Quality of Life and Quality of Government: Survey based evidence on the connections Robert Manchin

“the civic community” : secret of governability? “ government works” – only if there is an underlying civic society Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Robert Putnam – driving the conceptual formulations on most applied policy research and intervention programs ‘the civic community’; – civic engagement, –Equality, networks organized horizontally, belief in participation –solidarity, trust, belief that leaders relatively honest –Politics is not only for “inotabiliti”, low level of patron-client politics, and “invisme” The community values solidarity, civic engagement, cooperation, and honesty. Government works. Small wonder that people in these regions are content! (Putnam, 1993, p. 115) 2

An illustrative measure of “civic society” using Gallup World Poll data Data: Gallup World Poll ( ) Unit of analysis: NUTS regions (NUTS 1 or NUTS 2) (N= > 75) AGGREGATE Composite index, combining several Gallup WP indices each based on a series of questions : National institutions index (e.g. trust in government and courts) Corruption index (e.g. corruption widespread in government, business) Social well-being index (e.g. friends to count on, easy to make friends) Civic engagement index (e.g. volunteering, donating money) Community attachment index (e.g. satisfied with local area, recommend place) Local leadership index (e.g. approve local leadership) How is quality of life in a more “CIVIC SOCIETY” 3

4

5 Putnam meets Gallup Southern/ Insular Italy North western/ North eastern Italy Central Italy

6 The danger of assuming that country level aggregates work everywhere … (indicators hiding or revealing?) Brussels Flanders Wallonia Flemish Brabant (located around Brussels)

7 European social model: ever closer union? Denmark Sweden Portugal Bulgaria Romania

Why better governance? QoL = after contolling for individual effects does social context counts? Multi-level regression models (2011 data) Lowest level = adults aged 15 and over Higher level = NUTS areas Predictors at INDIVIDUAL LEVEL Demographics (gender, age, marital status) Education, employment, income, health satisfaction Social capital: someone to count on when in need Civic engagement: volunteering Trust on courts/government Corruption is widespread in government Predictors at NUTS LEVEL Score on “civic society” index 8

Trusted relations, health, job add most to QoL 9

For younger cohorts QoG is less important for QoL 10

Comparing direct and indirect effects on QoL: 11 DIRECT EFFECTS INDIRECT EFFECT (depends on age)

Thank you! A demo of the World Poll View is available on: More information? Robert Manchin Gallup Europe Phone: Website: