Premium
Good Governance and Norms of Citizenship: An Investigation into the System‐ and Individual‐Level Determinants of Attachment to Civic Norms
Author(s) -
Kotzian Peter
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/ajes.12066
Subject(s) - embeddedness , polity , legitimation , legitimacy , politics , citizenship , private sphere , solidarity , welfare state , corporate governance , public sphere , sociology , religiosity , big society , political science , political economy , economic system , law , economics , social science , finance
Norms of citizenship are seen as a precondition for a functioning polity and society. But what determines the importance citizens attach to these norms? Are individual‐level features, like education or social embeddedness, relevant? Do system‐level features like the economic situation or quality of governance matter? Our findings from a multilevel analysis indicate that, paradoxically, a political system's effectiveness and legitimacy undermine the very norms on which it depends for both effectiveness and legitimation. In well‐functioning states, citizens' attachment to civic norms declines. As for the effect of welfare policies, there is no “crowding‐out” effect in the sense that if the state provides for citizens who are less well off, solidarity among citizens was reduced. Few individual‐level characteristics that relate to the public sphere—such as social embeddedness—are found to matter, indicating that norms are perpetuated in the private sphere.