The concept and determinants of civic engagement

Introduction

In recent decades, many western societies have seen declining rates of citizen participation in traditional political activities, particularly voting in elections and party membership (Franklin, 2004; Sloam, 2014; Torcal & Montero, 2006). People, especially the young (Flanagan, 2009; Norris, 2003), appear more and more critical of the mechanisms of conventional democracy, of political institutions themselves and the activities of political actors. Some scholars have attributed this to increasing public disenchantment, distrust and cynicism (Craig, 1996; Miller, 1974), without necessarily doubting the future of democracy per se (Citrin, 1974), but questioning the performance and effectiveness of the polity and its institutions (Stoker, 2006).

Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti (1993) notably proposed that civic participation was integral to political involvement, arguing that it is a key element in building social capital that forms a fundamental ingredient in democratic action by fostering trust and facilitating cooperation. Noting the recent sharp decline in civic involvement, Putnam (2000) suggested that diminished social capital was intimately connected with political disengagement. Although Putnam’s overall argument has been contested (inter alia: Berger, 2009; Norris, 2002), the importance of civic participation in both traditional and emerging forms of political involvement and action has been widely acknowledged (Norris, 2003, 2011; Sloam, 2014).

Attempts by scholars, educators, public officials, practitioners and journalists to encapsulate the multiple interlinked facets of citizenship with political and social activism have engendered the concept of ‘civic engagement’. This notion has attracted criticism for lacking definitional and content clarity and for ‘conceptual stretching’; impeding interdisciplinary communication by meaning different things to different audiences (Berger, 2009). Drawing on relevant literary sources the current paper attempts to elucidate and pinpoint the concept of civic engagement, before proceeding to settle its definition, specify its dimensions and map out its determinants. On that basis it then moves on to explore civic engagement of university students in Greece, using the University of Thessaly as a case study. To our knowledge this is the first time that such an issue has been explored with reference to young people, and particularly to university students, in Greece.

Civic engagement, citizenship and democracy

In concept and practice, citizenship has always been pivotal to the emergence and consolidation of democracy. Political scientists and scholars of democracy have long argued that the extent of civic engagement (of its members) defines a truly democratic society (Almond & Verba, 1963; de Tocqueville, 1835-1840; Norris, 1999; Putnam, 2000). A vibrant civic society contributes to consolidating democracy in a number of ways (Diamond, 1999; Theiss-Morse & Hibbing, 2005). Firstly, it instils fundamental values of a democratic political culture, including tolerance, moderation and respect for opposing viewpoints. Secondly, it stimulates political participation, increasing political efficacy and enhancing democratic awareness and aptitude. Thirdly, it inculcates effectiveness in meeting political and collective challenges (e.g. organizing and motivating people, debating issues, reconciling conflicts and building coalitions) moulding future political leaders. Fourthly, it enables and empowers various groups, including traditionally excluded ones, such as racial or ethnic minorities, to assert their rights. Finally, it monitors and controls the power by the state; holding it accountable and thus protecting individuals from abuse. As such, civic engagement integrates citizens into the political system and binds society together (Paxton, 2002).

Growing recognition of the importance of civic engagement in political involvement and the consolidation of democracy has led foundations and institutes to allocate substantial resources to studying civic participation, organizations with individual donors investing significantly in projects, initiatives and funding streams designed to help young people become more engaged, and academic institutions endorsing the concept through scholarship, mandatory volunteering, and service-learning programs (inter alia: Levinger & Mulroy, 2003; Saltmarsh & Zlotkowski, 2011). On the political front, the perception of civic engagement as panacea has been embraced across the political spectrum (Theiss-Morse & Hibbing, 2005). The right seeing it as a means of devolving power to local communities and an alternative to state-funded programs, and the left as fostering grassroots politics and increasing the voice of common people.

Civic engagement among younger people has been extensively discussed (inter alia: Norris, 2003, 2011; Sherrod, Torney-Purta, & Flanagan, 2010; Sloam, 2014; Youniss et al., 2002). Studies indicate not only the greater propensity of young people to engage in cause-oriented forms of political activism, but also the necessity of such engagement in cultivating the values, skills and experience essential for responsible and ‘good’ citizens. As such, a young person’s record of civic engagement is now increasingly examined as part of evaluating applicants by universities and organizations (Adler & Goggin, 2005).

In this context, a body of research has looked to new information and communication technologies (ICTs), and particularly the Internet and the social media, as a means of (re-) engaging people, especially the young ones to whom these technologies have greater appeal and relevance, and thereby of revitalizing civic life. It was argued that ICTs reduce information and communications costs, offering multiple opportunities for learning, deliberation, discussion, networking and mobilization, which are important for civic action (Anduiza, Cantijoch, & Gallego, 2009; McDonald, 2008; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005). As a result these new technologies can give rise to new ways of participating in political and community matters (Gibson, Lusoli, & Ward, 2005; Woo-Young, 2005), or, at least, better activate those who are already interested and engaged in such processes (Livingstone, Bober, & Helsper, 2005; Norris, 2000; Xenos & Moy, 2007). Other scholars, however, have been more sceptical of the impact ICTs have on civic and political participation (inter alia: Bimber, 2001; Uslaner, 2004). They note that the opportunity is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for civic engagement and that information abundance does not necessarily mean that all, or even most, citizens have the capacity to process and interpret it or will take advantage of it in ways that advance their roles as political beings (Anduiza, Cantijoch, & Gallego, 2009; Bimber, 2001).

Empirical studies which address the issue find a relationship between the use of new technologies and civic engagement (Kahne, Lee, & Feezell, 2013; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005), but the effects are rather small, weak, spurious, indirect (mediated) or bidirectional (Bimber, 2001; Boulianne, 2009; Gibson, Lusoli, & Ward, 2005; Gil de Zuniga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012; Kahne, Lee, & Feezell, 2013; Livingstone, Bober, & Helsper, 2005, 2005; Warren, Sulaiman, & Jaafar, 2014). As such most scholars converge on the view that (at least for the time being) there should be no distinction between technology-related and traditional civic engagement, on the basis of the complementarity and interdependence of new and old modes of communication in civic life (Anduiza, Cantijoch, & Gallego, 2009; Bimber, 2000; Jugert, Eckstein, Noack, Kuhn, & Benbow, 2013; Moy, Manosevitch, Stamm, & Dunsmore, 2005; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005; Shah, McLeod, & Lee, 2009). In other words it is not the technology per se which affects individual participation but the specific attitudes and behaviours and the ways in which these media are used.

Defining civic engagement

The term civic engagement has been variously used to describe different aspects of citizenship, including electoral participation, organizational involvement, individual voluntarism and collective action (Adler & Goggin, 2005; Warren, Sulaiman, & Jaafar, 2014). These activities concern engagement in political, as well as social (community) affairs, through formal or informal organizations (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). Although some scholars (e.g. Berger, 2009) argue ‘the political’ and ‘the social’ are different aspects and should be treated separately, others (Ekman & Amna, 2012; Jugert, Eckstein, Noack, Kuhn, & Benbow, 2013; Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins, 2002; Youniss et al., 2002) emphasize the common ground between them and advocate an integrated approach, since both aspects relate to citizens transcending the sphere of private and oriented towards the common good. Thus, civic engagement can be seen as efforts to directly address public concerns, through individual work, collective action, or involvement with democratic institutions.

Although we still lack a single agreed-upon definition of civic engagement (Adler & Goggin, 2005; Ekman & Amna, 2012), the literature converges on a more-or-less common understanding (based on the elements stressed above), serviceable as a working definition. Accordingly, civic engagement refers to how “an active citizen participates in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape the community’s future” (Adler & Goggin, 2005, p. 241); including wide ranging activities undertaken alone or in concert with others designed to identify and address issues of public concern.

Civic engagement exhibits certain characteristics (Gil de Zuniga & Valenzuela, 2011; Hilger, 2006; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). First, voluntarism: it concerns activities that are not mandatory or rest coercively on deliberate choice. Second, it is unpaid: there is no direct profit or monetary gain. Third, it strongly involves acting for others out of altruism or concern for the collective well-being and common good. Fourth, it concerns behaviour and action, rather than simply attitudes or cognition. Finally, it operates largely in the public sphere and thus is usually carried out with others. In that sense it is often collective and cooperative.

Dimensions and measurement of civic engagement

Civic engagement is a complex multifaceted phenomenon, assuming numerous forms and ranging from donating time at a homeless shelter, raising money for charities, calling an official to report a local problem, working for a candidate or a political party, voting and boycotting or buycotting specific products/services (Adler & Goggin, 2005). Given this wide range, scholars have attempted to develop measures of engagement that capture most of these manifestations.

Verba & Nie (1972), for example, organized these behaviours into four distinct dimensions of civic engagement: voting, campaign activity (including membership of, or work for political parties and organizations, and donating money to such entities), contacting public officials and cooperative or communal activity (i.e. working with others on a community problem). The particular significance of their research was to highlight that civic engagement is a complex domain involving aspects beyond mere electoral or political participation.

Later studies extended and elaborated this framework; Brady (1999), for instance, differentiated between electoral (voting and campaign activity) and non-electoral aspects, with non-electoral ones classified as ‘conventional’ (e.g. community work, organizational memberships, etc.) and ‘unconventional’ (e.g. boycotting, signing petitions, etc.) behaviour. Similarly, Putnam (2000) distinguished between cooperative activity and expressive forms of behaviour (such as writing petitions), whereas Pattie, Seyd, and Whiteley (2003) empirically identified three groups of activism: individualistic (encompassing ethical consumption, donations, petition-signing, fund-raising, voting and badge-displaying), contact (referring to contacting authorities) and collective (predominately concerning participation in public demonstrations).

More recently, Teorell, Torcal and Montero (2007) developed an all embracing typology along two dimensions: the channel of expression and the mechanism of influence, demarcating five modes of participation: voting, party or campaign activity, contacting, protest activity and consumer participation (which conflates donations, boycotting, political consumption and petition-signing). In turn, Ekman and Amna (2012) advanced the framework by Teorell, Torcal and Montero (2007) to provide a fairly extensive classification with emphasis on the social elements of political and civic behaviour. These concern actions not directly aimed at influencing political outcomes but reflect involvement in society and public affairs. The suggested typology differentiates between manifest and latent modes of participation, along individual and collective aspects of engagement, identifying four types of action: formal political participation (campaign and contact activities), extra-parliamentary activism (either individual, such as petition-signing and political consumption, or collective, including participation in demonstrations, protests, riots, or building squats), social involvement (concerning attention to, or interest in, political and societal issues) and civic action (involving voluntary or charity work).

One of the most comprehensive and relatively simple frameworks of civic engagement analysis is the survey instrument developed by Keeter, Zukin, Andolina, & Jenkins (2002) and applied by Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, and Delli Carpini (2006) among others. It contains 19 items, grouped into three categories (Table 1):civic activities, concerning community participation including activities such as volunteering, fund-raising and active membership in associations; electoral activities, revolving around political participation involving behaviours such as voting, campaigning and button-displaying; and political voice, comprising activities where people express their viewpoints on public issues by protesting, boycotting or signing petitions.

Determinants of civic engagement

While theories have been developed to explain behaviours such as political or social activism, few have related these determinants to civic engagement in general. Pancer and Pratt (1999) provided such a theoretical framework that integrates all these forms and explains civic engagement as a whole.

The theory portrays the process of civic engagement occurring on two complementary levels: the individual and the systems. On an individual level, people become civically engaged as a result of factors concerning personal attributes, resources and values, as well as personal influences, coming from their parents (Kelly, 2006; Youniss et al., 2002), friends (McClurg, 2006), or even school teachers (McLellan & Youniss, 2003).

Additionally, demographic attributes (age, gender, ethnicity and geographic region) may influence willingness to join and participate in civic activities. For instance, it is argued older people are more likely to participate compared to younger ones (Moy, Manosevitch, Stamm, & Dunsmore, 2005; Putnam, 2000), since the latter seem to have shallower roots in their communities, make less money, move more often and have less of a tendency to become informed on local matters (Uslaner, 2003a). Scholars also assert that the size of the community where one lives, or was raised, affects civic engagement prospects. Putnam (2000), for example, believes that social ties in smaller communities predispose their members to engage civically than those in big cities, and others (Becker & Dhingra, 2001; Reed & Selbee, 2002) find that town or rural residents are more likely to volunteer than those in more metropolitan locations. In contrast, Kurtz (2012) and Oliver (2001) indicate that many forms of engagement (e.g. working informally on community issues, contacting local officials, voting, etc.) are lower in rural areas than in big cities —although this might be due to the higher income and better education urban people have. On these grounds, Uslaner (2003a) argues that the degree of attachment people have to their community outweighs community size.

Personal resources are also important for civic engagement, with affluent and more educated people more likely to participate in civic activities than the less educated and less well-off (Reed & Selbee, 2002; Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Delli Carpini, 2006). This maybe because time and money are required to participate in such activities, while education increases awareness about public issues, which in turn lowers the barriers for participation, both political and social ones (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996). Interestingly, occupation (particularly the type of occupation) is also an influence on the likelihood of civic engagement (Egerton, 2002). As Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995, p. 315) put it “teachers and lawyers are more likely to have opportunities to enhance civic skills – to organize meetings, make presentations, and the like – than are fast food workers or meat cutters”.

Individuals’ social values, political ideologies, religious beliefs and life attitudes can also play a role in determining civic engagement. Pro-social values such as altruism, trust and sociality, reflect generosity, tolerance, sympathy and cooperation, and could be expected to increase civic involvement (Uslaner, 2003a, 2004). Studies on altruism, for instance, find this plays a positive role in the decision to vote (Jankowski, 2007) and correlates with specific civic behaviours such as volunteering and informal helping (Beyerlein & Vaisey, 2013). Trust is another key ingredient of civic engagement because it lowers the barriers to participation by increasing feelings of security with others and their environment (Uslaner, 2003b; Uslaner & Brown, 2005). However, others (A. J. Damico, Conway, & S. B. Damico, 2000) find no spillover effect from trust on engagement, and argue that this link is largely illusory. Finally, sociality: the intensity of social connections, is also associated with higher levels of civic participation (Gil de Zuniga & Valenzuela, 2011;Rojas, 2008), since it increases information about public matters (Lake & Huckfeldt, 1998) and lowers psychological and social barriers inhibiting collective forms of behaviour (Keller & Berry, 2003).

Another significant factor in civic participation concerns ideological identities. Scholars (Brooks, 2006; Gil de Zuniga, Veenstra, Vraga, & Shah, 2010) have suggested that conservatives and liberals are more likely to participate in civic (and political) activities than moderates; although it could well be that “the non-political nature of civic activities makes the effect of ideological extremity on participation moot” (Gil de Zuniga & Valenzuela, 2011, p. 4000). Religiosity, defined as religious belief and dedication, also seems to have a positive impact on activities like volunteering, donating and involvement in political and community affairs (Brooks, 2006; Driskell, Lyon, & Embry, 2008; Lewis, MacGregor, & Putnam, 2013; Putnam & Campbell, 2010). However, the differences in core values and beliefs within religious traditions are likely to be reflected in the kind and level of peoples’ civic engagement (Pancer, 2015; Smidt, 1999). Thus, several studies found that individuals belonging to churches espousing more conservative religious beliefs or that are more hierarchically structured are less likely to participate in secular community organizations or social activism (Chaves, Giesel, & Tsitsos, 2002; Schwadel, 2005; Uslaner, 2002) since, while they encourage participation in church activities, they do not foster similar engagement in the wider society.

At a systems level, research indicates that social structures (families, schools, communities, and societies in which people live, work and pray) have a substantial influence on civic engagement (Andolina, Jenkins, Zukin, & Keeter, 2003; Rappaport, 1998; Shah, McLeod, & Lee, 2009; Warren, Sulaiman, & Jaafar, 2014). The process and outcomes involved are similar to those at the individual level, with factors corroborating civic engagement at a systems level, including the presence of programs encouraging civic activities (covering service-learning in schools, or employee volunteering in businesses and corporations), or of community organizations which recruit members and mentor participants (Flanagan, 2009; Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995), with the numbers of individuals involved correlated with the availability of these “opportunity structures” within a social system (Metz & Youniss, 2005; Watts & Flanagan, 2007).

This engagement will be sustained within social systems that have the values and norms that support and promote it. For example, communities with a strong sense of belonging, trust and solidarity between members will sustain and enhance civic involvement by providing a supportive environment and positive experiences to those who participate (Lewis, MacGregor, & Putnam, 2013, 2013; Xu, Perkins, & Chow, 2010). Conversely, neighbourhoods with little sense of community where residents are mistrustful or even fearful of one another inhibit sustained civic involvement (Norris, 2000). Income disparities can also affect civic engagement, either directly or indirectly, through their effect on trust, since high levels of inequality engender feelings of powerlessness in the poor, erode trust and discourage civic engagement (Uslaner & Brown, 2005; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009).

The civic engagement of university students in Greece

Variables and descriptive statistics

The current section provides descriptive information of the variables used in the study. The dependent variable is civic engagement, which (as mentioned above) is explored in terms of: active membership in an association, regular volunteering for a non-governmental organization, displaying of buttons, signs or stickers, protesting signing petitions and boycotting. Students were asked to report whether over the last 12 months they had done any of the aforementioned, providing a simple yes-or-no answer. Figure 1 describes the results. Overall, we see that university students display low levels of civic engagement. Volunteering scores last, as only 11.3% of the sample had been involved in such work over the last year. Next comes button-displaying (12.5%), followed by active membership in associations (19.5%). Boycotting and petition-signing score better, indicating that about one out of four students had been involved in such expressive forms of civic engagement. Protesting scores top, which, as the literature reports (Kalyvas, 2015), constitutes quite a popular kind of activism in modern Greece (from Metapolitefsi onwards).The overall civic engagement measure we used is the sum of the scores of the aforesaid dimensions, taking values from zero (when a respondent did not engage in any one of the aforementioned activities) to six (when someone had engaged in all these activities). Figure 2 portrays the distribution of the variable. As can be seen, the majority of students (39.0%) had not participated in any civic engagement activity, and only 0.4% had, over the last year, engaged in all of them.

Figure 1

Civic engagement of Greek students

Figure 2

Civic engagement variable

The first variable of interest is interpersonal trust. Following other studies (e.g. Clark & Eisenstein, 2013; Zmerli & Newton, 2008) we measure this by combining three semantic-differential questions to construct the well-known Rosenberg Trust Scale. These are: first, “would you say that most of the time people look out for themselves or that they mostly try to be helpful?”, second “do you think that most people would try to take advantage of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair?”, and third, “generally speaking, would you say that you cannot be too careful in dealing with people or that most people can be trusted?”. Responses were given on an eleven-point scale, ranging from zero (no trust) to ten (high trust). Figure 3 presents the results, indicating that university students (and Greeks in general, see Jones, Malesios, Iosifides, & Sophoulis, 2008) exhibit low to medium levels of trusting behaviour. Following standard practice the interpersonal trust variable was calculated using Principle Component Analysis (Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.76).

Figure 3

Interpersonal trust

The next variable of interest is religiosity. Again, this was calculated using Principle Component Analysis to combine three variables which assess religious stances and behaviour (Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.93). Three Likert-type questions were employed asking respondents to evaluate, on a scale of zero (not at all) to ten (very much), first, the importance of religion in their lives, second, the level of their religiousness, and third, the degree to which religious values affect their daily behaviour. The results are reported in Figure 4, and show medium levels of student religiosity.

Figure 4

Religiosity

The last variable in focus is political ideology. Following relevant studies (e.g. Eurobarometer Surveys), we asked our sample to place themselves on an eleven-point left-to-right scale of the political spectrum. Figure 5 outlines the results. As becomes evident, 20.5% of the respondents placed themselves on the ‘left’ of the political scale, 22.1% on the ‘centre-left’,14.5% on the ‘centre-right’, and 9.7% on the ‘right’, whereas the majority of students (33.2%) placed themselves in the centre of the political spectrum.

Figure 5

Political ideology

Concluding remarks

The current paper has explored the literature of civic engagement in an effort to organize and pinpoint the concept. The outcome is a working definition, a specification of the dimensions of civic engagement and its fundamental determinants. As became evident, civic engagement is a complex notion, taking multiple forms and encompassing a variety of aspects: civic, electoral and political. Central to all these is the citizen who transcends the private-public dichotomy to work for the common good. Civic engagement, on these grounds, refers to individual or collective actions undertaken to address issues of public concern for the betterment of the community. The concept of civic engagement has been extensively discussed in the context of young people, and especially university students. The idea is that these people are more likely to participate in less conventional, cause-oriented forms of political activism than civic engagement conveys, and also that such engagement is vital for their personality, skills and democratic culture.

On the basis of these arguments, the paper also examined civic engagement of young people in Greece, focusing on students of the University of Thessaly. In particular, it assessed the level and characteristics of their civic engagement, and explored the determinants of this behaviour, offering the first (to our knowledge) systematic study of this target group in the country. A number of findings emerged. First, civic engagement does not seem to be a particularly strong trait of the students in Thessaly University, though civic engagement in general is argued to be on the rise in Greece (Clarke, Huliaras, & Sotiropoulos, 2015). The more popular dimensions among the students were political voice activities, with protesting being the favourite form of activism; a point raised by other studies surveying the whole of Greek society (e.g. Kalyvas, 2015). Second, a number of factors seem to affect Greek students’ propensity for civic engagement, with students who are more mature, raised in large cities and dealing more directly with humans in their studies showing an increased likelihood of involvement. This is also the case for those who are more trusting, less religious and lean towards the left side of the political spectrum, something which comes as no surprise, since students’ civic engagement is heavily related to political voice activities which are ideologically endorsed by the left.