ABSTRACT
This chapter compares policy discussions regarding active citizenship in the United Kingdom, UK and Italy, and provides an assessment of the ongoing process of Europeanisation by looking at the frames, ideas, opinions and evaluations of a number of activists interviewed in the two countries in 2011. It addresses the characteristics of the Italian context, by looking first at the debate on public communication that emerged in the 1990s and then by looking at the research agenda on political and civic participation. The chapter focuses at the British case, by overviewing the citizenship reform promoted under the New Right governments of Thatcher and Major and subsequently by New Labour after Blair won the election in 1997. The aim of this analysis is to provide insights regarding two of the Discursive Nodal Points that emerged in our overall analysis which were conducted for the Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation, PIDOP project, namely Political participation, and Europeanisation and transnationalisation.
