Citizenship Norms in Eastern Europe

Research on Eastern Europe stresses the weakness of its civil society and the lack of political and social involvement, neglecting the question: What do people themselves think it means to be a good citizen? This study looks at citizens’ definitions of good citizenship in Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, using 2002 European Social Survey data. We investigate mean levels of civic mindedness in these countries and perform regression analyses to investigate whether factors traditionally associated with civic and political participation are also correlated with citizenship norms across Eastern Europe. We show that mean levels of civic mindedness differ significantly across the four Eastern European countries. We find some support for theories on civic and political participation when explaining norms of citizenship, but also demonstrate that individual-level characteristics are differently related to citizenship norms across the countries of our study. Hence, our findings show that Eastern Europe is not a monolithic and homogeneous bloc, underscoring the importance of taking the specificities of countries into account.     

Why does class matter? Policy attitudes,mechanisms, and the case of the Nordic countries

In most democracies, classes tend to vary with respect to an array of attitudes and behaviours, and differences are large within a number of European polities. What mechanisms lie behind these differences? Do they relate primarily to individuals’ material interests, as assumed by traditional class theories, or instead, to socialization and self-selection factors? This paper seeks to extend theory and research through an analysis of mechanisms behind class differences in policy attitudes. Our focus is on the Nordic countries, where class differences are extensive and well-documented in past scholarship. We take advantage of high-quality European Social Survey data for Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Analyzing three policy arenas and the 9-category European Socio-economic Classification scheme (ESeC), we find evidence that class-related factors help to explain cleavages in attitudes. Comparisons with the more detailed, 103-category International Standard Classification of Occupation scheme (ISCO) suggest that these factors explain less “micro-class” occupational variation. Results shed new light on mechanisms behind class differences, and the empirical foundations of established class theories. These and other implications are discussed in the conclusion.     

Support for democracy in cross-national perspective: The detrimental effect of economic inequality

Using survey data and national statistics on 35 modern democracies, this research explores the relationship between economic and political conditions and support for democracy. As expected from modernization theory, support for democracy tends to be highest in countries with a high level of economic development. More importantly, however, I contribute a new finding that income inequality matters much more. Specifically, citizens from countries with relatively low levels of income inequality tend to be more likely than others to support democracy. I also find that household income is positively related to support for democracy in most countries, though it tends to have its strongest effect if economic development is high and income inequality is low. Finally, even after taking into account the level of economic development in one's country, people from former Communist countries tend to have far less support for democracy than those from more established democracies.     

Gender Gaps in Political Participation Across Sub-Saharan African Nations

A substantial literature has studied gender differences in political participation in Western industrialized democracies, but little is known about such gaps in sub-Saharan African nations. Using 2005 Afrobarometer data, this paper presents a systematic investigation of the gender gap in political participation across 18 sub-Saharan African countries. In line with cultural isomorphism, patterns in gender gaps across different types of participation generally mirror those of Western democracies, with small to no gender gaps in registration to vote, but substantial gaps in less institutionalized types of participation. Yet, the remaining large gaps cannot be explained by gender differences in socioeconomic characteristics and political attitudes as suggested in studies on Western industrialized nations. Finally, substantial cross-national differences within the sub-Saharan African are found, substantiating the importance of more fine-grained examinations of variation across sub-Saharan African nations.     

Does Culture Make a Better Citizen? Exploring the Relationship Between Cultural and Civic Participation in Italy

In the last decades, policy discussions have increasingly considered participation in arts and cultural activities as a vehicle to reach broader social policy goals, such as social inclusion or active citizenship. However, convincing empirical evidence on the social impacts of arts and culture is still scarce. In particular, little attention has been given to the impact that cultural participation may have on individuals’ engagement in civil society, especially in Europe. In order to address this lack of evidence, this paper explores the connection between cultural participation and civic participation in Italy using Likert-scale data collected in the ISTAT “Aspetti della Vita Quotidiana” Survey (2014). To do so, two composite indicators—the participation in cultural life indicator and the participation in civic life indicator—have been built using an approach based on partial order theory and the concept of Average Rank. The effect of cultural participation on civic engagement has been estimated using a quantile regression model which controls for potentially cofounding factors such as education, income, age and gender. Results do confirm that participation in arts and cultural activities is highly correlated with participation in civic life. It is particularly worth noticing that at higher levels of civic participation, cultural participation has a positive and strong effect on civic engagement of people having a low educational level.

     

Consensual Versus Heterogeneous Conceptions of Nationhood: The Role of Citizenship Regimes and Integration Policies Across 21 European Countries

Conceptions of nationhood (i.e., who is accepted as a member of the national ingroup) are known to be more open in countries with inclusive citizenship and integration policies. Yet, surprisingly, up to now no research has investigated whether the sharedness of these conceptions is related to national policies. Therefore, relying on data from the 2013 International Social Survey Programme, the present study examined to which extent individuals living in 188 regions of 21 European countries share similar conceptions of who is a “true” member of the nation. Both ethnic (e.g., having national ancestry) and civic (e.g., respecting national laws and institutions) criteria were considered. Multilevel analyses revealed that in countries with more inclusive policies (with inclusive citizenship regimes, and where immigrants are granted more political rights) the average regional importance granted to ethnic criteria was lower, and conceptions were more heterogeneous (i.e., less shared). Civic criteria—that are achievable—were deemed more important. This can explain the lower heterogeneity of civic conceptions of nationhood and the lack of impact of national policies (though the average regional importance of these criteria was higher where immigrants had more rights). Overall, these results suggest that inclusive as opposed to exclusive settings leave more room for differing worldviews.

     

Appraising the Quality of Democracy as a Developmental Phenomenon: How South Koreans Appraise the Quality of Their Democracy

In recent years, an increasing number of scholars have made serious efforts to assess the quality of democracy from the perspective of ordinary citizens. Their research endeavors to date have all sought to distinguish democracies exclusively in terms of low to high levels of quality. Unlike these studies, which are solely concerned with the varying levels of democratic quality, this study offers a new conceptual framework that allows for discerning and monitoring its shifting patterns from electoral through liberal to civic quality. An analysis of the 2010 Korea Democracy Barometer survey confirms that the quality of democracy is, indeed, a developmental and multidimensional phenomenon. Furthermore, it reveals that ordinary citizens are capable of identifying its particular dimensions, and Korean democracy shows a significant deficit in two: the liberal and civic domains.     

(Home-)Schools of Democracy? On the Intergenerational Transmission of Civic Engagement

Where do individuals learn civic engagement? While voluntary associations are often seen as the breeding grounds for democratic skills and virtues, many preferences are learned by children in their family and thus passed on between generations. The present paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2008) for the UK to analyze the intergenerational transmission of civic engagement and political participation preferences. It finds that both voluntary associational count variables as well as frequency and strength measures of doing volunteer work and political party support are correlated between parents and their grown up children (i.e. after leaving the parental household), even when controlling for resources like socio-economic background. The intergenerational transmission is more pronounced with regard to triggering filial civic engagement, but frequency of parental engagement is less strongly transmitted. A robustness analysis suggests that peer influences (as measured by regional levels of civic engagement) do not drive the intergenerational transmission of civic engagement.

     

Can Reporting Heterogeneity Explain Differences in Depressive Symptoms Across Europe?

Depression is one of the leading causes of disability in the developed world. Previous studies have shown varying depression prevalence rates between European countries, and also within countries, between socioeconomic groups. However, it is unclear whether these differences reflect true variations in prevalence or whether they are attributable to systematic differences in reporting styles (reporting heterogeneity) between countries and socioeconomic groups. In this study, we examine the prevalence of three depressive symptoms (mood, sleeping and concentration problems) and their association with educational level in 10 European countries, and examine whether these differences can be explained by differences in reporting styles. We use data from the first and second waves of the COMPARE study, comprising a sub-sample of 9,409 adults aged 50 and over in 10 European countries covered by the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We first use ordered probit models to estimate differences in the prevalence of self-reported depressive symptoms by country and education. We then use hierarchical ordered probit models to assess differences controlling for reporting heterogeneity. We find that depressive symptoms are most prevalent in Mediterranean and Eastern European countries, whereas Sweden and Denmark have the lowest prevalence. Lower educational level is associated with higher prevalence of depressive symptoms in all European regions, but this association is weaker in Northern European countries, and strong in Eastern European countries. Reporting heterogeneity does not explain these cross-national differences. Likewise, differences in depressive symptoms by educational level remain and in some regions increase after controlling for reporting heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that variations in depressive symptoms in Europe are not attributable to differences in reporting styles, but are instead likely to result from variations in the causes of depressive symptoms between countries and educational groups.     

How Do Traditional Gender Roles Relate to Social Cohesion? Focus on Differences Between Women and Men

The aims of the present paper are to explore how traditional gender roles (focusing mainly on attitudes towards the division of labour between men and women) relate to social cohesion and to examine whether this relationship differs among men and women. The multi-dimensional concept of social cohesion is measured by two general components: a behavioural dimension (consisting of civic and political participation and the intensity of non-kin social relations) and an attitudinal dimension (institutional trust and solidarity). The analysis, based on the data of the European Values Study from Luxembourg, reveals that being more traditional is related to higher attitudinal cohesion: i.e. higher institutional trust and solidarity. Conversely, traditional attitudes are associated with less cohesive behaviour, namely with a lower intensity of non-kin social relations and political participation. Tradition-oriented women show significantly lower levels of political participation than their male counterparts, whereas traditional men tend to demonstrate less solidarity than women.     

Measuring Active Citizenship through the Development of a Composite Indicator

This article defines Active Citizenship within a European context as a broad range of value based participation. It develops a framework for measuring this phenomenon which combines the four dimensions of Protest and Social Change, Community Life, Representative Democracy and Democratic values. The European Social Survey 2002 is used to populate the framework as this survey provided the best data coverage available and covered 19 European Countries. In total 61 indicators were selected. A composite indicator (CI), The Active Citizenship Composite Indicator (ACCI), is built using the framework provided and using experts’ weights. In addition, the robustness of the results is tested using sensitivity analysis. The limitations to the ACCI are explained in terms of the limitation of the data availability in particular concerning the new forms of participation and less organised forms of participation. Nevertheless, ACCI proved to be statistically robust and reliable and proved to be a useful tool for monitoring levels of citizenship in Europe. The results of ACCI exhibit interesting and quite distinct regional patterns. The results showed that the Nordic countries, and in particular Sweden, have the highest rate of Active Citizenship, followed by Central Europe and Anglo-Saxon countries. Mediterranean countries are next followed by Eastern European countries that close the ranking.

European Identity: An Analysis of Measurement Equivalence Across Countries and Mode of Data Collection in the European Values Survey 2017/2018

The study of European Identity has gradually become central to social sciences in the past decades. The enlargement of the European Union, as well as the economic crises from a decade ago called into question the very idea of Europe as a polity, the legitimacy of the European project and the homogeneity of the European culture. Although many analyses study European Identity, most research focuses on the definition and measurement of European Identity within the EU member states. Due to the interest in European Identity within EU borders on the one hand, and the lack of comparable data on the other, the European Identity of all Europeans is rarely explored. To address this gap, we investigate the common understanding of Europeanness among those living in Europe. We define European Identity as ethnic/cultural identity as opposed to civic identity and analyse the measurement equivalence of the scale tapping European ethnic/cultural identity fielded by European Values Survey in 2017 in 30 European countries. The results point out to a common understanding of Europeanness among those living in Europe, in ethnic terms, not in cultural ones. Methodologically, the analyses proved that the scale is suitable for cross-national comparisons among countries, but the comparability should be refrained to comparing means of the scale across countries. The mode of data collection does not impact on the comparability of the scale in four of the six countries that used mixed modes of data collection.

     

The Meaning of Democracy to Citizens Across European Countries and the Factors Involved

What do citizens think democracy is and what factors contribute to its meaning? Previous works on the public understanding of democracy have shown that, overall, citizens see democracy in “minimal” terms. However, advanced democracies are complex and encompass several elements other than elections and freedoms. This article uses the European Social Survey module “Europeans’ understandings and evaluations of democracy” and multilevel item response theory models to build a measure of the meaning of democracy in terms of multiple attributes and to account for individual- and country-level variation. The findings show that the meaning of democracy can be seen as a continuum, and that middle-aged educated men who are interested in politics, have extreme ideological positions, and are engaged in civic organizations include more elements in their idea of democracy, and that the cross-country variation in the meaning of democracy mostly depends on democratic performance.     

Active Participation and Well-Being Among the Elderly in Belgium and the USA: A Cross-National Time-Use Perspective

Active participation of the elderly is a recognized response to address the societal and individual challenges of rising life expectancy such as releasing the pressure of age-related public spending, reducing social isolation and improving well-being. How much time older people devote to active participation and whether their time allocation is associated with well-being remains under-investigated. Using time-use data from Belgium (n?=?1384) and the USA (n?=?2133), we investigate the time older people (65–80 years) spent on active participation and examine how this relates to their life satisfaction as an indicator of well-being. The countries vary in the amount of time spent on paid employment and volunteering, but not on informal help. Belgian older people spend much less time on paid employment than their American counterparts. This implies more are available to volunteer and provide informal help. Yet participation rates in these activities are higher in the USA. Multivariate analyses show that associations between active participation and life satisfaction vary between both countries and within both countries by gender and age. Overall, positive associations between paid work and volunteering and life satisfaction suggest that governments would do well to mobilize elderly into active participation, especially in Belgium. Negative associations between informal help and life satisfaction suggest governments should provide greater support for informal carers.

     

The Influence of Social Models on Retirement Savings: Evidence for European Countries

Population ageing, together with the negative effects of the recent economic and financial crisis that some European countries are still facing, have threatened the sustainability of public pension systems. In this context, voluntary private pensions have emerged as the most feasible alternative to supplement the minimum provided by Social Security Systems; however, this financial product does not enjoy its expected popularity. A potential explanation of this reality might be due to the fact that European countries are far from being homogeneous, nor their pensions systems. Therefore, any policy geared toward improving financial retirement planning should take into account these potential differences. As a first approach to their analysis, this paper proposes the existence of four different ‘social models’ in Europe -namely, Continental, Mediterranean, Nordic and Transitional-. Overall, empirical evidence confirmed the significant influence of country’ ‘social model’ on the decision to invest in retirement accounts on a sample of 31,468 individuals in 2013. It was also proved that this decision is positively related to age, household income and wealth, higher levels of formal education, job situation, good health status, and long-term planning horizons; and negatively related to age squared, household size or financial risk aversion. In short, future policies and reforms regarding private pensions should not only take into account the existence of individual differences among Europeans, but also the existence of differences depending on institutional and cultural country factors.     

From Bucharest to Mexico: a decade of changing perceptions

The 2nd International Conference on Population held in Mexico City in 1984 had 3 main objectives: 1) to adopt the plan to changing demographic situations, 2) to enlarge the plan's scope so it can consider new views that have emerged since Bucharest, and 3) to reinforce the plan's operational aspects so that the plan can be applied more effectively. The Mexico conference had significant differences with the Bucharest gathering: 1) greater participation of developing countries, 2) clarification of the role of population and family planning in development, and 3) recognition of the status of women in development. Governments of many developing countries argue that they cannot wait for their countries to modernize sufficiently enough to stabilize their population levels. Participants in the Mexico conference agreed that family planning programs have been successful in reducing fertility at relatively low cost. The goal of a development-oriented population policy is to improve the people's standard of living by lowering fertility rates, improving health conditions and life expectancy, improving population distribution, and adopting sound economic policies. The overall objective of population policy should not be confined only to growth, distribution, and other demographic aspects; it is imperative that human life and human dignity be upheld.     

An Index of Child Well-being in the European Union

While the living conditions of children and young people in the European Union have gained increasing recognition across the EU, the well-being of children is not monitored on the European level. Based on a rights-based, multi-dimensional understanding of child well-being we analyse data already available for the EU 25, using series data as well as comparative surveys of children and young people. We compare the performance of EU Member States on eight clusters with 23 domains and 51 indicators and give a picture of children’s overall well-being in the European Union. The clusters are children’s material situation, housing, health, subjective well-being, education, children’s relationships, civic participation and risk and safety.     

A Perception Survey for the Evaluation of Urban Quality of Life in Kocaeli and a Comparison of the Life Satisfaction with the European Cities

Studies on urban quality of life (QoL) have been attracting lots of attention from various countries due to the deterioration of urban environment and decrease of the urban QoL. These studies that have been supported by international organizations such as United Nations, World Bank, OECD, European Commission and EUROSTAT (European Statistics) involve comparative assessment of life satisfaction in the European cities and comparing cities facilitate the exchange of experiment and improve the quality of local policies. The main objective of this study is to measure the local perceptions of QoL in Kocaeli, which is one of the important industrial cities of Turkey and compare the life satisfaction with the European cities. Generally, two different types of indicators have been used: objective and subjective indicators. The objective indicators cover five fields: socio-economic aspects, participation in civic life, education and training, environment and culture, and leisure. The subjective indicators are mainly for valuation of QoL perceptions in a city. In this research, a perception survey will be carried out to measure the local perceptions of QoL in Kocaeli. This survey will present on issues for which the residents in the Kocaeli had widely diverging opinions: employment opportunities, housing costs, safety, cleanliness of city, public transport, air quality and overall satisfaction with the QoL of their city. Thus, the study will become a major reference for local officials to improve QoL in Kocaeli and contribute to researches on QoL in cities.     

Social Development Trends in Europe, 1970–1994: Development Prospects for the New Europe

The European region is undergoing dramatic social change. Among other regional and international forces, these changes are rooted in: the collapse of the former Soviet Union; the sudden appearance of a large number of “new” – mostly poor and politically unstable – European nations; and, the emergence of economic trading blocs in North America and Asia. At the same time, the majority of “established” European nations are experiencing sluggish rates of economic growth, moderate to high levels of inflation, high unemployment, escalating demands on public social services, and low fertility in combination with high rates of population aging and immigration from developing countries. Despite the seriousness of the dilemmas confronting the region, European development accomplishments of the past 25 years suggest that the region's leaders already possesses the resources required to solve its complex, social, political, and economic challenges.     

Volunteering for Human Service Provisions: Lessons from Italy and the U.S.A.

The increased reliance on volunteers in all industrialized democracies has been parallelled by growing fiscal crises in most states, widespread criticism of welfare, and increased demand for social services. While volunteer work is presumed to be an alternative to public services, its feasibility is not yet clear. We suggest that a cross-national comparison of two significantly different countries would provide more information about volunteerism as a partial substitute for public services. We compared the United States where volunteerism is a widespread tradition and Italy where there has been a “rediscovery” of volunteerism since the 1980s. Differences between the two countries in the practice of volunteerism are examined from several perspectives. They include the relationships between volunteers and the statutory sector, the professionalization of volunteer activity, the role of citizen participation in a capitalistic society, and the Lockean principle of limited government. Finally, we conclude that while there are many differences in welfare provision between the United States and Italy, they do have a common element: increased reliance on volunteers for every aspect of day-to-day life; however, this reliance is mostly ideologically-based and may prove unfounded and costly.