Concept Of Political Participation Research Articles

Two Concepts of Political Participation

rT HE LAST several years have seen a renaissance in study of political participation. Many contemporary societies have come to regard it as an important concern, partly because of a preoccupation with problems of bureaucratization, alienation, and mobilization of citizens for political and economic development. In Western societies our attention has also been attracted to it by demands and recommendations for more extensive and authentic participation in political process. These demands have grown out of a serious critique of existing practices and have emphasized, as a corrective, positive public and personal functions of participation in politics. Even in education, family, and industry problem of role of participation, especially in relation to formation of democratic values, has been revived and expounded. The response of social science and political theory to these crises has been directed typically either at finding an explanation for political participation, or at elaborating a rationale supporting large doses of citizen involvement and initiative in public realm. For former, explanatory theory has been sought through specifying and measuring levels or forms of participation in such a way as to facilitate cross-national ,omparison and prediction of who participates, under what conditions, and in what ways. Operational definitions, statistical methods, and quantification of findings have characterized this particular view of subject.1 By contrast, other writers have been interested primarily in identifying institutions of a potential society and demonstrating their plausibility. Whether couched in language of recommendation, exhortation, or polemic, this approach has proclaimed establishment of the case for participatory democracy, to quote a recent title, as its final aim.2 While having obvious merits of their own, neither of these approaches has given sufficient critical attention to conceptual complexities of political par-

Liberal activists and the concept of political participation

(1972). Liberal activists and the concept of political participation. Politics: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 170-173.