Previous research has paid much attention to citizen dissatisfaction and the trends of growing political disaffection, cynicism, and scepticism – in short, the emergence of 'critical citizens'. Also, more recently, critical citizens have sometimes been viewed as an asset for democracy. However, despite both pessimistic and optimistic interpretations of public criticism, the issue of conceptualizing negative attitudes has received less attention. The present study was conducted to enrich understanding of this particular dimension of citizens' attitudes. To this end, the paper suggests an alternative theoretical framework for analysing various forms of negative political orientations. The framework has been tested empirically using three types of statistical procedures, which demonstrate its validity and usefulness.

Previous research has paid much attention to citizen dissatisfaction and the trends of growing political disaffection, cynicism, and scepticism – in short, the emergence of 'critical citizens'. Also, more recently, critical citizens have sometimes been viewed as an asset for democracy. However, despite both pessimistic and optimistic interpretations of public criticism, the issue of conceptualizing negative attitudes has received less attention. The present study was conducted to enrich understanding of this particular dimension of citizens' attitudes. To this end, the paper suggests an alternative theoretical framework for analysing various forms of negative political orientations. The framework has been tested empirically using three types of statistical procedures, which demonstrate its validity and usefulness.

Previous research has paid much attention to citizen dissatisfaction and the trends of growing political disaffection, cynicism, and scepticism – in short, the emergence of 'critical citizens'. Also, more recently, critical citizens have sometimes been viewed as an asset for democracy. However, despite both pessimistic and optimistic interpretations of public criticism, the issue of conceptualizing negative attitudes has received less attention. The present study was conducted to enrich understanding of this particular dimension of citizens' attitudes. To this end, the paper suggests an alternative theoretical framework for analysing various forms of negative political orientations. The framework has been tested empirically using three types of statistical procedures, which demonstrate its validity and usefulness.

This article concerns young people’s political acting on their own terms. With a broad understanding of the political life – the political – and a recognition of space and place as central aspects determining young people’s condition for political socialization, the use of stake in a political conversation between young people is analyzed as an approach to describe and discuss aspects of political socialization in a public room within the social media – the net community. The political conversation within the national net community is shown to be built up and maintained by certain discursive conditions and pressures determining the character of the conversation, as well as the conditions to which you are expected to conform as a participant within this place. The findings indicate that young people’s political conversation – their political acting – in social media could be a new form of political communication with its own unique characteristics, creating conditions for young people’s political socialization.

This article concerns young people’s political acting on their own terms. With a broad understanding of the political life – the political – and a recognition of space and place as central aspects determining young people’s condition for political socialization, the use of stake in a political conversation between young people is analyzed as an approach to describe and discuss aspects of political socialization in a public room within the social media – the net community. The political conversation within the national net community is shown to be built up and maintained by certain discursive conditions and pressures determining the character of the conversation, as well as the conditions to which you are expected to conform as a participant within this place. The findings indicate that young people’s political conversation – their political acting – in social media could be a new form of political communication with its own unique characteristics, creating conditions for young people’s political socialization.

Although great steps have been made to understand young people’s political participation in general, one dimension that remains understudied is involvement in illegal political activity. With data for 2,012 Swedish teenagers, surveyed annually for two years, this study begins to bridge this gap by examining the extent to which demographic background, political dissatisfaction, affective commitment, and political communication explain adolescents’ involvement in subsequent illegal political activity. Analyses confirmed that boys were more inclined than girls to illegal political activity, as were adolescents with higher levels of perceived lack of system responsiveness. When in simultaneous examination with these two factors, affective commitments and political communication did not predict involvement in illegal political activity at the second measurement. In sum, findings suggested that gender and dissatisfaction explain the origins of adolescents’ use of illegal political activity.

Many efforts have been made to explain variations in political participation. One such effort was made by Gamson, who hypothesized that different combinations of political efficacy and trust will generate different kinds and intensity of involvement in political activity. This study tests this hypothesis on a broad variety of political activities, while at the same time including the potentially moderating effect of people’s political interest. Using data from a longitudinal study in Sweden (2009-2015), this study shows that different combinations of efficacy-trust do indeed generate distinct patterns of participation for young adults. By adding political interest to the model, the effect of certain efficacy-trust combinations on political participation is present foremost among politically interested citizens. Hence, the hypothesis requires to be complemented by political interest to more accurately understand under which circumstances people engage in various political activities.

Many efforts have been made to explain variations in political participation. One such effort was made by Gamson, who hypothesized that different combinations of political efficacy and trust will generate different kinds and intensity of involvement in political activity. This study tests this hypothesis on a broad variety of political activities, while at the same time including the potentially moderating effect of people’s political interest. Using data from a longitudinal study in Sweden (2009-2015), this study shows that different combinations of efficacy-trust do indeed generate distinct patterns of participation for young adults. By adding political interest to the model, the effect of certain efficacy-trust combinations on political participation is present foremost among politically interested citizens. Hence, the hypothesis requires to be complemented by political interest to more accurately understand under which circumstances people engage in various political activities.

This study is based on a model of political socialization where discussion frequency with parents drives adolescents’ political and civic engagement. The first aim was to explore aspects of political discussions that reflect their quality. A second aim was to examine the role of discussions in relation to three forms of engagement: adolescents’ political and civic interest, offline engagement, and online engagement. Our final aim was to tease apart the direction of associations. We explored directionality in the relations among frequency and qualities of discussions with parents, and among the three forms of adolescents’ engagement. In the interest of exploring adolescents’ agency, we investigated the direction of associations between aspects of discussions with parents and forms of engagement. These three aims are incorporated into a single cross-lagged model.

By scrutinizing previous research, I offer a merger of the two research disciplines concerning the conceptof political efficacy, i.e. the perception held by individuals of their own abilities to execute actions aimedat producing a change in society. Four pathways for how political efficacy develops, building on themerged perspective, are then tested in a single two-step hierarchical OLS regression. The results showthat mastery experiences, role models, encouragement, and empowering outlooks in a political settingare predictors of youths’ political efficacy, over and above the effects of political interest and perceivedpolitical knowledge. This study contributes to theorizing about the development of political efficacy bydiscussing understanding of the concept, with input from both political science and psychology, and byempirically testing an existing multidisciplinary theory