In debates on citizenship in Europe, the need for active participation among citizens is increasingly stressed. But do normative ideas of what active citizenship is reflect people's lived experiences in present-day Europe? How is increased diversity affecting the ways in which people engage in their neighboorhoods? Does diversity entail less trust, greater distance between people and less participation, or do new forms of mobilization develop?

In Europe's culturally and religiously diverse societies, citizens have different frameworks for how they act and interact with their close and distant surroundings. We argue that this increasing diversity leads to diversified citizen participation that must be studied if the current participation agenda is to remain relevant.​ The ACT project will study active citizenship in culturally and religiously diverse societies through an analysis of present-day civic 1) motivations; 2) locations; and 3) contestations.  

The ACT project poses 3 overarching research questions: 

1. What are the implications of diverse virtues and values on the motivations of citizens to give voice to societal concerns and take an active role in public affairs? 
2. How do shifting understandings of 'society' and 'community' and shifting experiences of belonging impact the locations in which active citizenship practices take place? 
3. Which tensions and contestations arise in debates on what it means to participate as an active citizen in society? 

The project collects empirical data on local, national and transnational active citizenship in neighbourhoods in Oslo and Copenhagen. ACT will integrate this empirical data with theoretical models of (active) citizenship in philosophy, political science, anthropology, geography and feminist studies.

ACT is a collaboration between the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), the Department of Philosophy atThe Arctic University of Norway (UiT) and the Department of Political Science & Government at Aarhus University.

Multi-year research project funded by the Research Council of Norway’s SAMKUL programme, on the cultural conditions underlying societal change.

For more on ACT please follow the link www.prio.org/Projects/Project/?x=1653