Political Mobilisation,Political Participation and the Power of the Vote

This article proposes a framework to recast our thinking about political participation. The approach adopted insists on the role of collective actors and their agents – the political elites – in the democratic process and, by implication, in determining the amount and forms of individual political participation. The proposed framework builds on a simple model of representative government and introduces some major changes in the political context which have become ever more conspicuous in the course of the last 30 years, and which are substantially modifying the conditions for conventional (electoral) and unconventional political participation. Prominent among these changes are the increasing role of the media in politics, and the decline of party control over the voters. These changes tend to enhance both electoral and non-electoral forms of participation. Another set of contemporary institutional changes reduces the electoral accountability of political decision-makers, with expected consequences that are more ambiguous for both electoral and non-electoral participation.     

Democracy and local political participation in Sumedang,Indonesia

Indonesia is a country that implements a democratic political system. As such, the involvement of society in the political process becomes very important. The purpose of this article is to research the democracy and local political participation in Sumedang. The study uses qualitative methods with primary data obtained from field observations and direct interviews of several informants. Additionally, the researchers use secondary data as a complement to the analysis. The results of this study indicate that the community at the local level truly understands the importance of political participation. However, due to disappointment in government performance, a part of the community has become discouraged from participating in the political process conducted by local governments. Several factors hinder efforts to encourage political participation. These include limited access to political aspirations that are still rare and the process of political education that is still low.     

Die Politik wirtschaftlichen Wachstums in autoritären Staaten

The article analyses the widely debated impact of democracy on economic growth. It is argued that an increase of political participation causes a shift in the support-seeking strategies of opportunistic governments. Pure autocrats rationally ensure political support by providing rents to a small group of supporters. With growing political participation, however, public goods become a more efficient political instrument. While rents are assumed to be economically neutral, public goods have an positive impact on economic performance. Hence, growing participation in autocracies is related to higher growth rates of per capita income. This hypotheses is supported by the data.     

论民营企业主的政治参与

随着民营经济的发展 ,民营企业家群体作为一个重要的社会阶层迅速成长起来 ,其政治诉求和政治参与开始显现且呈扩大趋势。本文首先就我国民营企业主的政治诉求和政治参与情况进行了分析 ,其次讨论了民营企业家地位模糊和政治参与渠道不畅及产生的后果 ,最后提出了建立制度化的民营企业主政治参与机制路径问题。     

Commuting and Citizen Participation in Swedish City-Regions

Commuting has become an increasingly important feature of modern life. Theories of public participation, such as the civic voluntarism model, claim that commuting is likely to reduce the time available for political activism. Based on data from an American context, Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone has concluded that this is exactly what happens. However, empirical studies based on European data on how commuting may affect political participation are rare. This article aims to address this question with regard to Swedish city-regions. Is there also a negative relationship between commuting and citizen participation in Sweden?
The analysis is based on survey data for 7,200 citizens from seven Swedish city-regions belonging to three different size categories. The relationship between commuting and several different forms of public participation is investigated, controlling for the variables suggested by the civic voluntarism model. The analysis indicates that there are no signs of a negative relationship and some aspects of participation are actually positively linked to commuting. These findings suggest that the civic voluntarism model needs to be revised, at least in a European context. The article ends with a discussion about how differences between Sweden and the US can be accounted for and what the more general consequences for democracy may be.     

Democracy-Speak: Party Manifestos and Democratic Values in Britain,France and Germany

This article analyses changes in party-manifesto references to democracy in post-war Britain, the French Fifth Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany in order to explore changes in political parties' statements about democracy. It finds that in recent decades parties in all three countries have generally become more supportive of and more vocal in their calls for citizen participation in political decision-making, with a related increase in expressed support for direct democracy and other opportunities for participation. It also finds that left-wing parties have tended to be more enthusiastic than right-wing parties. The article suggests that changes are most likely parties' responses to wider shifts in societal values, and it concludes with a discussion of the significance of democracy-speak for both parties and citizens.     

Analyzing the representativeness of internet political participation

Political participation researchers have developed several evaluative techniques to assess the representativeness of political participation patterns. Yet, while the Internet has become a mainstream avenue for political participation in the United States, current assessments of online participation insufficiently apply these methods. To incorporate these methods we begin by drawing upon resource theory to inform two-stage ordered-logit models of online and offline political participation. Our results suggest that the factors predicting online participation often differ from the factors that predict offline participation. Even so, we find that those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tend to disproportionately possess these distinct online determinants. Next, we use a wide spectrum of political opinion questions to determine whether online participators opinions reflect or distort those of the general population. Overall, we find that online participation tends to relate moderately with liberal preferences. However, because offline participation relates to political attitudes similarly, the Internet only marginally advantages the political voice of liberals. Finally, we discuss the implications of these results.     

Democratic Deepening in Third Wave Democracies: Experiments with Participation in Mexico City

After the initial transition to democratic rule the question of how to improve the quality of democracy has become the key challenge facing Third Wave democracies. In the debate about the promotion of more responsive government, institutional reforms to increase direct participation of citizens in policy-making have been put on the agenda. The Federal District of Mexico City constitutes a particularly intriguing case in this debate. This article explores how political participation developed in Mexico City between 1997 and 2003 and what effects this has had on democratic deepening. It develops an ideal-type conceptual framework of citizen participation that outlines the conditions under which participation contributes to democratic deepening. Overall, the case of Mexico City highlights how the promotion of participation can fail to make the aspired contribution to democratic deepening and might even have negative effects on the quality of democracy.     

Disaffected democrats: Political attitudes and political action in Portugal

Three decades after the fall of the Portuguese authoritarian regime, support for democracy has become widespread among the mass public. However, similarities between Portugal and other more established democracies should not be overestimated. In most of the latter, several studies have found increasing political and civic activism on the part of pro-democratic and politically sophisticated citizens, who are nevertheless increasingly dissatisfied with democratic performance. However, the most prevalent and consequential attitudinal-behavioural syndrome in Portugal is less one of ‘democratic dissatisfaction’ than one of ‘democratic disaffection’, entailing low levels of political engagement and participation.     

Risk Attitudes and Political Participation

This article contributes to existing explanations of political participation by proposing that citizens’ attitudes towards risk predict participation. I argue that people who are risk accepting participate in political life because politics offers novelty and excitement. Analyses of two independent Internet surveys establish a positive, significant relationship between risk attitudes and general political participation. The analyses also suggest that the relationship between risk attitudes and action varies with the political act: people who are more risk accepting are more likely to participate in general political acts, but they are no more or less likely to turn out in elections. Further analyses suggest that two key mechanisms—novelty seeking and excitement seeking—underlie the relationship between risk attitudes and political participation.     

网络政治参与和廉洁政府建设

互联网的发展促使一种新的政治参与方式——网络政治参与——出现并不断扩大,成为社会监督的重要途径。当前我国公民网络政治参与形态主要有网络舆论、网络社团、网络政治人及其精英等,广泛的网络政治参与对廉洁政府建设有着极为重要的价值和作用。首先,网络政治参与克服了传统的以权力制约权力的监督机制中的弱点,为监督机构充分履行遏制腐败的责任提供了丰富的信息资源,成为防止权力滥用的有效监督形式。其次,网络政治参与简化了反腐程序,激发了广大人民群众的政治参与热情,改善了整个社会反腐的文化观念氛围。最后,网络政治参与为人民参政议政提供了便捷的渠道,提高了决策的民主性与科学性,促进了廉政制度建设。     

Still a ‘Male Business’? Explaining Women’s Presence in Executive Office

This article aims to account for cross-national and over-time variation in women’s participation in cabinets. Specifically, it focuses on some key political factors which have not been tested yet, such as the effectiveness of party gender quotas. Previous literature has mainly centred on structural variables, such as the degree of democratisation and economic development. Using an original longitudinal cross-sectional sample of 23 advanced industrial democracies, this article provides new evidence that some important political factors should be considered. It finds that countries with a specialist system have a higher percentage of women in cabinet than generalist systems, left-wing parties in government appoint more women, women are more likely to receive a ministerial post when the governing party has adopted gender quotas, and an increasing number of women in parliament boosts women in cabinet. Furthermore, the article shows that these political variables perform differently through time, and that political factors have become more relevant in recent decades.     

Leadership Experiences Within Civil Organizations and Candidacy in Public Elections: Causal Evidence from a Quasi-Experimental Approach

Standing as a candidate in public elections has been characterized as the ultimate act of political participation. We test the hypothesis that acquiring office within civil organizations increases the probability of becoming a candidate in public elections. In order to take self-selection problems into account, we provide quasi-experimental evidence using election discontinuities, in which we compare the likelihood of being nominated for public office between closely ranked winners and losers in Swedish student union (SU) elections. Our original data cover 5,000 SU candidates and register data on their candidacies in public elections (1991–2010). The analysis provides support to the hypothesis: Students elected to SU councils were about 34 percent (6 percentage points) more likely to become a candidate in a public election than SU council candidates who were not elected. The causal impact is fairly stable over time. The analysis makes important contributions to two interrelated bodies of literature: First, it provides political recruitment literature with causal evidence that acquiring leadership experiences at arenas outside of representative democratic institutions facilitate entry into election processes. Second, it provides strong evidence to an increasingly contested issue within political participation research by showing that certain organizational activities increase individuals’ political involvement.     

Political participation,personality, and the conditional effect of campaign mobilization

Why are some people more responsive to campaign mobilization than others? I argue that the composition of a person's core personality makes some people more responsive to mobilization cues than others. However, the degree to which personality alters the effectiveness of mobilization also depends on the type of political participation for which people are being mobilized. I explore the determinants of political participation by looking at the interaction between the Big-5 traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability and the intensity of campaign environments. This paper demonstrates that despite the possible ameliorative effect mobilization has on unequal patterns of political participation, an enduring source of participatory inequality may very well be rooted in a person's core psychological structure.     

Gender,political participation and electoral systems: A cross‐national analysis

This article investigates whether the smaller gender gaps in political engagement, found in more proportional electoral systems, translate into smaller gender differences in political participation. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it presents the argument that more proportional systems may send signals that multiple interests are included in the policy‐making process, which may increase women's levels of political participation and thereby reduce gender gaps. Additionally, the article tests for the possibility that a greater number of political parties and the elected representatives they provide act as barriers to political participation that have a greater impact on women's levels of participation than men's. It is argued that women's lower levels of political resources and engagement might create more difficult barriers for them than for men. Results lend little support for the first hypothesis, but a greater confirmation for the second.     

Democracy,Government Spending,and Economic Growth: A Political-Economic Explanation of the Barro-Effect

The paper develops a political economicargument for the recently observed inverseu-shaped relation between the level ofdemocracy and economic performance. A modelis constructed that shows why and howpolitical participation influences thespending behavior of opportunisticgovernments that can choose an optimalcombination of rents and public goods toattract political support. If the level ofdemocracy remains comparably low,governments rationally choose rents as aninstrument to assure political support.With increasing democratic participation,however, rents become an increasinglyexpensive instrument while the provision ofpublic goods becomes more and moreefficient in ensuring the incumbentgovernment's survival in power. As a consequence, an increase in democracy tends toraise growth rates of per capita income.However, the beneficial impact of democracyon growth holds true only for moderatedegrees of political participation. If –in semi-democratic countries – politicalparticipation increases further,governments have an incentive toover-invest in the provision of publicgoods. This model allows to derive and testthree hypothesis: Firstly, based on asimple endogenous growth model, weempirically substantiate our hypothesis ofa non-linear, inverse u-shaped relationbetween the level of democracy and growthof per capita income. Secondly, we showthat the impact of government spending oneconomic growth is higher in moredemocratic countries. Thirdly, wedemonstrate that the level of democracy andgovernment share of GDP are correlated in au-shaped manner.     

The truth about youth? Media portrayals of young people and politics in Britain

Some forms of political participation in Britain appear to be in crisis. Official rates of turnout are alarmingly poor and the sub‐population least likely to participate in general—and vote in particular—is the youngest section of society. Moreover, the way that the media and and politicians have responded to the apparent crisis of youth participation has become a self‐fulfilling prophecy. A full review of young people's place in the political environment is needed. This requires the application of different criteria for evaluating youth interests, and the avoidance of some of the most routinely used phrases to describe young people's attitudes to politics. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

It's Not Just a Job: Military Service and Latino Political Participation

Using the Latino National Political Survey, this paper tests the hypothesis that military service serves to stimulate electoral and nonelectoral political participation by Latinos. The results are compared with those for Anglos (non-Hispanic whites). The data show that Latino veterans, and particularly draftees, exhibited higher levels of voting and low-intensity nonelectoral political activities. Anglo veterans did not increase their participation to the same extent. Service in the volunteer army was a much less important explanatory factor of both Latino and Anglo political participation. Military experience therefore has a greater impact on Latinos than Anglos, and the draft experience was more important than volunteer service.     

‘Citizens of the region’: Party conceptions of regional citizenship and immigrant integration

Citizenship is usually regarded as the exclusive domain of the state. However, changes to the structure of states resulting from decentralisation and globalisation have required a re‐conceptualisation of citizenship, as authority is dispersed, identities multiply and political entitlements vary across territorial levels. Decentralisation has endowed regions with control over a wide range of areas relating to welfare entitlements, education and cultural integration that were once controlled by the state. This has created a new form of ‘regional citizenship’ based on rights, participation and membership at the regional level. The question of who does or does not belong to a region has become a highly politicised question. In particular, this article examines stateless nationalist and regionalist parties' (SNRPs) conceptions of citizenship and immigration. Given that citizenship marks a distinction between members and outsiders of a political community, immigration is a key tool for deciding who is allowed to become a citizen. Case study findings on Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia reveal that although SNRPs have advocated civic definitions of the region and welcome immigration as a tool to increase the regional population, some parties have also levied certain conditions on immigrants' full participation in the regional society and political life as a means to protect the minority culture of the region.     

Organizational Resources and Methods of Participation

This report deals with the influence of various organizational resources upon methods of participation. We found it useful to subdivide the concept of political participation into four groups: Input participation, decision participation, consumer participation, and respondent participation. Using data from one city and one sector we cannot suggest any general conclusions. Our findings show these various methods of participation to be highly intercorrelated and that the various methods of participation - along with organizational resources as income and staff, the contextual variable, and preoccupation with the local system level - influenced each method of participation. This means that we have to take the positions of organizations in the political system into consideration if we want to study their participation in the political processes. The resources stemning from positions in the political system are perhaps more influential upon the method of participation than the traditional organizational resource variables.
The process of consuming public finances is not without political effects. Consumer participation is related both to decision participation and to input participation. Our study also indicates that it is wrong to assume closed models with no feedback loops when we study relations between interest organizations and public authorities.