Rethinking the ‘Good Citizen’

Ideas about the ‘good citizen’ are increasingly debated in western Europe. This growing interest relates to pressures on the welfare state, concerns over migration and a sense of a ‘crisis of democracy’. Research on everyday perceptions of civic participation and belonging shows that debates on the ideal-type ‘good citizen’ affect how residents of Oslo judge their own and others’ contributions to society. We find that active citizenship takes on a range of forms of participation and belonging, requiring us to rethink norms about good citizenship as only taking place in the public sphere and as limited to a single, national, community.