Gen Z: Disillusioned with Institutions, Hyper-Connected, and Impossible to Ignore

This article explores how Gen Z is reshaping democracy across continents—from youth-led protests in Nigeria and Kenya to climate strikes in Europe and North America, and shifting voting patterns in the United States and beyond.

Drawing on recent research from Pew Research Center, Tufts University’s CIRCLE, UN agencies, and scholars of digital activism, it shows that Gen Z strongly believes in democratic principles but has low trust in governments and politicians. The article examines their hybrid political repertoire—ballots, streets, and social media—through a comparative table, highlights key debates among scholars and critics, and discusses what parties, movements, and educators must do if they hope to engage this restless generation.

1. Who Is Gen Z—and Why They Matter Politically

Demographers usually define Generation Z as those born from the mid-1990s to around 2010. In many countries, the oldest Gen Zers are now in their mid-20s, finishing university, entering the labour market—and voting in large numbers. In the United States, Pew Research Center notes that Gen Z is the most racially and ethnically diverse generation so far and is generally more progressive and comfortable with diversity than older cohorts.

Globally, Gen Z is coming of age in an era marked by:

• The 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath
• Climate emergencies and extreme weather
• The COVID-19 pandemic
• The rise of social media platforms as primary spaces for news and debate

This is also a generation for whom democracy feels fragile rather than guaranteed. Surveys in multiple countries show high support for democratic ideals (free elections, rights, equality) but deep scepticism about how democracy actually functions today. A 2025 report on Gen Z and democracy in the United States, for example, finds that young people broadly endorse democratic principles yet express low confidence in institutions and leaders.

2. Gen Z Loves Democracy in Theory, Distrusts It in Practice

2.1 Belief in Democratic Principles

Research by CIRCLE, Protect Democracy, and others shows that most Gen Z respondents still prefer democracy to authoritarian alternatives and value civil liberties, pluralism, and equal rights.

At the same time, broader surveys of public trust reveal a bleak backdrop:

• In the U.S., Pew reports that only 22% of adults trust the federal government to do the right thing “always” or “most of the time”—near historic lows; young people are among the most distrustful.
• A Harvard Youth Poll in 2025 finds that just 19% of Americans aged 18–29 trust the federal government most or all of the time, with frustration driven by economic precarity and pandemic legacies.

These patterns echo across many democracies: Gen Z tends to support democratic ideals but doubt that existing institutions deliver—a profile some scholars call “disillusioned democrats.”

2.2 Trust in Each Other

It’s not only institutions: social trust is also fragile. In a 2023–24 Pew survey, only about one-third of Americans said “most people can be trusted,” a level that shapes how Gen Z views cooperation, solidarity and politics more broadly.

3. How Gen Z Does Politics: Ballots, Streets, and Screens

Gen Z’s political repertoire is hybrid. They vote, but they also protest, sign online petitions, and run sophisticated digital campaigns.

3.1 Voting: Turning Up—and Sometimes Turning Right

Data from the 2024 U.S. election show a complex picture: CIRCLE’s analysis finds that youth turnout dipped compared to 2020, but remained historically significant; young voters still leaned left overall, yet some subgroups shifted right. A 2025 analysis at Harvard’s Ash Center notes a surprising surge of support for Donald Trump among Gen Z voters, even though their overall turnout fell.

In Canada, Elections Canada’s “Generation Z” project documents how young people’s perceptions of elections—fairness, accessibility, relevance—strongly shape whether they cast a ballot. Many express doubts that voting changes anything, yet still see it as one tool among many.

Put differently: Gen Z is not automatically “left” or consistently mobilized. Their votes are up for grabs, and their turnout depends on whether they feel that candidates speak to issues like climate, inequality, policing, and mental health.

3.2 Streets: Africa’s “Soro Soke” Generation and Beyond

If voting is one arena, the streets are another—especially across the Global South.

• In Nigeria, the #EndSARS protests against police brutality in 2020 were driven largely by young people dubbed the “Soro Soke generation” (“Speak up” in Yoruba). Research on digital activism shows how tech-savvy youth used Twitter, WhatsApp and crowdfunding to coordinate leaderless mass protests and demand accountability.
• Across Africa in 2024, youth-led protests erupted in countries like Kenya and Senegal over corruption, tax hikes, and unemployment. Analysts describe a “surge in youth-led movements” and foresee more unrest as economic pressures and democratic backsliding continue.

These movements rarely translate neatly into party politics, but they shift the agenda—forcing debates on police reform, economic justice, and constitutional change.

3.3 Climate Strikes: A Transnational Youth Public

Few issues illustrate Gen Z’s political style more clearly than climate activism:

• The Fridays for Future movement, launched by Greta Thunberg in 2018, became an international network of school strikes demanding climate justice and a fossil-fuel phase-out.
• Mapping exercises of the global youth climate movement underscore that it is not just Fridays for Future: it includes Indigenous youth collectives, faith-based groups, and local campaigns across the Global South.
• As recently as 2025, youth climate activists played a prominent role at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, issuing a global youth statement for a “full, fast, fair fossil phase-out” and drawing attention to intergenerational injustice.

Here, Gen Z is not waiting to become legislators; they are claiming moral authority now, confronting leaders in parliaments, courts, and UN climate talks.

3.4 Screens: Hashtag Politics and Digital Public Squares

Gen Z is sometimes called the first “fully digital” political generation. Studies of youth-led hashtag movements in Nigeria (#EndSARS), Sudan, and Senegal show how:

• Hashtags provide a frame and rallying cry;
• Social media lowers barriers to entry;
• Online spaces allow decentralized leadership and rapid diffusion of tactics and narratives.

At the same time, digital activism comes with surveillance, disinformation, and burnout. Platforms that host movements can also throttle content, sell data, or amplify polarizing voices, leading some scholars to describe a new “platform-mediated” politics that young people must navigate with little protection.

4. Comparing Gen Z’s Political Tools

Table 1. Gen Z’s Main Modes of Political Participation

Rather than choosing one mode, Gen Z often combines them—for example, using TikTok to frame issues, protesting in the streets, and then pressuring candidates or parties around elections.

5. Scholars and Critics: Is Gen Z Saving or Abandoning Democracy?

5.1 The Optimists: A New Democratic Imagination

Some scholars and activists see Gen Z as re-energizing democracy:

• Studies of youth protests in Sudan, Nigeria and Senegal argue that youth are crafting new political imaginaries focused on accountability, dignity, and people-driven change, often beyond traditional party politics.
• Research on the youth climate movement suggests that years of inaction have radicalized an entire generation, but in ways that still invoke democratic ideals—transparency, intergenerational justice, respect for science.

For these analysts, Gen Z’s distrust of existing institutions may be less apathy than a demand for deeper, more participatory democracy.

5.2 The Worried Realists: Disillusionment and Drift

Others, however, warn of democratic fatigue:

• CIRCLE and Protect Democracy emphasize that many Gen Zers support democracy but are open to “strong leaders” or radical measures when institutions seem unresponsive.
• Polls show young Americans’ trust in government and parties has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, raising concerns about long-term disengagement or attraction to anti-system politics.

A third group of critics points to structural barriers: in many countries, youth face high unemployment, insecure work, and unaffordable housing. Without material change, symbolic gestures of “youth inclusion” may ring hollow, fuelling cynicism.

6. Structural Constraints: Power Fights Back

Gen Z’s political awakening does not occur on a blank slate. It runs up against well-entrenched power:

• In several African cases, youth protests have been met with brutal crackdowns, internet shutdowns, arrests of organizers, and smear campaigns.
• Around the world, governments and parties still skew older; youth are under-represented in parliaments and cabinets despite being demographic majorities in many countries.
• Digital spaces are increasingly governed by opaque algorithms, corporate interests, and state surveillance—conditions that can simultaneously amplify youth voices and make them vulnerable.

These constraints mean that Gen Z’s political creativity is necessary but not sufficient; without institutional reforms and legal protections, their efforts can be contained, co-opted, or criminalized.

7. What Needs to Change: Parties, Movements, and Educators

If democracies want to harness rather than lose Gen Z’s energy, several shifts are needed.

1. Lower the barriers to formal participation
   • Automatic or same-day voter registration, easier absentee and early voting, civic education in schools, and youth-friendly information campaigns can help convert interest into turnout.
2. Share real power, not just photo-ops
   • Youth councils with actual budgetary or legislative input; quotas or targets for young candidates; and party reforms that open candidate selection to younger members.
3. Protect civic space—online and offline
   • Safeguards against excessive policing of protests, legal protection of digital rights, and transparency in platform policies that affect political speech.
4. Teach democracy as practice, not just theory
   • Educators can build on CIRCLE’s typology of Gen Z attitudes to design courses where students deliberate real issues, practice organizing, and learn to engage institutions without romanticizing them.
5. Address material grievances
   • Without improvements in jobs, housing, and climate policy, appeals to “civic duty” will sound empty. Youth-specific labour and social policies are essential to rebuild faith that democracy can deliver.

8. Democracy’s Future Is on a Group Chat

Gen Z is often caricatured: either as “slacktivists” glued to their phones, or as heroic climate warriors who will fix what older generations broke. Reality is more complicated—and more interesting.

The research suggests a generation that:

• Believes in democratic ideals but is deeply sceptical of institutions;
• Uses ballots, street protests, and social media in combination;
• Feels the weight of overlapping crises—climate, inequality, policing, pandemics—and is unwilling to wait politely for change.

Whether Gen Z becomes the generation that rebuilds democracy or watches it erode will depend not only on their passion, but on how older leaders and institutions respond:

• Do they open space for genuine shared power, or treat youth as a branding tool?
• Do they regulate platforms and protect civic space, or criminalize dissent?
• Do they tackle climate and inequality with urgency, or continue the politics of delay?

In that sense, Gen Z is not just a “problem” to be mobilized or a “vote bank” to be captured. They are a mirror—showing democracies what they look like through the eyes of those who must live longest with today’s decisions.

Suggested Further Readings:

CIRCLE – Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. (2025). How does Gen Z really feel about democracy? Tufts University.
https://circle.tufts.edu

Emakpor, S. (2025). Digital activism and the #EndSARS movement: Exploring youth-driven protest in Nigeria (Master’s thesis). Jönköping University.

Greene Economy Coalition. (2023). Mapping the global youth climate movement.
https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/mapping-the-global-youth-climate-movement

Khalafallah, H. (2025). Youth #protests and political imaginaries: Comparative perspectives from Sudan, Nigeria and Senegal. IDS Bulletin, 56(1).
https://bulletin.ids.ac.uk/index.php/idsbo/article/view/3307

Pew Research Center. (2020). On the cusp of adulthood and facing an uncertain future: What we know about Gen Z so far.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/05/14/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-so-far/

Tufts University CIRCLE. (2024). The youth vote in 2024.
https://circle.tufts.edu/2024-election