Abstract
Citizen’s willingness to invest time and resources in causes other than their own is arguably a central requisite of liberal democracies (Lipset 1996). Even non-political associations seem to have unintended but important consequences for citizens’ partaking in public affairs (Kwak et al. 2004). Volunteering is good for others and is good for you (Frey 2008: 79–86). This is not to say that all associational activity enhances the common good (Theiss-Morse and Hibbing 2005) or that there is a one-way causality between high levels of associational activity and effective political and economic institutions (Rothstein and Stolle 2003). Yet, there is enough evidence about benevolent effects of associational involvement to warrant further investigation into the scope and the structure of civic engagement.
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Notes
- 1.
Therefore, the United Nations’ definition of civic engagement, describing it as non-profit, non-wage contributions made by individuals in the interests of the well-being of their neighbours and of society as a whole and with a view to tackling particularly significant problems in the social, economic, cultural, humanitarian and peace-keeping spheres (United Nations 1999: 2), has to be taken with quite a pinch of salt.
- 2.
2The European Social Survey (ESS) is a representative population survey initiated by the European Science Foundation (ESF). A total of 22 countries participated in the first wave (2002/2003): Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Data on civic engagement are available for 19 European countries and Israel, the exceptions being the Czech Republic and Switzerland. The project is funded by the European Commission, the EFS and national organisations. The ESS has the long-term aim of examining interactions between the changing political and economic institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behavioural patterns of the populations in countries studied. The representative population surveys carried out in the participating countries are based on a standard questionnaire eliciting information about different aspects of political and social life, which is complemented by additional questions specific to each country and to rotating priority topics. For more information see http://ess.nsd.uib.no/
- 3.
We did exclude illegal political action from the analysis.
- 4.
The income factor is partly captured by the number of friends. According to our analyses of ISSP 1986 data, in all participating countries persons with higher social status report more “good friends” than lower status persons (between 25 and 40% more).
- 5.
According to Special Eurobarometer 273/Wave 66.3: European Social Reality (Fieldwork November–December 2006). [http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_273_en.pdf; 10.03.2009].
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Immerfall, S., Priller, E., Delhey, J. (2010). Association and Community. In: Immerfall, S., Therborn, G. (eds) Handbook of European Societies. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88199-7_2
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