply too few of us:” the German federal election and intergenerational politics

Older generations make up an overwhelming majority of eligible voters in the upcoming German federal election. Many young people feel that their interests are being ignored in the three leading parties’ campaigns. IF intern Carlotta Hartmann examines younger generations’ democratic deficit, and what it might mean for policy in the future. Population-ageing leaves young voters… Read more »