Over the past decade there have been growing concerns regarding a worldwide “democratic recession” (Diamond, 2015, 2021). These have arisen in response to an increases in authoritarian government practices in some countries as well as new political movements that have undermined support for traditional political parties, and, in some cases have challenged the stability of democratic systems (Boogards, 2017; Mair, 2002). These recent developments raise the question to what extent tendencies toward alienation and an understanding of and preference for populist solutions to government are shared by young people (Gidron & Hall, 2019; Henn & Weinstein, 2006), and whether education has the potential of promoting democratic principles to counteract prospects of growing alienation (Estellés & Catellví, 2020; Sant, 2019). ICCS results from 2009 and 2016 showed considerable support among lower-secondary students for democratic government and equal opportunities across countries (Schulz et al., 2010, 2018). ICCS 2022 addressed additional aspects related to attitudes toward government and the political system as well as perceptions of potential threats to democracy. ICCS data have also shown that students with higher levels of knowledge have lower levels of trust in institutions in countries where systems are generally perceived as more corrupt and less transparent, while in others there is a positive association (Lauglo, 2012; Schulz et al., 2018, 2024). Based on data from 19 European countries that participated in ICCS 2022, this paper focuses on how students perceive their political systems. The analyses consist of a descriptive review of student perceptions across different countries and include comparisons with results from adult surveys (Eurobarometer, 2023) and considering information about perceived corruption (Transparency International, 2022) as an important context to explain cross-national variation, as well as of multivariate models explaining variation in student perceptions of the political system with student background variables, trust in civic institutions, as well as school-related variables (such as civic knowledge, civic engagement at school). ICCS 2022 results show that while majorities of students across countries considered democracy as the best form of government, satisfaction with and critical views of the political system varied considerably. While trust in institutions had consistently positive associations with positive appraisals of the political system, positive associations with civic knowledge tended were only observed in some Northern European countries. More knowledgeable students were also more critical of democratic representation than those with lower levels of civic knowledge in countries, where the democratic systems are generally seen less functional.

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