The Survey: Measuring the Attitude of Active Citizenship

Abstract

The basic objective of this chapter is to examine the possible impacts of different labour relations models on the attitudes that form the culture of an active citizenry. An active citizen may be seen as someone who will ‘consider oneself to have some sort of responsibility to be active in his or her community either in a formal or informal way, either in relation to local government or in relation to fellow citizens’ (Almond and Verba, 1963: 164). It is hardly necessary to recall that if a model of labour relations helps to develop an attitude of active citizenship among workers, an important step to the development of citizenship in general may be said to have been performed. The participation of citizens either in the politics of society at large or in the spheres of production has been accepted by social thought as a means of overcoming social inequalities (Poole, 1986: 3; Pateman, 1970). All varieties of communitarianism hold in common the normative claim for citizens to involve themselves in public affairs and participate in community life (Avineri and De-Shalit, 1992).