Norms of Citizenship: Their Patterns, Determinants, and Effects in a Cross-National Perspective

Abstract

Norms of citizenship are seen as an important precondition for a functioning polity and society. But what determines the relevance of these norms in the society? Are individual-level features, such as education or social embeddedness relevant? Or, does the relevance of norms vary due to contextual effects, like the performance of societal institutions? 1) At the descriptive level, norms can roughly be distinguished into three categories, Solidarity, Civic Duty and Civic Engagement, and it is not the case the same set of factors affect all three categories, or norms, in a similar way. One cannot actually speak of one normative orientation which expresses itself in a high importance attached to all norms. 2) The paper then engages into exploring the factors which influence the importance individuals attach to norms. The findings indicate that different norms come about by very different mechanisms. There are few factors in the public sphere and at the institutional level, which affect the importance of norms in a noteworthy way. What can be explained well are differences in the average level of norm-importance among countries. At this level, it is a paradoxical result that in countries with well functioning institutions citizens perceive norms and rules as less important. Within a country, the explanatory power is substantially lower. Only few features stand out: higher institutional trust goes together with more attachment to the norms on which the system relies. Subjective evaluations of system performance do not matter for norms. There is no generational effect in the sense that younger citizens hold other norms in higher regards. Elder citizens are more attached to “classical” Civic Duty norms, but are not less attached to the “modern” Civic Engagement norms. Extrapolating the effects of several trended system-level variables indicates a trend towards an erosion of norm importance. 3) Because of the high unexplained variation in the norm variables, one might suspect that norms are irrelevant, and basically represent non-attitudes. But an inquiry into the effect of norms on behavior indicates that civic norms significantly matter for civic behavior. But again, the pattern is complex.