Social participation, volunteering, and civic engagement are fashionable slogans of both academic and political debates. This fashion is closely related to several major problems by which contemporary democracies are supposedly troubled. Particularly prominent is a lament about the increase of social egoism, declining feelings of solidarity and community, a public withdrawal from the "dirty" realm of politics, and the decrease of social and political involvement. Debates about communitarianism, social capital, civil society, trust, and the crises of the welfare state are academic responses to those pessimistic descriptions of contemporary reality. There seems to be a widespread consensus that a revival of patterns of civic engagement and citizenship can compensate and make up for the assumed deficiencies of modern democracies.
Theoretically, however, the pro-democratic function of social involvement is not that clear. Relevant literature shows that there are several different functions which provide the democratic value of social involvement: articulation and mediation of interest, legitimacy of the state and its elite, and social integration. The Network concentrates on the issue of social integration and citizenship -- the most basic functions -- but treats social organisations as only one mechanism of integration among many other social contacts and contexts. Besides, possible non-democratic or even anti-democratic consequences of social involvement have to be taken into consideration.
Yet it is unclear how social involvement indeed enhances the willingness to become politically involved, although the general positive relationship between both forms of "engagement" is -- at least empirically -- widely acknowledged. Usually, three different arguments are distinguished: (i) arguments which emphasise the organisational impact of social involvement, (ii) arguments which stress effects of social "learning" and, (iii) arguments which underline the importance of cultural aspects. More concretely, the relationship between social and political involvement is mediated by processes like the creation of community bonds, social trust and the development of multiple identities and cross-pressures ("cultural" arguments). Furthermore, the impact of social participation as a "school of democracy" and an institution of social control (participation as a "learning process") can be mentioned. Finally, social participation as an institutional setting which can both recruit or mobilise people for political participation and absorb the time and energy of its members and thus leading to de-politicisation ("organisational" arguments) establishes important interpretations of this relationship.
Moreover, diverse theoretical debates about future and quality of contemporary democracy suggest a very broad conception of "involvement". On the one hand, the network approaches this claim through an investigation into patterns of political and social involvement. On the other hand, democratic theories recently emphasised modes of citizens‘ participation which go beyond the traditional concepts of both "conventional", institutionalised modes of participation and "unconventional", non-institutionalised protest activities. In particular, the concepts of "consumer democracy" , and of "direct" or "small" democracy, based upon an active relationship between public services, on the one hand, and their clients, on the other, have shifted the attention from the realm of "big" politics to the immediate concerns of day-to-day life. Theory suggests, in fact, that active involvement in areas such as schools, work places, or the health system, might be a crucial contribution to democracy, similarly important to, or even more important than manifestations of "big" politics. In other words, an empirically and theoretically meaningful analysis of citizen involvement in contemporary democracy requires (i) an analysis of both social and political patterns of involvement, (ii) a concise analysis of the presumably very complex relationship between social and political participation; that is, an analysis that permits both an investigation into the concrete nature of such a relationship and an analysis of the relative importance of this relationship in comparison to alternative loci of integration (see above). It requires (iii) a conceptualisation of "political" involvement which encompasses aspects of conventional participation, protest activities, and active involvement in local contexts, on the one hand, and participation as concerned with clients or consumers of public services, on the other. Finally, and most importantly, attention has to be given to the various modes in which social participation is linked to political participation, and how "small" democracy relates to "big" democracy. In this concrete sense, a broad comparative approach is intimately linked to the network’s central question:
Under which social, societal, and organisational conditions contributes social involvement of citizens to qualitative ("better" democrats) and quantitative (more active democrats) improvements of contemporary democracies?
The area of social capital, citizenship, civil society, social involvement, trust, and, more generally, the chances and opportunities for improving citizen’s involvement in democratic societies, represents one of the most controversial topics in the social sciences in the last few years. As with many rather fashionable themes and topics, the debates seem to be highly dominated by theoretical and ideological approaches. Empirical research is only slowly developed and usually restricted to a single country or region. Existing empirical evidence is unsatisfactory in two major respects. On the national level, research usually is restricted to rather narrow concerns, focusing either on political participation, or particular aspects of citizenship, or on social activities, exclusively. What is lacking, however, is a comprehensive research design, which permits to test the complex relationships between social and political involvement, on the one hand, and ideas of citizenship and involvement, on the other. Only such an encompassing research design would permit to answer the crucial question of whether -- and if so, to what extent -- modes of social involvement indeed contribute to a qualitative and quantitative improvement of contemporary democracies. Comparatively speaking, there is ample reason to assume that the link between the "social" and the "political", and between "big" and "small" politics exists in manifold contextual and institutional variations. However, little is known about such variations, and more importantly still, how such variations might differently contribute to democracy. From the beginning of the international co-operation, thus, it was evident that we require, first of all, on the national level a comprehensive design which includes all potential aspects which might clarify the relationship between social and political involvement, on the one hand, and "small" and "big" democracy, on the other. Secondly, a comparative design is needed, which permits an assessment of idiosyncratic relationships, taking into account different societal contexts, cultural traditions, and institutional arrangements.
Obviously, a cross-national project in this area cannot be organised in a "top-down" way, with centralised funding and hierarchical decision-making procedures. Instead, from the start the idea was to combine distinct national projects. These projects should be clearly attuned to national needs and circumstances - and at the same time be integrated in a common comparative framework. As a first step towards such an international co-operation the already existing studies in Sweden (the extensive study on citizenship co-ordinated by Anders Westholm, Uppsala), in the Netherlands (several studies on citizenship and participation co-ordinated by Paul Dekker), in Austria (study on citizenship and social capital co-ordinated by Peter Ulram), in Norway (study on citizenship and democracy co-ordinated by Tore Hansen), and in Germany (study on citizenship co-ordinated by Oscar Gabriel) can be used. These studies cover a wide variety of topics which offer the chance to explore the opportunities for comparative research. Besides, in several other countries studies are planned. A new German project has been designed and submitted for funding (co-ordinated by van Deth and Rossteutscher) and a similar project is defined as part of a new British ESRC Research Programme (co-ordinated by Paul Whiteley) by the end of 1999. A Danish project as well as a Norwegian project are already developed. In these countries extensive studies on similar topics have been performed only a few years ago. By looking for opportunities to link these national studies, detailed information about specific countries as well as systematically collected data that can be used for cross-national research becomes available.
By the end of 1998, researchers from Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland co-operated in order to develop cross-national research. Beside, colleagues in France, Belgium, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, and Hungary of whom it is known that they have strong interests in this type of research are approached to join the group. In this way, it is possible to overcome the obvious obstacles of trying to get funding for a large-scale comparative project based on the very expensive collection of new data in a number of countries at the same time.