Aspects of comparative active citizenship

This paper reports results from surveys of community organisation members, workers and volunteers designed to measure aspects of active citizenship in four locations: Ballarat (Australia); Norwich and Downham Market (England), and Mitischi (Russia). These data are drawn from an ongoing comparative study that will include six countries in the final analysis. The aggregated data considered here lend support to propositions that tolerance is positively associated with both civic participation and trust but do not show evidence for association between civic participation and trust. However, the existence of considerable locality level variation underlines the importance of taking context into account when assessing the role and nature of civic participation. Across the four locations, two broad patterns of (relative) active citizenship are described by means of a typology of active citizens. Predictors of tolerance and civic participation are identified through standard multiple regressions. It is concluded that future research needs to uncover the explanatory factors that lie behind these representations and which could further specify not just the similarities but also the differences between the locations.<br />