Association Membership, Ethnocentrism and Individualism in Longitudinal Perspective: Evidence from 9/11

Abstract

Research linking civic engagement to citizens’ values and norms concentrates on the direction and causal nature of this relation. It often ignores that the engagement-values relation may be context-specific, and might differ over time (and space). Theoretically, we build on an historical-institutionalist approach to argue that the engagement-values relation may not exist. Empirically, we take an explicitly longitudinal perspective to assess the ensuing prediction that exogenous shocks (such as the 9/11 attacks analysed here) may affect its strength and direction. Our findings, using a unique dataset consisting of six waves of a survey conducted in Flanders between 2001 and 2008, confirm this hypothesis.

Keywords: Voluntary Associations, Civic engagement, Social values, 9/11, Historical Institutionalism.