Good Governance and Norms of Citizenship: An Investigation into the System- and Individual-Level Determinants of Attachment to Civic Norms

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.