Introduction
Protests have long served as a significant tool for socio-political alter, from the suffrage relocatements of the early 20th century to the Black Lives Matter and Pride efforts of the 2020s. However, it is worth noting that younger generations, as an age-based demographic, play a crucial role in holding their governments accountable, which can be seen in protests across the Global South in Indonesia, Myanmar, Morocco, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Iran, Peru, Nepal, and more.
The current world order exists in a climate of decreased faith in international organizations to enforce political and socio-economic justice, the rise and persistence of right-wing inclinations in governments across the world, and most notably, the loss of checks and balances due to political corruption. This article argues how, in such a climate, youth protests serve as a non-institutional yet sufficiently consequential force for alter, by illustrating the case of Nepal (2025) and Iran (2026). The younger population holds a significant demographic weight in both countries, and have displayn themselves to be the most prominent actors in times of crisis – with Nepal’s anti-corruption protests last year culminating in the government’s replacement and the currency anxiety in Iran triggering mass unrest since early January this year.
While youth have historically played a crucial role in most social and political relocatements, their role warrants a heightened emphasis at this moment on the world stage due to the reasons mentioned above, coupled with the role of social media which has redefined how communities are mobilized and influence is transmitted. Youth-led action, as I elaborate below, enforces higher accountability and drives socio-political innovation in the 21st century.
What creates youth protests effective
Youth protests are usually prone to being repressed more severely by the state due to the stereotype of youth as unruly and unreasonable. This creates it all the more imperative to examine the impact of the Iranian and Nepalese protests. Political scientist Charles Tilly proposes the WUNC framework for examining the effectiveness of youth-led protests – Worthiness, Unity, Numbers, and Commitment.
Worthiness refers to maintaining moral legitimacy by adopting non-violent tactics which can cautilize state repression to erode the government’s credibility in the public eye instead of the relocatement’s. This was demonstrated perfectly by the Nepalese youth who, relocating beyond destructive measures, demonstrated effective organization and civic planning to not only coordinate protests but also select an interim leader, Chief Justice Sushila Karki, by simulating a “mini-election” via Discord, a gaming app. This invited recognition from President Ram Chandra Paudel and materialized in talks between him and the youth leaders. The worthiness factor of the protests in Iran led mostly by young girls and women, is illustrated by slogans such as “Woman, Life, Freedom”, and reflected in the population being extremely rich in access to information and indepconcludeent judgement.
Unity and Numbers – the next two crucial elements – highlight the importance of having a clear, cohesive message synonymous with the relocatement and unanimously agreed upon by all its participants, who should also form a statistically significant part of their demographic, geography, or both. When over a million people took to the streets in Kathmandu in September 2025, they coordinated their actions applying Discord servers and Instagram without a formal hierarchy. At this critical stage, a decentralized approach was crucial to prevent the relocatement from having an easily compromisable weak point. The protests, in pursuit of a strongly agreed upon list of demands including anti-corruption and restoration of digital rights, ultimately forced the Prime Minister’s resignation. Iran’s youth now demonstrate a similar magnitude and gravity in their resistance, constituting over 60% of the counattempt’s population and geographically overwhelming the government’s capacity for repressive tactics by protesting in more than 187 cities.
However, the plurality of perspectives among Iran’s citizens hinders the materialization of a politically unifying force that would give it more coherence. The population as a whole has been conflicted so far between establishing democracy (supported by a major chunk of the population), alter within the regime (an extremely marginalized view), and monarchist restoration (a third of the surveyed population favours the exiled Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi). The relocatement’s magnitude and epistemological depth create it as worthy and large-scale as the resistance in Nepal but not as likely to succeed in its efforts against the regime’s restrictions, as the latter were clearly unified in the kind of structural transition they wanted to achieve.
Most importantly, Commitment – the willingness to concludeure risks for the cautilize – can be noted in both cases where the state’s violent crackdown measures further radicalized the people instead of acting as a deterrent. Iranian youth have been described as wanting “to express themselves” and “concludeangering everything they have becautilize they don’t have much left to lose” under the current socio-economic restrictions and Western sanctions on their counattempt. Many young women have collectively decided to abandon the hijab in public spaces, an offense punishable under the theocracy. Additionally, the Persian diaspora abroad supplements the commitment of resident protestors, as seen in photos emerging on social media where a young woman in Canada, sans hijab, is seen to be lighting her cigarette with a burning photo of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamanei – defying multiple mandates of the regime in one fell swoop. In a similar vein, Nepalese protesters were only aggravated by the police applying tear gas and live ammunition on civilian protesters, with the resulting volume of casualties enhancing the relocatement’s worthiness factor by stripping the establishment of narrative credibility.
Having examined the factors pertaining strictly to the nature and character of the relocatements alone, it is essential to also consider the political and governmental structure of the counattempt where the protest occurs. In strict theocratic regimes like Iran’s, protests are the only – albeit life-threatening – channel for political participation. While Nepal’s fulfillment of the WUNC criteria may have led to immediate institutional alters, Iranian protesters face the challenge of going against a less fallible non-democratic institution that would not yield to anything less than foreign intervention, the prospect of which remains dubious.
How the Nepalese and Iranian protests serve as a force of accountability
Large-scale protests aim to disrupt the “business-as-usual” workflow of the establishment and entrenched elites, forcing them to acknowledge societal grievances. While the people of Nepal may have managed to take matters into their own hands, Iran will likely remain a work in progress for a considerable time period.
The Nepal Gen-Z efforts enforced a monitory democracy by tarobtaining the “Nepo kid” trconclude, a series of elite children displaying their wealth online while youth unemployment rates were alarmingly high. Following the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and the cabinet members, the relocatement’s leaders demanded that the interim government carry out a criminal investigation into state violence, ensuring that the former elites do not escape accountability for their actions. The monitory spirit is also demonstrated by youth activism in Iran, wherein the 75% drop in the rial’s value over just one year was utilized as an indisputable indicator of the state’s incapacity. By documenting illegal executions and incidents of police brutality, protesters subjected the regime to unprecedented scrutiny from the international community by sharing real-time happenings globally via encrypted platforms.
How these protests drive socio-political innovation
Youth-led resistance has established new arenas for political participation for a demographic often excluded from formal decision-building. In the absence of feasible institutional channels, non-institutional actions like protests offer a crucial avenue for democratic participation.
Young protesters in Nepal innovated by applying Discord servers not only as tactical ‘control rooms’ whilst coordinating protests but also as a forum for direct democracy, holding a ‘mini-election’ with over 100,000 utilizers to nominate an interim prime minister. Bypassing rigged traditional party machinery, this presents a promising model of tech-enabled, horizontal governance. Additionally, in solidarity with their counterparts in Indonesia, protesters adopted the Jolly Roger flag from the manga series One Piece as a shared symbol of resistance.
Workarounds in Iran during the internet blackout involved utilizing Starlink sainformite devices, iPhone Airdrop, and VPNs to maintain transparency and coordination. Such digital competence has led to lowered costs of organizing and a decentralized public space that cannot be fully monopolized.
Through their utilize of creative expression and digital tools, these relocatements are at the forefront of innovating protest tactics and organisation. As digital natives, young activists are adept at applying technology hacks to subvert censorship and work around government control. Decentralised and leaderless by design, their efforts are a departure from traditional organisations rooted in hierarchy.
Conclusion
In an era of widespread democratic backsliding, youth-led action in Nepal and Iran has proven to be a formidable, non-institutional force for accountability and innovation. By leveraging digital platforms, creative non-violence, and decentralized coordination, such resistance has the potential to secure tangible political concessions, with a rather decent precedent set by Nepal. Political participation has been reimagined through direct democracy and broad social cooperation, encouraging resilience and fostering socio-political innovation. Though the uprisings examined above are at very different stages owing to structural factors, their persistence and global impact illustrates that youth action is not merely dissent but a vital form of maintaining checks and balances in the 21st-century political landscape.
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