Understanding critical citizenship and other forms of public dissatisfaction : an alternative framework

• 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.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Critical citizens

political dissatisfaction

political disaffection

negative political orientations

political attitudes

youths

Political Science

Statskunskap

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)