The critical assessment of the youth policy and youth civic engagement in Denmark and three Danish municipalities

Abstract

The paper takes an explorative approach to illuminating how national youth policy is constructed in Denmark and how youth civic engagement is operationalized on its municipal level. Before shedding light on these questions, the paper first conceptualizes the theoretical framework of youth civic engagement, which will be used as an analytical tool in the conclusion of contextualizing municipal cases. Armed with 11 indicators produced by The European Youth Forum, the paper moves on to identify features of youth policy on the national level, followed by the examination on the municipal level. Three specific municipalities-Gentofte, Silkeborg, and Rudersdal-are brought into the spotlight, which represents three distinctive mechanisms of youth civic engagement. Through the means of in-depth semi-constructed interviews with youth-related officials, the paper reveals different structures and corresponding pragmatic challenges of different forms of strategies in each municipality. In conclusion, the paper puts the previously conceptualized framework at work by summarizing the key theoretical attributes of strategies adopted by there municipalities, makes a critical evaluation respectively and acknowledges the limitations and the strengths of the case study.