What people eat has become a highly political issue, closely intertwined with public health, environmental concerns, and climate change. Individuals’ consumption decisions tend to be greatly influenced by the people that surround them, and this seems to be especially true when it comes to food. In recent years, alongside close contacts, such as family and friends, a myriad of social influencers have appeared on the screens, sharing opinions on what (not) to eat. Presenting results from a youth survey conducted in Sweden in 2019 (N = 443), this paper shows that social media have become the primary source of information about food and eating for youths, followed by schools and families. However, primary sources of influence continue to be parents and the family at large. Furthermore, the study shows that it is possible to identify ‘central persons’, i.e., relatively clear-cut groups of people whose food choices—measured as tendency to eat climate friendly—is mirrored by the youths, both in their everyday food preferences and in their broader political awareness as expressed through political consumerism. A conclusion from this is that certain people can be particularly successful at inspiring larger numbers of other people to engage with healthier and environmentally friendlier (food) consumption in a society.

While the number of theoretical concepts surrounding sustainable citizenship, political consumerism and ethical lifestyles is rising continuously, this article is interested in how citizens themselves delineate sustainable citizenship through their practices. Asking which contours real-world sustainable citizenship has, we draw on the practice turn. From this perspective, sustainable citizenship might be an empirical nexus of material practices, like buying organic products or sharing goods. These practices rely on dispositions that include practical rules, attitudes and political values. With survey data from Germany (N = 1350) and using principle component analysis, we reconstruct sustainable citizenship through stable and widespread real-world patterns. The results suggest that sustainable citizenship is a relatively coherent, nonetheless hybrid bundle of performances and dispositions. Real-world sustainable citizenship most resembles political consumerism, but consists overall of three distinct practices: sustainable purchasing, reduced consumption, and green mobility. All three are shown to be connected to engaged citizenship norms and the intention to advance social-ecological change. However, social class seems to prevent some citizens particularly from applying sustainable purchasing, while age and infrastructures constrain green mobility. Altogether, our results show that citizens from all social backgrounds practice sustainable citizenship. Yet they do so through different forms of practices, adjusted to their capabilities.

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Over the last two decades, scholars have investigated norms of citizenship by focussing primarily on ‘dutiful’ and ‘engaged’ norms. In the meantime, contemporary democracies have witnessed growing demands for more sustainable styles of living and increasing public support for authoritarian and populist ideas. These developments point to both a change and an expansion of conventional understandings and conceptions of what a ‘good citizen’ in a democratic polity ought to do. Specifically, they raise questions about whether demands for more sustainability and increasing support for populist ideas establish new facets of democratic citizenship, and if so, how they can be meaningfully incorporated into existing images of citizenship. This study provides a re-conceptualization of citizenship norms and empirically tests a new measurement instrument using original data collected in Germany in 2019. The empirical application of an expanded set of items demonstrates the existence of more variegated facets of norms of citizenship, including norms to safeguard a sustainable future and distinct populist facets emphasizing the relevance of trust in authorities and experts as well as reliance on feelings and emotions. Contemporary conceptions of citizenship thus go beyond conventional distinctions between dutiful and engaged norms of citizenship.

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