| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores the central role of youth in the process of European integration. Analyzing the sources of the European Youth Campaign, an international program implemented by the European Movement in the fifties, it focuses on the symbol of youth in discourse on European integration, as well as on the historical agency of young people. After World War II, Europeans conceptualized a future united Europe in terms of "youthfulness" to distinguish the new era from the continent's violent past. Young people also referred to the traditional "myth of youth" in their statements and actions. By staging themselves as a "first European generation," they staked claims to agency in the process of building a new united Europe. Various examples of youth projects reveal the actual role of young people as historical agents and show how the politics of European integration and the Cold War played out at a grass-roots level. With their participation, young people not only helped to constitute the prevailing power constellations; they also challenged them.
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