Social Cohesion as a Real-life Phenomenon: Exploring the Validity of the Universalist and Particularist Perspectives

Table 5. The substance of social cohesion models (group means on social cohesion indicators)

		Liberal Anglophone			Conservative Continental _____European_____			Social-democratic Scandinavian			East-Asian			Overall mean
Components	Indicators___________________	1981	1990	1999	1981	1990	1999	1981	1990	1999	1981	1990	1999	1981	1990	1999
Civic participation_______	Passive (belonging to)_________	1.03	.95	1.14	.60	.75	.82	1.18	1.40	1.98	-	.61	.77	.89	.94	1.13
Civic participation_______	Active (doing voluntary work)	.40	.47	.72	.30	.33	.30	.32	.32	.47	.08	.07	.25	.33	.35	.46
Trust	Most people can be trusted	44.7	48.7	34.9	31.2	35.9	36.4	52.6	58.1	59.8	39.4	38.0	34.3	40.7	44.9	41.6
Trust	Trust in parliament____________	47.4	45.0	36.5	45.4	44.2	41.6	56.0	50.6	60.2	53.6	31.5	16.3	49.6	44.4	41.8
Tolerance________	Immigrants as neighbours_____	91.9	91.9	89.5	89.3	86.1	88.4	93.7	89.0	93.5	94.7	65.0	68.3	91.7	85.6	87.4
Cultural pluralism	Postmaterialism scale (SDs)	.61	.63	.58	.66	.67	.64	.62	.58	.52	.60	.64	.57	.63	.63	.59
Social hierarchy	Respect for parents____________	70.9	72.3	73.0	69.9	71.1	64.6	50.4	51.0	48.2	80.3	86.0	82.0	66.6	68.3	64.8
Inequality_________	Gini coefficient________________	37.3	35.3	37.0	31.9	30.3	31.9	33.2	25.0	27.2	34.2	30.0	27.4	33.9	30.5	31.7
Crime (inverse of social order)_______	number of homicides per 100.000______________________	3.52	3.38	2.45	1.22	1.23	1.38	1.13	1.20	1.08	1.00	.60	1.55	1.84	1.79	1.59
	N (countries)__________________	4	4	4	6	6	6	4	4	4	2	2	2	16	16	16

The Anglophone group includes the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland;

The Continental European group includes Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Italy;

The Scandinavian group includes Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and Finland;

The East-Asian group includes Japan and South Korea.