Liberal, Republican, Conservative and Social-Democratic Mindsets? Exploring the existence of Citizenship Regimes in Civic Attitudes

This paper explores whether civic attitudes cluster in ways that correspond to distinct citizenship regimes. Drawing on political philosophy and citizenship literature, it identifies a liberal, a republican, a conservative, a social-democratic and a post-communist regime. These regimes are said to prevail in particular European regions and to show a certain level of stability. Using European Values Study / World Values Survey data, the paper explores whether socio-political attitudes ‘fit’ the theoretical regimes in terms of substance, country membership and durability and whether distinct European citizenship regimes can also be identified at the global level. It finds fairly strong evidence for a social-democratic, a liberal and a post-communist regime of civic attitudes at the European level, but could not find much support for a specific republican or conservative regime. The regimes identified at the European level disappear at the global level. At that level, a group of western countries appears, which distinguishes itself from other countries by showing relatively high scores on a range of citizenship indicators. Thus, it depends on the vantage point whether qualitatively different clusters of civic attitudes emerge that correspond to distinct European citizenship regimes.