Generational fears, democratic threats: A political history of unruly young people

In recent years, reports have warned of how young people are increasingly embracing authoritarian leadership and contesting democratic orders. In this paper, I explore how public discourses about the fear of younger generations as threats to democracy have constituted a political trope and moral panic throughout the history of democratization. The paper focuses on two formative episodes of change, the democratic breakthrough in beginning of 20 th century and the rise of authoritarianism in the 1930s. The paper uses parliamentary records and secondary literature to characterize two central figurations of young people as “dangerous elements” and as “radicalized”.