Though a widely-used term, civic engagement lacks one standard definition. In order to understand the ways in which citizens interact in their respective countries, a compilation of observations must be considered. The importance of this is twofold. First, it allows civic engagement to be examined from a broader lens, which may bring findings or insight that narrower research scopes have not yet suggested. Second, it indicates how these citizens will interact with and shape both the future of their countries and the future of the EU as a whole. These interactions will likely take place outside of the traditional civil society sphere, and as such, any approach to study engagement in the E.U. requires additional considerations.
To what extent do both participatory and belief factors contribute to the level of civic engagement among citizens within the countries of the European Union? That was the specific question I sought to answer. First, one may ask how engagement in each individual country differs or is similar to engagement in the others. If we define engagement solely by participation in voluntary organizations, research suggests that citizens of Cyprus, Lithuania, and Hungary are the least likely to participate whereas Dutch and Irish citizens are the most likely. However, this research does not consider other factors, such as trust in government or belief in democracy.
As civic engagement was operationalized in this research, and as suggested by certain scholars, factors such as recognition of oneself as part of a larger “social fabric” and ownership of societal issues also matter. If they did not, one could argue organizational membership would suffice as a proxy for the term civic engagement. Additionally, certain personality characteristics, such as empathy and extroversion, have been connected to civic engagement, and should be studied as well.
In considering the hypotheses for this research, I attempted to delineate between the individual variables connected with engagement and, after a factor analysis, what would become the corresponding factors. It is important to note that it was unrealistic and inappropriate to expect any causal claims to come from this research. Specifically, this research did not conclude why certain countries rank lower than others on measures of civic engagement, and we do not know why certain countries are more civically engaged than others. Instead, I hoped to identify which values and beliefs are most correlated with one another — exactly the purpose of an exploratory factor analysis — and examine how these relate (if at all) to other trends within the EU. The three factors that emerged from my analysis were Organizational Involvement,Political Engagement, and Beliefs.
It is interesting to note the countries that appeared significant in all three factors. This includes Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark. All Nordic countries, these E.U. members share some similar characteristics, including traditionally low levels of inequality, strong social benefits, and universal access to education. As such, it makes sense that all three of these countries — and Finland, when it appears significant — vary in the same direction in all three factors.
Since the data used in this analysis are over ten years old at this point, it did not make sense to examine the effects current events or social changes may have had on factor strength in certain countries. While I could have gone back and studied the most important social movements, it did not seem like a relevant use of time. Instead, in future research with more up-to-date data, perhaps one could examine the effects of Brexit, Greece’s economic crisis, and Spain’s relationship with Barcelona, and see if factors varied strongly in either direction. While this would certainly not show or imply causation, it could be interesting to see if factors correlate with dynamic and volatile current events.
Just as it was important to note the countries appearing significant in all factors, it is important to identify which E.U. countries did not appear significant in any measurements. This includes Great Britain, Slovenia, Latvia, Italy, Ireland, France, Estonia, Cyprus, Croatia, and Austria.
It was also interesting to find less significance in the more established democracies, including France and Great Britain. Additionally, Germany only appeared significant in one factor. While I initially hypothesized that these countries would appear most significant among E.U. members in terms of beliefs — specifically belief in democracy — this was not the case. Instead, all four Nordic countries and Luxembourg emerged as most positively significant within the Beliefs factor. Graphs of all three factors are shown below.
While all three of these factors measure identified components of civic engagement, it is immediately clear that their strength and significance varies by country. This supports the idea that civic engagement manifests itself in a wide variety of ways, and a narrow scope might miss this. In further study, it would be interesting and helpful to use a more recent dataset. As previously mentioned, this might allow for better current event analysis, and a more in-depth understanding of the wide variance in factor significance. Additionally, this might allow for more relevant conclusions, especially when considering the current landscape of civic engagement in the E.U. On the whole, however, the above research was able to examine the effects of both participatory and belief variables on the understanding of civic engagement, and while no definitive answers emerged, at least the exploration began.
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