Gen Z and the Politics of a Changing World
Mehr Un Nisa
Islamabad: They were shaped by global politics and its unresolved crises.
It is often easy to dismiss the political views of young people as naïve, too idealistic, too online, or too distrustful. But listening closely to Generation Z reveals something different. Not naïvety, but another kind of knowledge, one shaped by lived experience of global instability.
Generation Z, broadly defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, has come of age in an era marked by repeated crises. The 2008 global financial collapse reshaped their childhood environments.
Climate change moved from a distant warning to an immediate reality, with wildfires, floods, droughts, and record heatwaves becoming routine headlines. Then came COVID-19, a global pandemic that disrupted education, cancelled milestones, and exposed the fragility of modern systems in an unmistakable way.
These are not abstract historical lessons for this generation. They are the background of their everyday lives.
A Different Kind of Distrust
Earlier generations often grew up believing that national governments, despite their flaws, were broadly capable of managing major global challenges. Distrust, when it existed, was mostly partisan, directed at opposing political sides rather than the system itself.
Gen Z’s distrust is different. It is systemic.
They have witnessed climate commitments repeatedly fall short, inequality deepen across political cycles, and social media platforms reshape democratic discourse faster than regulators can respond. For many, the conclusion is not simply “we should vote differently,” but rather “the system itself needs rethinking.”
As one view puts it: Gen Z is not less political than their parents. They are political in a language many older generations have yet to learn to read.
Global by Default
Perhaps the most defining feature of this generation is how geography has faded as a limit on political awareness.
Gen Z is the first generation raised entirely within a global internet culture. Their political references are not confined within national borders. When George Floyd was killed in 2020, protests spread to more than 60 countries within weeks, driven not only by traditional media, but by digitally connected communities sharing a collective sense of experience.
Solidarity today moves faster than institutions can respond.
This global outlook also shapes how Gen Z understands responsibility. Issues such as climate change are not viewed solely through the lens of national policy, but in terms of global inequality. Countries least responsible for emissions , such as Bangladesh or parts of sub-Saharan Africa , are often those most affected. In a connected world, these realities are not distant statistics; they are visible, immediate, and personal.
What We Owe Them
This is not to romanticize Generation Z’s politics. The same digital systems that enable global solidarity also amplify misinformation and polarization. The urgency they feel — particularly around climate, can sometimes lead to despair rather than solutions. And the generation itself is far from uniform, spanning conservatives, radicals, nationalists, and internationalists alike.
Yet dismissing Gen Z’s political outlook as superficial misses the point.
It is rational for young people to demand systemic change in a world where incremental reform has often failed to deliver meaningful results on the issues that define their future. What may appear disruptive to older generations is, for Gen Z, a form of adaptation to lived reality.
The world they are trying to change is not one they created. It is one they inherited. And like every generation before them, they are being asked to make sense of what remains.
If their approach looks unfamiliar, that is not confusion. It is evolution.
History suggests that real political change is rarely comfortable. It is often disruptive, frequently misunderstood, and almost always shaped by those who refuse to accept the world exactly as it is.
Mehr-un-Nisa Sardar is her pursuing an MPhil in International Relations at Fatima Jinnah Women University.
