The way youth is framed and its role in the society and in thefamily di Federico Guaia Introduction This article has the purpose to critically assess the impact of neoliberal policies on employment and power relations in the Arab region1 with a focus on ‘youth’. The study has its roots in Emmanuel Todd’s idea of family structure as explanation for ideology. The French sociologist maintains that to a certain family structure matches a specific political model (TODD, 1985). Family and society are conceived as elements in continuous interaction playing a circular influence on each other: changes in family structure produces changes in society and vice versa. Considered the high level of integration due to globalisation, a third level should be added to this dual scheme: the international framework. Indeed, individuals, groups and states develop their interactions within these three, deeply connected layers. While Todd uses this idea to build an bottom-up model, in which the family is the unit used to make prediction about the society, I will reverse the model trying to understand how the relations of power existing at the international level play a role in preserving both, authoritarian regimes, and patriarchal family structure in the Arab region. In this top-down process, the global powers use their leverage on other countries to pursue their own economic and security interests. These are materialized through unequal trade agreements and the ‘imposition’ of the liberal model. The aim of this essay is to understand the consequences of these politics on employment and especially on youth, seeing how the power relations between this ‘category’, the State and the family are shaped. The article is divided in four parts. At first place, it examines the EU and US view of Arab youth. This view is partial and interest-biased and lacks important elements. The most important omission is the acknowledgement of the negative consequences of liberal policies on youth employment and empowerment, analysed in the second part. Their effects on the relations with the authoritarian regimes are the subject of the third part, and on family structure of the fourth. The core of the essay is the idea that liberal policies in the Arab countries, by pursuing EU and US’s interest, empower authoritarian regimes and narrow groups while having a negative impact on youth employment. In this context the patriarchal family model is functional to the marginalisation of youth, with major consequences on young women. Employment – emphasising stability and dignity – is conceived as an element of terrific importance in individual development and emancipation from patriarchy and authoritarianism. What is ‘youth’? As a first step it is important to define one of the units of the research: youth. Youth is a term often used in politics and in the academic discourse, but does it describe a homogenous social group? As a matter of fact, it represents a quite blurry category which boundaries are difficult to identify and to apply in different contexts. Youth is usually defined on an age-basis in a range...