Levels Of Political Engagement Research Articles

Political Activism and Association Involvement: The French Choice in Comparative Perspective

The ‘Participatory Revolution’ of the past decades has caused not only a surge in political activism, but more importantly a reconsideration of the relevance of the level of political engagement: individual and collective levels of activism have started competing for political participants. In this context, a close analysis of the French case might reveal whether it is political involvement at the individual level, more than at the collective one, that drives the country's strong political activism. The testing of this political behavior paradigm will provide important conclusions on the validity of the literature on social capital, questioning the positive correlation between high levels of conventional or unconventional political activism and high levels of associationism and collective activity in social and political organizations.

Not All Cues Are Created Equal: The Conditional Impact of Female Candidates on Political Engagement

Over the past several decades women's lives in the public sphere have increased dramatically, providing women with more political resources than they have ever had before. Yet the gap between men and women's level of political engagement in a number of key areas of political life has persisted. This suggests that political or contextual factors, rather than resources or socialization, may be key in understanding these differences. One contextual factor that may be important to female political engagement is competitive female candidates. The hypothesis that visible and competitive women matter to female citizens is tested by examining the relationship between various political attitudes and behaviors and the presence (or absence) of a viable statewide female candidate. The models indicate that there is overwhelming support for the hypothesis that women citizens in states with competitive and visible female candidates increase their political engagement. These results suggest that descriptive representation matters in important ways.

Engaging with Young People's Conceptions of the Political

In many states, there are concerns about declining levels of political engagement and participation among young people. Our understanding of this decline, however, is limited because much of the research on youth politics is based on a narrow conception of 'the political', little attempt is made to explore how people themselves define politics, non-participation is not adequately problematised, and there are in sufficient youth-specific explanations for declining participation among young people. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Britain, I argue there is a need to develop an approach and research methodology that engages with young people's conceptions of the political.

Yuppies in Cross-National Perspective: Is There Evidence for a Yuppie Value Syndrome?

According to the media and to marketing entrepreneurs, as well as to various political observers, yuppies (young urban professionals) are believed to be vanguards in cultural and political change of the 1980s. The pseudo-scholarly perception suggests that yuppies display a unique combination of social-ethical liberalism and social-economic conservatism and, in addition, are distinguishable by a low level of political engagement and a strong emphasis on lifestyle distinctiveness. A cross-cultural analysis of survey data from seven countries indicates that although yuppies tend to hold liberal social and ethical views, there is no evidence for their conservatism on economic matters, abstinence from political engagement oremphasis on lifestyle distinctiveness.