Patterns and Determinants of Civic Participation in Euroope

The process of global transformation has various consequences. One of fundamental theses of globalists assumes that the possibilities of citizens' participation are increasing (S.Huntington 2004) . Opponents emphasize in turn , that the processes of globalization lead to completely opposite effects (Sennet 1992).

The aim of the paper is to try to answer three main problematic questions:1/What is the general level of civic participation in Europe ? 2/What patterns of civic participation dominate in Europe? 3/ Which of the following models (socio-economic status model,social capital model or attachment model( is best suited to explaining the variation in civic participation in Europe?

Civic prticipation as a dependent variable is understood as an activity that is implemented through citizens' actions in the public , political and associational spheres (Pattie,Seyed,Whiteley,2003).

Participation in each activities was coded using the 0,1 system. The empirical basis for the presentation will be the data base of the European Social Survey of 2018,2020 conducted on representative samples in 34 European Countries.

As a result of the analyses, it was found that the general level of civic participation in Europe is not high.The highest level of civic participation was identiied in the Scandinavian Countries, and the lowest in the Post-communist countries and Portugal. The dominant pattern of civic participation is voting in parlimentary elections and campaign participation. The socio- economic status model and the social capital model are equally suited to explaining variability of civic participation in European Countries.