Recently there are waves of protests dominated by youth sweeping across continents, from Asia to Africa to Europe to the Americas including Bangladesh, Nepal, Kenya to India indicating discontent against establishments.
General Characteristics of Youth-Led Protests
- Digital Activism: Use of encrypted apps (Telegram, Signal), VPNs, and online anonymity tools to bypass surveillance and coordinate mass action.
- E.g. In 2025 Nepal’s Gen Z coordinated over Discord to vote for an interim prime minister.
- Highly Issue-Based: Rather than broad ideological affiliations, these mobilizations are triggered by specific, urgent crises.
- E.g. Bangladesh’s 2024 protest on controversial quota system for government jobs.
- Transnational Reach: e.g. Arab Spring (2010s) started from Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
- Informal and lack formal leadership making them agile and inclusive.
- E.g. in Hong Kong 2019 demonstrations, adopted "leaderless" approaches to evade Chinese surveillance.
- Others: Generally nonviolent, Short-Lived but High-Impact Waves, Use of Technology & Digital means etc.
Driving Factors
- Economic Distress: e.g. Kenya’s 2024 protest against draconian tax hikes amid cost-of-living crisis
- Discontent against governments: 80% of non-violent campaigns seeking regime change (1990 -2020) featured substantial youth participation-US Agency for International Development.
- Governance Failures: e.g. India's 2026 Cockroach Janta Party protests over alleged examination irregularities.
Way ahead
Institutionalizing youth participation in policy-making, driving structural economic reforms, addressing unemployment crisis and strengthening democratic accountability can address issues of youth.
