Youth and Democracy’s Futures

November 13, 2025

Youth and Democracy’s Futures

Democracy is in crisis in the United States and around the globe. Young people—their voices and their actions—are critical to the future of democracy, as the future of democracy is critically important to young people. Join the Georgetown Democracy Initiative for our second event, which will focus on youth engagement with—and disengagement from—democracy and the political process. How and why, when and where do youth participate in and fight for democracy? How can young people be political change agents?

This event is sponsored by the Georgetown Democracy Initiative, the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, the Department of Government, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the Center for Latin American Studies.

A reception will follow the event in the ICC Galleria.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Congress of local and regional authorities

Participants

Sunshine Hillygus

D. Sunshine Hillygus is professor of political science and public policy, director of the Initiative on Survey Methodology, and co-director of the Polarization Lab at Duke University. Hillygus has published widely on the topics of American public opinion, campaigns and elections, survey methodology, and information technology and politics. She is co-author of Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Civic Action (forthcoming), The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Political Campaigns (2008), and The Hard Count: The Social and Political Challenges of the 2000 Census (2006). Hillygus is a 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

Sarah Sladen

Sarah Sladen is a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, where she is leading a focus on global youth development in a changing landscape of foreign assistance, funding, and partnerships. Her areas of expertise include positive youth development (PYD), youth engagement and leadership, economic inclusion and mobility, and sports-based youth development (SBYD).

Alice Taylor

Alice Taylor is an assistant research professor at the Georgetown Americas Institute, Georgetown University. She also holds an adjunct faculty position at the Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver. Her work examines the rise of youth movements in the past decade in Brazil and the relationship among movements, politics, and democracy. A scholar-activist, she has worked with youth at an NGO and in several projects, as well as a research consultant with international organizations and policy think tanks. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Diana Kapiszewski

Diana Kapiszewski (moderator) is associate professor of government, director of the Center for Latin American Studies, and co-director of the Georgetown Democracy Initiative. Her current projects explore institutions of electoral governance in Latin America, the architecture of accountability in Latin America, and the judicialization of electoral governance in Brazil in Mexico. She also directs SIGLA (States and Institutions of Governance in Latin America). She has published several books with Cambridge University Press and multiple articles in Comparative Politics, Latin American Politics and Society, Law and Social Inquiry, and other peer-reviewed outlets.