“I trust how it works — It is a democracy!” Young citizens on trust, information, civic engagement, and democracy

The objective of this paper is to investigate and discuss young Danish citizens' trust in information, citizenship, and democracy with a focus on the intersecting conditions for their civic engagement and democratic citizenship. The argument and the findings connect three points that strongly relate to questions of trust and distrust: Young citizens are the bearers of future sustainable democracy; Informed citizenship redefined is a vital element in the foundation of sustainable democracy; civic engagement and democratic citizenship depend on the collective trust in allowing new forms of information and informed citizenship, and to support young generations' development of democratic self-efficacy. Empirically, the paper draws on a case study that investigates the problem through 16- to 24-year-old Danes' narratives. The theoretical framing combines conceptions of trust to reduce complexity, the interdependency of trust and distrust, and rationality as an essential motivation for relying on trust.