Abstract
The multifaceted conceptual framework of the Social Cohesion Radar necessitates an elaborated methodological approach. This chapter presents the data sources and methodology we have used to measure the level and trend of social cohesion across 34 European Union and OECD member states in four time periods: Wave 1 (1989–1995), Wave 2 (1996–2003), Wave 3 (2004–2008), and Wave 4 (2009–2012). The Social Cohesion Radar draws exclusively on large-scale internationally comparative secondary data from high-quality academic and institutional sources. The operationalization of the nine dimensions follows a reflective measurement approach in expressing each dimension as a latent construct manifested in interrelated indicators that are interchangeable across time. The resulting country scores on each dimension are thus factor scores which preclude absolute comparisons and allow only relative statements regarding the degree of cohesion. On the other hand, the computation of the three domain indices and the overall index of cohesion follows the formative measurement approach; each index is the arithmetic mean of the respective constituent dimensions. In addition, the chapter introduces the uniform color-coding scheme that has been used throughout the book to ease readers in interpreting the results.
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Notes
- 1.
Other measures such as the median or the standard deviation were considered appropriate to represent a country for a given indicator. However, from a conceptual point of view and for comparability and consistency reasons, we opted for the use of means. Distributional measures other than means (measures of dispersion, in particular) often tend to have vastly different mathematical properties than arithmetic means, a fact that would have greatly complicated the reflective index building.
- 2.
Vanhanen’s indicator of political participation exhibited loadings of 0.18 (Wave 1), 0.21 (Wave 2), 0.39 (Wave 3), 0.43 (Wave 4). We nevertheless retained it since it is a neutral/descriptive indicator.
- 3.
Factor structures with one or two indicators are unidentified due to negative degrees of freedom. In the case of a single-indicator solution, we constrain its factor loading to 1 and its measurement error to 0. When two indicators are available, it is enough to constrain the factor loadings of both indicators to 1, thereby giving each an equal weight.
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Dragolov, G., Ignácz, Z.S., Lorenz, J., Delhey, J., Boehnke, K., Unzicker, K. (2016). Methodology of the Social Cohesion Radar. In: Social Cohesion in the Western World. SpringerBriefs in Well-Being and Quality of Life Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32464-7_2
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