Different Forms Of Political Participation Research Articles

Treading carefully: the environment and political participation in science education

Politics and science are inextricably connected, particularly in relation to the climate emergency and other environmental crises, yet science education is an often overlooked site for engaging with the political dimensions of environmental issues. This study examines how science teachers in England experience politics—specifically political participation—in relation to the environment in school science, against a background of increased obstruction in civic space. The study draws on an analysis of theoretically informed in-depth interviews with eleven science teachers about their experiences of political participation in relation to environmental issues. We find that politics enters the science classroom primarily through informal conversations initiated by students rather than planned by teachers. When planned for, the emphasis is on individual, latent–political (civic) engagement rather than manifest political participation. We argue that this is a symptom of the post-political condition and call for a more enabling environment for discussing the strengths and limitations of different forms of political participation in school science.

Populists without parties: are left-wing and right-wing populists in Quebec disengaged citizens?

ABSTRACT The literature on populism is vast, with most studies exploring this phenomenon in contexts where populist parties play a central role in steering populist ideas and mobilizing their supporters. Yet, populist ideas can be supported by a widespread share of the population even in the absence of populist parties. This study investigates and compares how left- and right-wing populists engage with politics when no populist party represents their voice in the political system. Relying on a survey of 5633 respondents in Quebec (Canada), we examine how support for populist ideas relates to different forms of political participation. Our findings indicate that left-wing populists are less likely to vote than other citizens, specifically at the provincial level. This finding, however, does not hold for their right-wing counterparts. Moreover, right-wing populists exhibit a greater propensity to engage in non- and semi-institutional forms of action that enable them to express their grievances directly to elected officials. With these forms of action not observed among left-wing populists, our study points to fundamental differences in the expression of left- and right-wing populisms. Despite these differences, our study indicates that all populists perceive more than other citizens that violence can be a legitimate mean of action.

The Nexus between Protest and Electoral Participation: Explaining Chile's Exceptionalism

AbstractThe literature on political participation has consistently found that protest positively and significantly correlates with voting. However, Chile can be considered a deviant case to this pattern. During the last decade, Chileans who participated in street demonstrations were unlikely to participate in elections. What explains this anomaly? We argue that this rupture between participation in protest and in elections results from an effective distancing between social-movement organisations (SMOs) and institutional politics. However, this distancing of SMOs from party politics has not been homogeneous. To examine this heterogeneity, we conduct a comparative design of two cases: the labour and student movements. Based on a mixed-methods study that combines interviews with movement leaders and surveys of protest participants in marches, we seek to highlight the mediating role of SMOs in the promotion of different forms of political participation.

Physical health conditions and political participation in Europe: the moderating effects of age

Unequal political participation is widely considered a problem of democratic representation. Citizens with fewer resources typically report lower levels of participation. Lack of good health has been identified as one barrier to participation. However, poor health may have heterogeneous impacts on participation, depending on the type of health issue. Moreover, poor health may affect participation patterns differently, depending on age. Previous research has not yet systematically examined these issues. We address these gaps by using European Social Survey data, which includes self-reports of a variety of physical health conditions and engagement in different forms of political participation. The results show that most physical health conditions are related to political participation; however, except for turnout, physical health problems mobilize individuals into action. This effect is strongest among younger individuals, and the health gap in participation evens out in later life. The condition-specific effects are similar across different forms of physical health conditions. Our findings are consistent with the grievance and identity theories of political participation. Younger citizens, in particular, may experience poor health or physical impairment as unjust and are then mobilized into political action. We discuss the implications for the broader understanding of mechanisms behind political behavior and suggest that health problems are often a motivator for political action rather than an obstacle.

Age and Political Participation in Africa’s Electoral Regimes

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between age and four types of political participation. Previous research has examined the age-participation nexus in the context of established democracies. In contrast, few studies have been devoted to assessing age differences in other contexts, particularly those of Africa, where the meaning of age and age groups could be different than in industrialised democracies. We argued in Africa that age's effect on political participation would vary depending on the country and across different forms of political participation. Analysing Afrobarometer survey data for 34 African countries, we find that the relationship between age and three forms of participation (voting, contacting and collective action) is curvilinear, with younger and older people less likely to participate. While for protest participation, the relationship between age and participation is linear, with protest decreasing with age. Next, we uncover that the countries’ policy formulation, implementation and electoral integrity affect the relationship between age and political participation. In contrast, breaking down the analysis into regional subsamples (West, Central, East, Southern, and North Africa), we observe no patterns of regional differences concerning political participation.

Internet involvement, information consumption, and political participation in urban China

The issue of whether the internet promotes political participation has always been a hotly debated topic in academia. However, current research lacks an effective classification of the modes of internet use, and it does not analyze their effect on different forms of political participation. Based on data from the 2015 and 2018 waves of the China Urban Governance Survey, this study offers an examination of the internet usage behavior of Chinese urban netizens from the perspectives of internet involvement and information consumption, as well as comparing the impact that different modes of internet use have on conventional and unconventional political participation. The results of this study confirm the “citizen-empowerment hypothesis” of internet use, and show that the “group involvement–social-information-oriented” mode of internet use has a positive effect on the conventional and unconventional political participation of urban internet users. However, the study fails to support the “time-displacement hypothesis”. It shows that the “individual involvement–entertainment-oriented” mode of internet use does not have a negative impact on the conventional and unconventional political participation of Chinese urban internet users. Similarly, the “group involvement–entertainment-oriented” mode of internet use has no significant effect on unconventional political participation. Taken together, the study shows that, in general, internet use has promoted the political participation of Chinese urban netizens, but there are significant differences between the different modes of internet use. As a revolutionary medium, the internet not only provides people with a convenient way of obtaining and communicating information, but also creates more challenges for state governance. The way in which the government should deal with different forms of political participation in the internet age will be an important research topic in the future.

Media Bios and Artificial Intelligence: the dark side of Fake News

With a bibliographic nature and a qualitative approach, this work aims to discuss, through a literature review, the concept of fake news and its influence and effects on youth political formation. The article addresses the concept of fake news and its classification, based on the ideas of media bios and mediatization brought by Sodré, as well as a reflection on the developments of artificial intelligence technologies linked to the production and dissemination of fake news. In addition, a discussion is carried out on the role played by fake news in the political formation of subjects, considering the different forms of political participation and socialization, especially with the development of digital media and social networks. The results suggest that the debate about the political formation of subjects represents the expression of new social paradigms in the face of the structure of the production and dissemination of so-called fake news in the political field. It is considered that the processes of political formation and participation today have taken place in a terrain where disinformation is a great threat to democracy and one of the challenges that emerge from this conjecture is to preserve freedom of expression and, at the same time, prevent that the trinkin compromises democracy.

Varieties of democratic understanding and political participation: multi-level evidence from the world

ABSTRACT This article explores the linkage between different conceptualisations of democracy and forms of political participation. Specifically, it examines the correlates of conventional and unconventional modes of political participation, especially in light of three major understandings of democracy, namely liberal, redistributive, and authoritative understandings. This article maintains that different notions of democracy have their unique relationships with different forms of political participation. The article argues that people with a predominantly liberal notion of democracy are expected to partake in both conventional and unconventional modes of political participation, whereas those with an authoritative understanding of democracy are relatively more hesitant to take part in both forms. Finally, citizens with a redistributive notion of democracy are expected to appear more in unconventional forms of political participation, such as boycotts and lawful demonstrations. We test our arguments based on a global and up-to-date dataset and a multi-level framework, which covers more than 100,000 democratic citizens across the globe.

Future Orientation and Political Participation: The Moderating Role of Political Trust

Previous studies show consistent differences in how people evaluate future consequences and implications of this for a variety of phenomena. The implications for the individual propensity for taking part in different forms of political participation have received limited scholarly attention, however. This is unfortunate since it affects how people voice their concerns over future problems and thereby also whether and how decision-makers become aware of these concerns. We here examine this in a cross-sectional study conducted in Finland (N = 1,673). We apply the Considerations of Future Consequences (CFC) framework as a measure of individuals’ future orientation and distinguish between considerations of future consequences (CFC-future) and considerations of immediate consequences (CFC-Immediate). We study the direct associations with institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation and the moderating role of political trust in shaping these associations. Our results show CFC-future has a positive association with both institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation, while CFC-immediate has a negative association with participation. Political trust moderates the association with non-institutionalized political participation since the association is stronger for citizens with low political trust. This may suggest that citizens use particular participatory avenues to communicate their worries over future problems, and to which decision-makers must be attentive.

Political Communication Patterns of Young Adults in Germany

While the political communication and participation activities of young adults are changing, this is often not adequately captured by research due to a too narrow conceptualization of the phenomenon. Our approach conceptualizes political communication as activities comprising the reception of political content, interpersonal communication regarding political issues and political participation. We incorporated both analog and digital media, as well as different forms of political participation, to reflect the complex reality of political communication activities of young adults in the digital age. On the basis of a sample from 2013, we investigated the patterns of political communication of young adults (ages 18–33 years). This age group represents the first generation to have grown up under the ubiquitous influence of the internet and other modern information technologies. In addition, we examined factors influencing the formation of different political communication patterns of this generation. Results of cluster analyses demonstrated that young adults should not be seen as a homogeneous group. Rather, we found six communication types. Interestingly, no online-only type of political communication was revealed, By applying multinomial logistic regression analysis, we were able to demonstrate that socio-demographic variables, individual resources and cognitive involvement in politics influence the likelihood of belonging to more active political communication types. The present study investigated various information and communication opportunities of young adults, and is rare in terms of the richness of data provided. Our conceptual innovative approach enables a better understanding of young adults’ complex political communication patterns. Moreover, our approach encourages follow-up research, as our results provide a valuable starting point for intergenerational comparisons regarding changes in political engagement among young adults in Germany, as well as for cross-country analysis regarding different generations of young adults.

Digital Issue Movements: Political Repertoires and Drivers of Participation among Belgian Youth in the Context of ‘School Strike for Climate’

It often remains unclear how young citizens are combining various forms of political participation, as well as why they choose some over others, especially within a single-issue movement. Moreover, little is known about how social networking sites (SNS) fit into the political repertoires of citizens. Therefore, this study explores youths’ political participation patterns in the context of the 2019 youth-led climate strikes. We rely on data from a paper and pencil survey among 498 high school students in Belgium. To identify different types of activists, the study used latent class analysis (LCA). In addition, a multinomial logistic regression was conducted to assess how identified participation types differ from each other. Four different participation repertoires regarding the climate issue were identified, each distinctive in the way they rely on different forms of political participation. In addition, membership to each of the different classes is associated with a unique set of characteristics (in terms of political efficacies, climate issue involvement, and online expression motives). The article shows how SNS make up a crucial part of youths’ issue-specific participation patterns and sheds light on the mechanisms underlying their participation choices within the climate movement.

Examining political participation in Lithuania: The direct and mediated effects of social trust

This article investigates the effects of social trust, both direct and mediated – via internal and external efficacy – on different forms of political participation in post-communist Lithuania. The relationship between social trust and participation features prominently in the social capital and civic culture literature, but little empirical evidence exists that supports it, especially in post-communist democracies. We use the Lithuanian National Elections Study 2012 to test our hypotheses and replicate our analysis with the European Social Survey waves of 2014 and 2016. Our results show that social trust increases turnout, because it is related to a sense of external efficacy, which in turn enhances the likelihood that people vote. There is, however, no association between social trust and being involved in other institutionalised politics, namely, working for a political party. Interestingly, we find a positive indirect effect for non-institutionalised political participation: social trust increases external efficacy, which in turn enhances protest behaviour. Overall, however, social trust does not lead to more protesting, because the former is at the same time positively related to political trust, which seems to decrease, rather than increase non-institutionalised participation. In sum, our findings demonstrate that explanations for political participation based on the core element of social capital – social trust – work out differently for different forms of political participation.

Uticaj upotrebe društvenih mreža na političko informisanje i političko znanje studenata u Srbiji

The subject of this paper is the impact of social media on political informing and political knowledge of students in Serbia. Based on the premise that social media users can independently create their own information and cognitive environment, our theoretical starting point is the uses and gratification theory, which is often applied in the current research on the impact of social media on different forms of political participation. The main goal of the empirical research is to determine whether the use of social media based on satisfying the daily information, communication and entertainment needs brings about changes in the informing and political knowledge of Serbian students. Therefore, the main hypothesis of the research is - the use of social media based on gratifying the needs for information, communication and entertainment leads to better informing and knowledge about politics among students in Serbia. The research sample (N=554) consisted of students aged 19-24 from the Republic of Serbia. In addition, the respondents were the students from the three largest universities in the Republic of Serbia (the University of Belgrade, the University of Novi Sad and the University of Niš). The research findings indicated that the use of social media for the purpose of meeting users' personal needs for general information, communication and entertainment does not lead to a better informing and knowledge about politics among students in Serbia.

Political Participation and Workplace Voice: The Spillover of Suppression by Supervisors

This article aims to establish the connection between people’s voice at work and their political voice. We theorize and model a spillover mechanism from supervisors’ responses to workplace voice to political participation. Applying structural equation modeling on a unique dataset (N = 3129), we find that while support and suppression of workplace voice both affect political participation, they do so through different mechanisms. In addition, we find that supervisors’ suppressive responses to employees’ voice can trigger both positive and negative effects on different forms of political participation. Thereby, we contribute to the understanding of the link between participation at work and participation in politics.

Disentangling the Impact of Civil Association Membership on Political Participation: Evidence from Swedish Panel Data

AbstractWhat is the effect of membership in civil associations on political participation? Membership has been linked to providing social capital and personal networks, which in turn help citizens more easily navigate politics. Yet this link is empirically complex, since politically interested individuals self-select into networks and associations. This research note addresses the impact of membership on different forms of political participation using a panel survey from Sweden that distinguishes between passive and active membership in various types of associations. The baseline results reaffirm a strong association between membership and political participation. The survey's panel dimension is exploited to reveal that earlier scholarship has likely overstated the robustness of membership's participatory effects. Rather, the remaining impact of association membership in the panel specification is mainly driven by types of associations for which the highest degree of selection behaviour is expected.

The Effects of Corruption on Various Forms of Political Participation in Colombia

In Latin America, corruption may not only disrupt the political scene but also drive citizens to the streets. Focusing on Colombia, this article tests hypotheses regarding the influence of corruption on different forms of political participation. The research considers elections and several other forms of political participation such as meetings and demonstrations. The study also distinguishes between perceptions of corruption and experience with corruption and their respective effects. The results support the conclusion that the perception of corruption among citizens leads to low turnout for certain types of political participation, whereas experience with corruption leads to higher participation.

Resistance and marginalisation: Islamophobia and the political participation of young Muslims in Scotland

ABSTRACT A growing body of work has examined the different forms of political participation engaged with by young Muslims in a variety of Muslim-minority contexts. However, the factors that shape the political participation of Muslims has been frequently overlooked, with the focus primarily on the varied types of participations. Given that the lived experiences of young Muslims frequently entail distinctive challenges, with a range of discriminations being negotiated, there is a need to examine how such factors shape political participation. In this paper, our focus is primarily on how Islamophobia intersects with, and shapes, the political participations of young Muslims in Scotland. We conceptualise Islamophobia as a form of governmentality and build on existing debates by highlighting how Islamophobic governmentality shapes political participation and how space is central to its operation. We demonstrate that when Islamophobia intersects with political participation, it can discipline and marginalise political agency, but it can also engender political and activist resistance. When it works as a barrier to participation, it is pushing young Muslims into the marginal spaces of society. While political resistance is a process of spatial reorientation, aiming to move young Muslims into more public and visible spaces in order to challenge the marginalisation of Islamophobia.

Talking Politics? Educational Category Salience Reinforces Differences in People’s Willingness to Participate in Deliberative Initiatives

Against the background of an ever‐growing body of literature that documents educational differentials in different forms of political participation, scholars have started to study whether education itself becomes the object of intergroup behavior. Informed by social identity theory and self‐categorization theory, we examine whether making educational categories and the associated status differences salient affects people’s prospective political participation. Two large survey experiments carried out in samples from Flanders (Belgium; N = 1,097) and the United States (N = 629) were used to assess categorization effects of education on people’s willingness to participate in deliberative political‐participation initiatives. In general, our results indicated that rendering educational categories salient increased educational differentials in prospective political participation in a way that is disadvantageous to the less educated. We elaborate on the implications of our findings.

La crisis europea de la política: pluralismo etno-religioso y el auge del populismo y la extrema derecha en Europa

No genera mucha polémica sostener que la crisis económica del 2008 puede entenderse como un fracaso de los estados de bienestar europeos. Tanto el incremento de las desigualdades económicas parcialmente motivadas por esta crisis global, como el aumento de los flujos migratorios, han contribuido a crear un caldo de cultivo para el auge de los discursos de odio racial, religioso e ideológico en occidente. Sin embargo, haciendo la comparación con periodos históricos previos en los que surgieron tensiones equiparables, la ciudadanía de hoy en día puede canalizar sus intereses, necesidades, emociones, pensamientos e ideales políticos a través de las instituciones que conforman la estructura básica del estado. Así, la ciudadanía puede empoderarse canalizando sus reivindicaciones a través de mecanismos democráticos y distintas formas de participación política. Como ejemplo, una articulación relevante han sido las nuevas expresiones de populismo radical, nativismo e ideologías de extrema derecha que han surgido en varios niveles de la esfera pública y en distintas sociedades europeas. Esta combinación ha hecho que lo que era en un principio una crisis económica y de refugiados se haya convertido en una crisis que es sobre todo política.Publicación en línea: 31 octubre 2018

The European Crisis of Politics: Ethnoreligious Pluralism and the Rise of Radical Populism and Far-Right in Europe

It is not highly contentious to claim that the 2008 global economic crisis may be also understood as a failure of the welfare state in European countries. The rise of economic inequalities in Europe, as a major sequel of the 2008 economic crisis and the increase of migrant flows, has fostered and become a breeding ground for racial, religious, or ideological hatred in the western world. However, compared to previous periods in recent history when tensions arose, citizens can now channel their feelings, thoughts, and political ideals through the institutions of the state’s basic structure. Thus, citizens are having a say by channelling their claims through democratic means and different forms of political participation. One relevant articulation has been new expressions of radical populism, nativism, and far-right ideologies which have burst into the public sphere, at the local, regional, and European levels. This combination has turned the economic and refugee crisis into what is mainly a crisis of European politics.Published online: 31 October 2018