Continuity and Change in Civic Engagement: A Cross-National Analysis of Trends in 23 Democracies

There is a longstanding debate as to whether civic engagement is in decline, or whether it is transforming and taking on new forms. In particular, the rise of the internet and social media has provided new opportunities for civic engagement, and at the same time eroded some of the more traditional forms of face-to-face civic engagement. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a trend towards social and political activity moving online. While prior studies have examined aspects of this transformation, there are gaps in our understanding of how levels of civic engagement vary across a range of different online and offline forms of civic engagement. As different forms of civic engagement cannot be considered equivalent to one another, this paper seeks to map the pattern of civic engagement across different forms, over time and cross-nationally. To do so, the paper analyses data from the World Values Survey in 23 democratic countries. The analyses plot trends in civic engagement over time and cross-nationally across a series of indicators capturing offline and online civic engagement. Multi-level modelling is used to explore country level and individual level predictors of civic engagement, with an emphasis on comparison across different forms of engagement. The results show which forms of civic engagement have had continuity over time, alongside those that have been characterised by change and transformation.