Solidarity: A European Value?

Abstract

Solidarity is considered essential for the sustainability of societies, both at the level of individual contributions to society and as an aspect of cooperation between countries. As such, solidarity is often called upon by politicians in a declarative way. In contrast to most prior work, we investigate an attitudinal perspective on solidarity, not behavioural or policy-preference perspectives. We look at questions such as the prevalence of solidarity attitudes among European populations, the degree to which the declared norm is shared among these populations, and whether solidarity attitudes have changed with consecutive crises in Europe. We also discuss possible antecedents of solidarity levels. Distinguishing solidarity by close and universal scopes, we find that both are associated with the identification of citizens with communities at different levels. In country and time comparisons, European societies display a good degree of homogeneity and stability. Close solidarity is more pronounced than universal solidarity, and this may have even increased over consecutive crises. There are clear differences in relation to socio-historical region, but only modest associations with the religious composition of countries in terms of denominations. One role of religiosity might be that of an identity marker, where more heterogeneity comes with lower levels of solidarity.