Disagreeing as good citizens: Comparing Scandinavian youth’s civic attitudes

Recent changes in young people’s politics, notably their apparent transfer of adherence from duty-based (e.g. electoral politics) and traditionally passive norms (e.g. following the laws) of good citizenship have left many worried about the state of democratic citizenship. This issue is exasperated by the increasing presence of engaged norms of good citizenship (e.g. protests), which usually do not adhere to the institutional and collective structures of much of the political systems in place across Europe, including Scandinavia. We argue that some of these trends could be unpacked further by zooming in on the role of conflictual self-efficacy. Understanding conflictual self-efficacy as individuals’ evaluations of their own capabilities to master political disagreement, we expect it shape youth’s different norms of good citizenship distinctively, thus effecting their civic preparedness considerably. We assess how conflictual self-efficacy affects different norms, notably passive, active and engaged norms, and compare the relationship between these issues across three countries in Scandinavia, namely Denmark, Norway and Sweden via a series of multivariate analyses of the International Civic and Citizenship Study 2016 dataset. Our paper thus provides novel and comparative insights into some of the most contested yet understudied relationship in youth’s political attitudes across Scandinavia.