Formation of Youth Political Leaders in Modern Russia: Problems and Opportunities

Abstract

The article analyzes the state youth policy and features of the process of formation of political leaders for youth. The authors note that this type of leaders is not identical to young political leaders, which include all leaders whose distinguishing feature is their young age. The key characteristics of political leaders for young people is the fact of their “origin” from the field of youth politics, building their political career in the field of public policy or public administration and the perception by young people of these people as their leaders / representatives in power. Through the prism of these three parameters, the authors conduct a study, as a result of which they conclude that at the moment in Russia quite a lot of conditions have been created that contribute to the emergence of youth political leaders. These in the article included transformational processes in the field of youth policy, the active work of traditional channels for recruiting young people into “adult” politics, the functioning of a large number of leadership competitions and programs that contribute to the search and selection of potential youth political leaders. As the main problem in the analyzed process, the authors name the lack of clearly formed images of their leaders in the mass consciousness of young people. Referring to the results of various studies, the article notes that today the subjective space of youth policy has not been formed, as a result of which it is perceived as impersonal. Those politicians who are commonly called “youth” today are not perceived as “their own”. The authors come to the conclusion that such leaders should have “platforms” for interacting with young people and building a dialogue with them, which will help young people realize their potential and engage them in socio-­political processes in a constructive manner.