How does volunteering succeed and fail in promoting solidarity through active citizenship?

Political participation is fundamental to European solidarity, representing important ways in which people act as agents of solidarity, and express their right and fulfil their obligation to be active citizens. The generational decline of voter turnout in Europe constitutes a challenge to European solidarity as more and more young people – particularly from poorer backgrounds – develop lasting habits of non-voting, and elections are increasingly decided by the preferences and interests of older and wealthier citizens.

Volunteering programmes, such as European Solidarity Corps, have capacity to address this challenge, and recent research provides encouraging evidence that volunteering boosts the electoral participation of young people from the poorest households. That research also identifies serious challenges, however, including the persistently low participation in volunteering programmes of young people from the poorest backgrounds – who need the support the most and have the most the gain from such schemes – and the benefits of volunteering being substantially stronger for young men than young women.

This article examines the threat that generational turnout decline poses to European solidarity and the latest academic research into the potential for volunteering to help address it. It also discusses the limitations of our current understanding of that potential and identifies key questions for future research and collaboration.