An Analysis of “Youth Participation” in Morocco from a Political Economy Perspective

This paper aims at exploring different practices and narratives associated with “youth participation” in Morocco. It takes as its starting point the attention on young people as protagonists and promoters of new forms of participation, renewed since the February 20 Movement raised to public attention in 2011. It relies on several empirical studies, conducted by an approach of historical sociology of politics and economics, to reconstruct the different forms of participation intended as an avant-garde, as a protest, and as a hobby, which are respectively associated with the myth of youth, the frustration assigned to it, and the illusion that it is an eternal stage. The analysis of the contiguity between these different forms of participation should allow exploring the nature of the social tensions characteristic of the current political situation.