**update below.**
in “Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy,” putnam, et. al., measured the civic-ness of italians (north and south) by looking at how many people in each region belonged to voluntary associations — charity groups, lions clubs, hiking clubs, etc., etc.
such questions were asked in the 2005-08 wave of the world values survey:
“Now I am going to read out a list of voluntary organizations; for each one, could you tell me whether you are a member, an active member, an inactive member or not a member of that type of organization?
– Church or religious organization
– Sport or recreation organization
– Art, music or educational organization
– Labour union
– Political party
– Environmental organization
– Professional association
– Charitable organization
– Any other voluntary organization”
here’s the data for a whole bunch of countries: the anglo-world, the french + the germanics (i never know what to do with the french!), southern europe, eastern europe, the muslim world (well, middle east + maghreb), and east/southeast asia. haven’t done africa or latin america yet. i’ve only included the percentages of respondents who said they were active members. (yes, some of the data is prolly skewed ’cause of large-ish immigrant populations in some countries.)
first, the averages for each region. sports really is the new religion:
the anglo world — most civic. i’ve highlighted the u.s. just ’cause i’m an americun:
western europe, i.e. the french and a bunch of the germanics. pretty civic, especially the swiss:
southern europe – italy not very civic. but we already knew that:
eastern europe – not very civic at all. but the finns don’t really belong there – they’re pretty civic:
east and southeast asians? more civic than eastern europeans on average. go indonesia!:
muslim countries (middle east + maghreb)? civics FAIL. iranians (prolly persians) make a decent showing:
update 11/26: here are the tables for africa, latin america, and india (all on its lonesome). i’m impressed with the figures for the african nations surveyed — pretty gosh-durned civic! kudos to them for giving a f*ck. i thought mali was pretty interesting — they also scored high on a couple of the trust questions:
the latin americans — kinda average, really. i highlighted mexico ’cause we got a lot o’ mexicans in the u.s. their scores are quite respectable really:
all i’ve got for south asia is india. indians are all about politics, apparently (right after religion):
another update 11/26: see also civic societies ii
(note: comments do not require an email. civics.)