Non-electoral Political Participation Research Articles

Do sexual minorities participate more in politics?

Individuals who participate more in politics tend to be better represented politically. As a result, it is important to examine which groups are more and which groups are less likely to participate. In this paper, we study the institutional and non-institutional political participation of an important group that has only received scant attention in the literature: sexual minorities. To do so, we leverage recent datasets and conduct the first comprehensive study on the relationship between sexual orientation and non-electoral political participation in Canada. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, the analyses reveal that sexual minorities ( n = 2061) participate to a greater extent in politics compared to heterosexuals ( n = 23,652), even after controlling for numerous socioeconomic factors. We also find that the sexuality gap is similar across gender identities. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the comparative literature on sexuality and politics.

Beyond Continuous versus Categorical Dichotomy: Uncovering Latent Structure of Non-electoral Political Participation Using Zero-Inflated Models

AbstractWhile modeling political participation as a latent variable, researchers usually choose whether to conceptualize and model participation as a latent continuous or latent categorical variable. When participation is modeled as a continuous variable, factor analytic and item-response theory models are used. When modeled as a categorical variable, latent class analysis is employed. However, both conceptualizations and modeling approaches rest upon very strong assumptions. In the continuous case, all subjects are assumed to come from the same homogenous population; in the categorical case, we assume that no quantitative heterogeneity exists within the latent classes. In this work, I argue that these assumptions are implausible and propose to model participation using zero-inflated measurement and regression models that assume the existence of two latent classes-politically disengaged and politically active-with the latter class being quantitatively heterogenous (people in that class are thought to participate to a varying degree). The results show that the models accounting for the latent class of politically disengaged have much better out-of-sample predictive accuracy. Moreover, modeling the zero-inflation changes estimates of measurement and regression models, and offers new research opportunities because with zero-inflated models we can explicitly tackle the question of what impacts the probability of ending up in the latent class of politically disengaged.

Social media as an exit strategy? The role of attitudes of discontent in explaining non-electoral political participation among Belgian young adults

Social media as an exit strategy? The role of attitudes of discontent in explaining non-electoral political participation among Belgian young adults

Experience of Violence and Non-Electoral Political Participation Among Nigerians

Most studies on political participation suggest that social capital is an important factor for individuals to express their political agency. This study provides another perspective—the violence perspective. There has been a debate about the direction of the association between violence and political participation, and most of these studies have focused on electoral participation and civic engagement. This study seeks to examine how the experience of non-domestic violence (NDV) are associated with non-electoral political participation (NEP) in Nigeria. Using the seventh round of the Nigerian Afrobarometer dataset, findings from the study show that individuals who experienced NDV were more likely to be active in non-electoral political activities. The findings of this study have broader implications for the importance of the norms and values that inform engagement in the political realm, especially in developing countries.

The nonlinear relationship between political trust and nonelectoral political participation in democratic and nondemocratic regimes

AbstractObjectiveCitizens use nonelectoral means of political participation along with electoral ones. However, we expect that engaging in nonelectoral political participation (NEPP) is quite dependent on the legitimacy of the state and its institutions, as well as the regime type. This article explores the relationship between NEPP and political trust (PT), which can indicate the legitimacy of such institutions.MethodWe utilize the seventh wave of World Values Survey to test such relationships in countries classified as democratic and nondemocratic following the Freedom in the World Index. We hypothesize that in democratic countries there is an inverted U‐shaped curvilinear relationship between PT and NEPP. We also hypothesize that there would be a negative relationship between PT and NEPP in nondemocratic countries.ResultThe analysis of the data confirms the first hypothesis, which is our main contribution. We also found that the negative relationship in the second hypothesis exists and is linear.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that respondents in each set of countries interpret trust and participation differently. In democracies, citizens engage in NEPP when they have a medium level of trust in political institutions, and in other regimes, citizens take that risk only when their mistrust of the institutions of the regime falls below a certain level.

Political Context and Political Participation Across the Lifespan in Africa

Gerontologists have long documented how age is associated with political participation. However, few studies have considered how macrocontextual factors shape participation across the life span. Moreover, very few studies have dealt with political engagement and aging in emerging democracies, including those in Africa. This study addresses those gaps, integrating the most recent three waves of Afrobarometer survey data (2011–2018) with country-level data from the freedom house (i.e. freedom index). Findings reveal that, at the individual level, an age gap widens for engagement in protests and shrinks for electoral and non-electoral political participation. When the political context is considered, however, we find that political freedom softens the drop-off of protest behavior at later ages. For electoral and non-electoral political participation, we find that freer countries lessen the expected growth in engagement across the life span. The study implies that political oppression shapes the links between age and political behaviour, but the processes seem different depending on whether they are engaging in risky (where the age gap widens) or non-risky (where the age gap shrinks) political forms of engagement.

Taking to the Streets in Germany – Disenchanted and Confident Critics in Mass Demonstrations

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the socio-demographic attributes and political attitudes of protesters in Germany. In doing so, the paper studies participation at demonstrations, one of the key forms of non-electoral political participation in Germany and a central political arena in which to negotiate political and cultural conflicts. Methodologically, we draw on original data from nine protest surveys collected between 2003 and 2020. The demonstrations under scrutiny address a wide variety of issues such as peace, climate change, global justice, immigration, international trade and social policy. Analysing protesters’ profiles, we focus on differences both within and across demonstrations. We show that demonstrators’ socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics diverge considerably across the surveyed demonstrations. In particular, we identify two clusters of demonstrations, differing most prominently regarding participants’ political trust, satisfaction with democracy, and perceptions of self-efficacy – the ‘disenchanted critics’ and the ‘confident critics’. Based on a regression analysis across all nine demonstrations, we further show that the distinction of these two demonstration clusters is not the result of the presence or absence of certain groups of demonstrators.

Race and non-electoral political participation in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States

AbstractThis paper examines the context-dependent role of race as a predictor of non-electoral political participation. Prior country-level studies have documented group-level differences in a variety of forms of participation in South Africa and the United States, but have found few to no differences in Brazil. Why are members of one group more engaged in certain political activities than members of other groups only in specific contexts? Why do members of socioeconomically deprived groups, such as non-Whites, participate more than better-off groups in acts that require group mobilization in South Africa and the United States but not in Brazil? Results from the World Values Survey and the International Social Survey Programme show that Blacks and Coloureds in South Africa and Blacks in the United States participate more than Whites in activities that demand prior organization and mobilization, whereas group differences are negligible in Brazil. I argue that (1) race as a driver of political mobilization is conditional on the existence of politicized racial identities; (2) members of groups that share a strong collective identity participate in direct political action more than predicted by their socioeconomic background; (3) politicization of identities is the product of racial projects that deploy the state apparatus to enforce group boundaries for the implementation of segregationist policies as well as the reactions against them; and (4) by enforcing group boundaries, those systems unintentionally create the conditions for the formation of politicized group identities. In the absence of such requisites, political mobilization along racial lines would be weak or nonexistent.

‘Let’s agree to disagree’: political disagreement with contact ties and non-electoral political participation

‘Let’s agree to disagree’: political disagreement with contact ties and non-electoral political participation

Meet the victim: Police corruption, violence, and political mobilization

AbstractRecent literature has analyzed the relationship between governmental corruption and political behavior, focusing on voting turnout (Stockemer, LaMontagne, & Scruggs, 2013). Fewer studies have examined the impact of corruption on nonelectoral political participation. This article fills this gap by examining how nonelectoral political participation is influenced by corruption within one of the most important institutions dealing with citizens' welfare and safety: the police. We focus our research on Mexico because the effects of police corruption have been increasingly felt in the country in recent decades. We find that experiences of police corruption raise the likelihood of taking the streets to protest. Interestingly, we also find that corruption experiences specifically with police bureaucracies lead to greater likelihood of nonelectoral participation through institutional channels. We also report that the combination of police corruption and violent crime alienates citizens from the political sphere.

Measuring Non-electoral Political Participation: Bi-factor Model as a Tool to Extract Dimensions

Political participation is a mainstay of political behavior research. One of the main dilemmas many researchers face pertains to the number of dimensions of political participation, i.e. whether we should model political participation as a unidimensional or multidimensional latent construct. Over the years, scholars usually have favored the solution with more than one dimension of political participation and they have backed the claim of multiple dimensions with a number of empirical tests. In this paper, I argue that the results from the frequently used testing procedures which rely on the model fit inspection and the Kaiser criterion can be very misleading and may yield in extracting too many dimensions. By employing bi-factor modeling to a European Social Survey dataset, I show that in a majority of countries political participation can be considered an essentially unidimensional latent quantity. I demonstrate that additional dimensions of political participation are very weak and unreliable and that we cannot regress them on external variables nor build composite scores based on them. These findings cast doubt on the conclusions of numerous previous studies where researchers modeled more than one dimension of political participation.

The Non-linear Relationship Between Political Trust and Non-electoral Political Participation in Democratic and Non-democratic Regimes

The Non-linear Relationship Between Political Trust and Non-electoral Political Participation in Democratic and Non-democratic Regimes

Nonelectoral Participation in Deeply Divided Societies: Transforming Consociations from the Ground Up?

AbstractPremised on elite accommodation, consociations provide little consideration for citizens’ input on institutional change. Likewise, valuable analyses of cross-community political participation in divided societies have emerged in recent years, yet whether the relationship between the grassroot and formal political process has broader consequences remains to be fully explored. The article examines the conditions in which nonelectoral participation takes place and the ways in which actors involved therein negotiate constraints for continuous cross-community mobilization. The structure of political systems and the nature of deep divisions in Northern Ireland and Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina invite a comparison of the consequences of nonelectoral political participation in these two illustrative case studies. The article concludes that while the formal political context shapes the likelihood of engagement on a cross-community basis, whether nonelectoral participation changes the structure of political decision-making depends on the willingness and ability of those involved to cooperate with formal institutional politics.

Political Discussion Networks and Political Engagement among Voters of Color

Despite a large and growing literature documenting the powerful and positive role that political discussion networks exert on the political behavior among whites, we know little about how political discussion networks affect political behavior among voters of color. To fill this void in the existing literature, we conducted an original survey in California to gather information on a diverse group of registered voters’ political discussion networks and political engagement. The social positioning of ethnoracial groups in society, we contend, will affect how network characteristics explain their levels of political engagement. Our results support this contention. While we find that network characteristics, including network size, partisan homogeneity, and discussion frequency are positively associated with validated voter turnout and nonelectoral political participation, the effects are not uniform across black, Latino, Asian American, and white respondents. This is the first study that examines the relationship between political discussion network characteristics and political engagement among voters of color. Our analysis demonstrates that the opportunities for political integration and engagement offered by political discussion networks are not afforded equally across the U.S. electorate, which has important implications for broader patterns of engagement.

Work Values and Political Participation: A Cross-National Analysis

This study examines to what extent extrinsic and intrinsic work values are associated with nonelectoral political participation, such as signing a petition and taking part in a public demonstration. We examine whether individualism and economic factors at the country level moderate the relation between work values and political participation. Using data from two rounds of the European Social Survey covering thirty-one countries ( N = 55,927), results show that people who are extrinsically motivated are less politically active, while people who are intrinsically motivated are more politically active. Comparatively low national wealth weakens these relations. Findings also reveal that people who highly value extrinsic job rewards are even less politically active in individualist countries, whereas people who highly value intrinsic job aspects are more politically engaged in those countries. Overall, this study adds to understanding who is politically active and under which conditions.

What Matters? Non-Electoral Youth Political Participation in Austerity Britain

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, Britain’s young people have been disproportionately affected by policies of welfare retrenchment. Youth disillusionment with austerity has been cited as a reason for the youthquake witnessed in the 2017 General Election, where the Labour Party’s better-than-expected performance resulted in the loss of the ruling Conservative Party government’s parliamentary majority. The degree of one-party dominance among younger voters was unprecedented, with Labour’s aggressively pro-youth agenda paying dividends. However, this paper takes the attention away from voting behaviour and towards non-electoral forms of youth political participation in the UK. What are the strongest predictors of non-electoral political participation among young British people? Three possible predictors are explored: educational attainment, level of trust in politicians, and party identification. Three forms of non-electoral participation are considered: signing a petition, taking part in a boycott and sharing political messages on social media. Using a bespoke representative survey commissioned by Hope Not Hate, this paper finds that educational attainment does not have a particularly strong effect on non-electoral participation, with Labour Party identification being significantly associated with all three forms. A strong relationship is also discovered between identifying with a ‘minor party’ and non-electoral political participation among Britain’s young people.

Muslims in Great Britain: the impact of mosque attendance on political behaviour and civic engagement

ABSTRACTIs mosque attendance associated with withdrawal from civic and political life and the endorsement of politically motivated violence (PMV)? We draw from a large multi-ethnic survey in the U.K. to answer this research question. Our analysis is unique in that we compare Muslims to Christians to show that mosques, just like churches, can enhance the civic and political participation of their adherents. Drawing from scholarship on religious institutions, social capital, and social identity, we claim and empirically show that mosque attendance is associated with increased electoral and non-electoral political participation, higher levels of civic engagement, and the rejection of PMV. Our findings not only advance the current scholarly understanding of the attitudes and behaviours of Muslims in the West, but also have important policy implications in that they help dispel stereotypical and sensationalist accounts of Mosques and their adherents in the post-Brexit U.K.

Conditional Cash Transfers and Broad Political Participation

What is the relationship between conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) and broad political participation? If CCTs contribute to increased political participation, how do CCTs lead to more activity? Using data from a randomized field experiment as well as observational survey data from Mexico, I analyze the effects of CCTs on voter turnout in non-national elections and on non-electoral political participation. The evidence demonstrates that CCTs lead to broad electoral and non-electoral political participation. Several causal mechanisms are also considered. I argue that non-material resource mechanisms and interpretive mechanisms represent the most promising pathways to increased political participation.

How Context Matters? Mobilization, Political Opportunity Structures, and Nonelectoral Political Participation in Old and New Democracies

Scholars have long argued that political participation is determined by institutional context. Within the voter turnout literature, the impact of various institutional structures has been demonstrated in numerous studies. Curiously, a similar context-driven research agenda exploring the correlates of nonelectoral participation (NEP) has not received the same attention. This study addresses this lacuna by testing a political opportunity structure (POS) model of citizen activism across 24 old and new democracies using International Social Survey Programme 2004: Citizenship (ISSP 2004) data. Using a multilevel modeling approach, this study tests a competition versus consensus conception of how decentralized institutions determine NEP. This research demonstrates that states with more competitive veto points operating through systems of horizontal and territorial decentralization increase individual NEP. In addition, it interacts with social mobilization networks to promote greater citizen activism: Institutional context counts only when citizens are mobilized.

Truth Believers and True Believers: The Conditional Effects of Voluntary Associations on the Political Participation of Black Americans

Using data from the 1996 National Black Election Study, this investigation examines the impact of two kinds of voluntary associations on electoral and non-electoral political participation among Black Americans. It does so by examining the church’s context or environment and membership in organizations. We report several significant findings. First, both types of voluntary associations—church and secular organizational membership—are positive influences on both forms of political participation. Second, memberships in secular organizations are more influential facilitators of activism among Black Americans than the church. Third, the type of voluntary association matters in terms of the kinds of political activities promoted. The church promotes political activities that call for less energy and less resources. Membership in secular organizations is related to high-intensity forms of political activity.