It can certainly be said that the narrative arc of the 20th century was the hero’s journey of Western liberal capitalism in a world of radicals. First, it found itself contending with the blood-soaked hands of Fascism in Europe, next with the iron-skinned march west of Soviet Communism. To this end it proved itself both in matters of trade and reluctantly in violence. It is through these conflicts that Western liberal capitalism cemented itself as the moderate position, the status quo, the ‘End of History’ (Fukuyama, 1986).
However, the arc of history is long, but it bends towards disorder. The prosperity and growth of Western liberal capitalism could not and would not last forever, and now in the 21st century, this has become an all to real reality. The Western world has, since 2008, encountered two fiscal disasters in the 2008 financial crisis (Nelson and Katzenstein, 2014) and the Covid-19 pandemic recession (Office for National Statistics, 2022) while Europe proper encountered a third in the Eurozone crisis (Frieden and Walter, 2017). This is to say that the moderate position has been experiencing significant and consistent challenges in the 21st century. Gen Z have spent their entire formative years and early adulthood within the bounds of these economic crises.
It is this continued failure of the moderate position which has produced a generation more inclined to radicalism than any still living. Gen Z are more prone to civil disobedience and place less importance on obeying the law when compared to older generations (Lucas et al, 2024), coupled with this is a near pathological search for radically transformative solutions to problems stemming from increased disillusionment to moderate options (Tumiran and Bahri, 2025, p. 51).
Gen Z and Electoral Radicalism
This radicalism naturally expresses itself electorally, with Gen Z seeking out parties which had previously been fringe in search of more radical policy. No clearer is this in the UK than in support for the Green Party, which, at its peak in March of 2026, saw 49% of Gen Z support them in a theoretical general election (Yougov, 2026). A party which has stated that it wants to, ‘see a world without borders’ (Green Party, 2022) and whose leader has claimed he supports the majority of Socialist principles (Jarvis, 2022), both policies are a significantly radical break from the established status quo, with open borders being a policy which is, amongst other parties, totally unthinkable.
However, it is not just on the left that this political radicalisation of young voters can be seen, nor is it a British-specific problem. Across Europe, younger voters are more likely to vote for far-right parties than older ones (Van der Brug, Hobolt and Popa, 2026, p. 477). While this data was for millennials rather than Gen Z, the high-profile contemporary issues cited as potential ideological motivation for far-right support in the young, namely immigration and European integration are still high-profile and perhaps have been even more polarising for European Gen Z voters than even millennial ones, with rolling immigration and refugee crises sweeping the continent since 2015, it is hard to see a world in which immigration is not equally contentious for Gen Z, and in the wake of the Eurozone crisis, Euroscepticism, a typically far-right talking point in Europe, is bound to rear its head in the youth of the Southern European states of Greece, Italy and Spain.
On Political Violence
No clearer is Gen Z’s radicalism than in opinions on political violence. Montgomery (2025) found that, amongst Americans, political violence is still widely considered to be unacceptable, however, roughly a fifth of Gen Z disagreed, and claimed that political violence can sometimes be justified, higher than any other age group. Along with this, they are notably more disillusioned with democracy as a whole and disconnected from politics (Chenoweth and Cebul, 2026, p. 5) and are more prone to acts of ‘nihilistic violence’ wherein ideology is the secondary motivating factor (David, 2025, p. 42).
What This All Means
Gen Z and its continued drift towards political radicalism poses, for those engaged in the politics of the everyday, a real threat. The flat rejection of moderate positions in the younger generations makes incremental change to policy difficult in so far as it is increasingly unpopular and the propensity for nihilistic violence poses genuine threat to human lives. However, it’s clear that this is not some innate characteristic of the generation but rather a response to the emergent conditions of the 21st century. Conditions of economic downturn, of slow growth, of a lack of industry and politically, a lack of vision. Can it really be said that governments within the Western world have a ‘civilisational goal’ of sorts? What is it that we’re working towards? If a politician is ‘progressive’, what are they progressing to? Likewise, can the right-wing conservative parties of Europe say they have conserved anything of what the West used to be in the 20th century?
The truth of the matter is that Gen Z has been left politically homeless. They’re responding to being told their entire lives that politically, they don’t matter, their concerns are not legitimate, the issues they care about are secondary all the while their future financial security erodes away in the ebb and flow of the tides of economic crisis. The advice they’re given amounts to little more than insult or dismissal, then, when they look to fringe parties? Well, now you’re a radical.
Gen Z are not a loose gaggle of politically radical violent sociopaths; they’re young adults relegated to a footnote in the operating of their nations who see their futures as increasingly bleak. There is a moral and political responsibility of the moderate position to reorient itself to the concerns of the younger generation, short of that, radicalism will continue to grow, the disillusionment with foundational democratic principles will continue to grow and, eventually, should nothing be done, the 21st century will find itself dealing with the same ideologies of the 20th.
References
Chenoweth, E. and Cebul, M. (2026) ‘Why Gen-Z is rising’, Journal of Democracy, 37(1), pp. 5-14.
David, S. (2025) The Kids Aren’t All Right: Gen Z Politics As A Sear For Security’, The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare, 8(2), pp. 38-42.
Frieden, J. and Walter, S. (2017) ‘Understanding the political economy of the Eurozone crisis’, Annual review of political science, 20, pp. 371-390.
Fukuyama, F. (1986) ‘The End of History’, The National Interest, 16, pp. 3-18.
Green Party (2022) Migration Policy Draft Voting Paper. Available at: https://www.greencoordinate.co.uk/archive/autumn2022/motions/draft-voting-paper-migration-policy/ (Accessed: 5th August 2026).
Jarvis, C. (2022) ‘I agree with the majority of socialist principles’, Zack Polanski tells campaign launch rally. Available at: https://bright-green.org/2022/06/22/i-agree-with-the-majority-of-socialist-principles-zack-polanski-tells-campaign-launch-rally/ (Accessed: 5th August 2026).
Lucas, O. et al. (2024) Society Watch 2024: Understanding the new generation of voters. Available at: https://natcen.ac.uk/publications/society-watch-2024-understanding-new-generation-voters (Accessed: 5th August 2026).
Milosav, Ð. et al (2026) ‘The youth gender gap in support for the far right’, Journal of European Public Policy, 33(2), pp. 444-468.
Montgomery, D. (2025) What Americans really think about political violence. Available at: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll (Accessed: 5th August 2026).
Nelson, S.C. and Katzenstein, P.J. (2014) ‘Uncertainty, risk, and the financial crisis of 2008’, International organization, 68(2), pp. 361-392.
Office for National Statistics (2022) GDP and events in history: how the COVID-19 pandemic shocked the UK economy. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/articles/gdpandeventsinhistoryhowthecovid19pandemicshockedtheukeconomy/2022-05-24 (Accessed: 5th August 2026).
Tumiran, M.A. and Bahri, S. (2025) ‘Negative implications of radical thinking in Generation Z: A review analysis’, Quantum Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 6(1), pp. 45-54.
Van der Brug, W., Hobolt, S.B. and Popa, S.A. (2026) ‘The kids are Alt right? Age, authoritarian attitudes and far-right support in Europe’, Journal of European Public Policy, 33(2), pp. 469-494.
Yougov (2026) Voting Intentions. Available at: https://yougov.com/en-gb/trackers/voting-intention?crossBreak=1824 (Accessed: 5th August 2026).
> Gen Z are not a loose gaggle of politically radical violent sociopaths; they’re young adults relegated to a footnote in the operating of their nations who see their futures as increasingly bleak.
Why not both?