Places and Participation: Comparing Resident Participation in Post-Wwii Neighborhoods in Northwest, Central and Southern Europe

ABSTRACT:

The participation of residents in improving their neighborhood, and especially variations in participation between places, has been the topic of research in various articles published in the last few years. What is still missing in these studies is an international comparative perspective, since national differences might be expected to account for at least part of the variation in participation. This article, therefore, includes an analysis of national differences. We assess how much relevance these national differences have in comparison with the influence of individual and neighborhood characteristics. Using multivariate modeling procedures, we address the following questions: To what extent can differences in participation be ascribed to neighborhood level variations (share of unemployed, share of ethnic minorities, share of owner-occupied housing, average experience of problems, share of residents active in a social organization)? And to what extent do national context variables (democratic history, empowerment policy) account for these differences? The findings suggest that both neighborhood and national context variables have explanatory power. The article provides an important starting point for a closer study of the role of national level factors.

Notes

1 We use the term neighborhood in a neutral way. The term is used as an area with (often official) boundaries set by, for example, a municipality. We do not use the term neighborhood as a social construct, since that would automatically imply that the area could draw on social cohesion or bonding. In this paper we use the terms neighborhood and estate interchangeably, although the term estate is often reserved in Europe for an area that has been developed according to a plan at one period in time. A neighborhood can develop over a longer time.

2 They note that that GDP and democratic history are highly correlated, and so are religion and political type (most social democratic countries are Protestant countries).

3 Forthcoming at the time of Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas’ study.