Political Participation:
Dimensions, Theories and Determinants
Paper submitted to the Utkal University
In partial fulfilment of the requirement of
Pre-PhD Course Work in Political Science
By
Tapas kumar Sarangi
PG Dept. of Political Science
Utkal University
Bhubaneswar-751004
January 2019
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Political Participation:
Dimensions, Theories and Determinants
Contents
Introduction .............................................................................................. 2
Defining the concept ................................................................................. 3
Dimensions ................................................................................................ 4
Theories..................................................................................................... 8
Determinants .......................................................................................... 11
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 17
References............................................................................................... 18
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Political Participation:
Dimensions, Theories and Determinants
Introduction
Aristotle defines the human being as a “political animal”. Involvement in
collective decision making is both an obligation owed to the community and an exercise
in personal development. High levels of political participation are usually associated
with democracy and, therefore, considered beneficial to both the individual and the
society. Political participation gained significance as a result of the modernization
process and as a component of modern societies. Modernization first of all affects the
nature of the participation. While modernization increases autonomous participation,
it decreases the amount of the mobilized participation. Secondly, the motives ensuring
participation increases with modernization. There are four motivations here namely;
deferential, solidarity, instrumental and civic. Thirdly, basis of the participation will
change. In traditional societies, individual identifies himself/herself with his family, clan,
tribe or communal group such as village, religion, religious group but with
modernization class-based participation increased. Lastly, modernization affects the
amount of political participation. With social and economic modernization, amount of
participation also increased.
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Defining the concept
It is understood that there is also no universally accepted definition of this
concept. Therefore, it is very important to determine which actions are to be included
in the political participation researches. Political participation can be loosely defined as
citizens’ activities affecting politics. Within a political system, individuals perform some
actions in order to affect directly or indirectly the decision-making of the political
administrators. These actions may range from voting to participate in a candidate’s
campaign, to collect signatures, or participating in boycotts or meetings. In addition,
individuals may follow political agenda via mass media or may make their voices heard;
they also perform a political attitude and action by discussing political issues within their
family or friends.
According to Verba and Nie (1972) political participation refers “those activities by
private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of
governmental personnel and/or the actions they take”
Conway (2000) defines as “means those activities that attempt to influence the
different levels of government such as its structure, policies or officials.
When those definitions mentioned above are reviewed, it is observed that participation
is largely defined intensively as the actions performed by individuals to elect the
persons to come to power and affect their decisions. In this process, it is observed that
individuals conduct some actions and activities in order to make their voice heard by
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the political power to let them know about their political attitudes and believes and in
order to affect their decisions. In this context, political participation, in its broadest
sense, may be defined as the totality of actions that are performed to elect the political
power figures and to affect their decisions.
Dimensions
Political Participation is a multi-dimensional concept. It has been measured in
its different dimensions and classified by different scholars.
Dahl (1963) expresses that individuals in the political system are interested in
the political life to the same extent. While some stays away from politics, some are quite
active in this respect. Some of the individuals interested in politics seek power and the
power they gain is different from one another. He indicates that these as apolitical
strata, political strata and power seekers included in these strata and the powerful
included in these seekers. In addition, there are four levels of political participation for
the individual who takes place in the political strata. These are curiosity, interest,
information and action.
Curiosity refers to the desire of the individual to know what’s going on; interest
means the level of individual’s caring about political events; information refers to the
amount of the individual’s knowledge on the political events; and action means how
much an individual may affect political decision.
However the former three influences political participation, not a form of
participation in itself.
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Milbrath (1965) defines individuals’ relationships with the political system as
multifarious. For him some individuals, take the system for granted and are concerned
only to adjust their behaviour to its demands; others want to improve or transform it.
Some have only passive relationship to the system, while others are very actively
involved. As a summary; some people are active in terms of political participation, while
some others not. He divides political action into two, namely passive and active. Active
participants are further divides into instrumental and expressive, depending on their
goals. He defines this expressive-instrumental differentiation as the former focuses on
symbol manipulation; mere engagement in the behaviour is satisfying or drive-reducing
while the latter is oriented toward manipulating and changing things. He put the actions
in a hierarchical order and established a political participation pyramid. However, he
also stated that the order of each item included in this hierarchy could change from
election to election, decade to decade and country to country. Spectator activities take
place at the bottom, transitional activities occupy the middle and gladiatorial activities
take place at the top.
Spectator activities: Exposing one to political stimuli, voting, initiating a political
discussion, attempting to talk another into voting a certain way, wearing a button or
putting a sticker on the car.
Transitional Activities: Contacting a public official or a political leader, making a
monetary contribution to a party or candidate attending a political meeting or rally.
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Gladiatorial Activities: Contributing time in a political campaign, becoming an active
member in a political party, attending a caucus or strategy meeting, soliciting political
funds, being a candidate for office, holding public and party office.
These actions are included in a hierarchy and political action is cumulative. Individuals
who took part in a political action would take part much possibly in another one. The
individuals taking part in the top mentioned above participate also in the lower levels.
Thus, Milbrath stated typology of the act of political participation as apathetics,
spectators and gladiators.
Verba, Nie and Kim (1978) into four groups such as voting, campaigning,
communal activities, and contacting.
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Participation is also divided as autonomous and mobilized, based on the
individuals’ voluntary participation. In autonomous participation, individuals
participate in politics especially in order to affect the decisions of the political power.
However, mobilized participation means the actions that are defined by the persons or
people other than the actor.
Political participation also can be classified as conventional and unconventional.
Conventional political participation is composed of actions in accordance with
the rules and norms established by the political regime. These actions are considered
legitimate since they are expressed in the laws and constitution. Voting, participating in
election campaigns, making donation to the election campaign of a candidate, being
interested in politics, discussing political issues, wearing a badge of a political party,
becoming a member of a political party or having conversation with political people are
examples of such activities.
Unconventional political participation is composed of actions that are not in
compliance with the rules and norms established by the political regime. These are
considered as illegitimate actions. Publishing leaflets, arranging demonstrations or
meetings, forwarding collective petition, boycotting, and blocking building
entrances/exits are
Inglehart (1977), on the other hand, mentions conventional and unconventional
participation as elite-directed and elite-challenging.
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Elite-directed political participation is largely a matter of elites mobilizing mass
support through established organizations such as political parties, labour unions,
religious institutions, and so on.
The newer elite-challenging style of politics gives the public an increasingly
important role in making specific decisions, not just a choice between two or more sets
of decision-makers.
Theories
In this section the theories that explain how political participation is realized will
be briefly explained. Each of them attempts at explaining political participation is
realized by whom and how and why from different viewpoints.
SES Model
The socioeconomic status (SES) model is associated with Verba and Nie (1972).
According to this model, the factors determining political participation is closely related
with the socio-economic status of the individual. What is meant by socio-economic
status here is education, income and occupation. This theory suggests that there is a
positive relationship between higher socio-economic level and political participation.
(Milbrath 1965; Verba and Nie 1972; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980).
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Resource Model
Brady, Verba and Schlozman (1995) mentions the Resource Model going beyond
SES in measuring political participation. Time, money and civic skills are considered as
resources by them. While SES is quite successful in determining political participation,
it is rather inadequate in linking it to social status and in specifying activity. On the other
hand, rational choice clearly specifies how and why people might decide to involve in
politics but it is rather inadequate in predicting political participation. In this sense, they
states that how benefits take precedence over costs in rational choice concerning
political participation, and that in the process, costs are not reviewed in detail and
carefully. Therefore in the resource model, when resources are used, their costs are
also studied in detail. While time is related with working in a campaign, writing a letter,
attending a community meeting; money is considered to be related with donating
money to candidate. Civic skills, on the other hand, are evaluated as communicational
and organizational capabilities.
Rational Choice Theory
It is assumed that political participation is rational and it is suggested here that
individuals realize political participation in order to attain some goals. During this
process, the individual makes an analysis of the benefits to be gained and their costs. In
fact, being interested in politics involves a goal and the benefits thereof. Although goals
of individuals in political participation are different from each other, it is clear that they
calculate the gains or costs to be attained or imposed in the end. The Rational Choice
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Theory suggests that a cost-benefit analysis is made in political participation. Individuals
may vote in order to maximize their gains and minimize their costs, may assume duties
in the campaign of a candidate or a party, may participate in a petition, or may support
or object to a policy. Every political party and candidate makes some promises before
elections. These may be aimed at improving or totally changing the existing status.
However, this may involve some undesired outcomes for some people while bringing
about gains for others. At this point, it would not be wrong to argue that if the individual
is considered as a rational creature, then every individual would choose the most
beneficial option for himself/herself in terms of political participation.
Mobilisation Model
According to Rosenstone and Hansen (1993), people are not isolated individuals,
rather embedded in social networks. These social networks like churches, unions,
interests groups, and political parties mobilise the individual to participate. The
networks exert social pressure on the individual as well as reduce the cost of
participation.
Socialisation Model
This model focuses on how people learn political attitudes from birth. People
are socialised via different agents like family, peer groups, school, workplace etc.
Socialisation functions either through systematic training or by desire to conform the
behaviour of others like peer groups. So those people participate are those are
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socialised to participate. The political discussion with friends, relative etc. influences
them to participate.
Psychological Model
It is based upon the psychological engagement of individual with politics. Those
are more interested in politics are more likely to vote. It focuses upon individual
personality, their cognitive ability, their ideological standing, sense of efficacy,
identification with political parties etc. to explain political participation. The social
networks as emphasized in the socialisation and mobilisation model may augment the
political interest of the individuals. But in psychological model the factors of political
participation are rooted in individual psychology which is somewhat static.
Determinants
The determinants of political participation are one of the issues that are studied
most frequently by political participation researches. It is known that there are many
factors that determine participation. In the literature, it is associated with many
variables such as age, gender, education, income, occupation, settlement, social status
and organizational participation and it is also associated with interest in politics, family
and peer group socialization, political activity and psychological factors, as well. In this
section, the variables that are considered to have an effect on political participation and
how they affected political participation will be investigated.
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Age
It is known that participation increases by age, in general. Age is one of the
variables that are associated with participation most, in political participation studies.
It is observed that there is a tendency that as age increases, political participation
increases as well, and that the highest level of participation is realized in middle ages.
On the other hand, participation of young people is lower. Similarly, Milbrath (1965)
states that participation increases until a certain age and reaches peak level in ages of
40s and 50s, starting to decrease again after 60s.
Gender
Another major variable taking place in the political participation literature is
gender. According to the literature, political participation of men is more than that of
women (Milbrath, 1965; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980). Women always showed less
participation then men in the past. However, in 1970s, women with university
education with their 30s started to show almost the same rate of voting activity as their
younger male counterparts. Nevertheless, it is observed that women were less active
than men, in terms of campaign activities. Hence, it can be said that although voting
rate of women become equal to that of men, men are still more active than women in
certain forms of political participation, such as campaign activities, again, could be
related to the fact that women have fewer roles outside of their household.
Furthermore, the fact that men have higher level of education than women could be
another reason for lower participation rate of women. In this context, education level
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will be kept constant in the current study, in order to determine whether there is a
difference between the people who have the same level of education in terms of
gender.
Socio-Economic Status
In political participation studies, the link between political participation and
socio-economic status is one of the most frequently investigated issues. What is meant
here is that if one has higher socio-economic status (education, income and
occupation), he/she would involve more in politics than a person with lower socio-
economic status. The researchers also show that there is a relationship between higher
socio-economic status and higher participation rate (Verba and Nie, 1972; Wolfinger
and Rosenstone, 1980)
a) Income
Researchers conducted in this field shows that there is a relationship between
income and political participation. According to this, as income increases, political
participation increases, as well, in other words, there is a positive relationship between
them. Milbrath (1965) states that middle-income individuals show higher political
participation than low-income individuals; but that high-income individuals are not as
politically active as middle-income individuals.
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b) Occupation
The relationship between occupation and political participation is established
rather the status of the occupations. Many researches show that individuals with higher
occupational status have higher level of participation. Milbrath states that distinction
between white-collar and blue-collar in terms of occupations is the most traditional
distinction, and that while some researchers found the participation of the white-collars
was higher, some others concluded that there was no relationship encountered
between the two. Here, status of occupation is an important distinction and people with
higher occupational status would show more participation. Participation of
professionals and businessmen is higher.
c) Education
No doubt, education is the most emphasized variable among the socio-
economic variables. It will not be wrong to claim that with education, the individual’s
interest and knowledge concerning political issues will increase. In addition, as
mentioned before, a relationship between education and income could be established;
thus, education would also have a positive effect on political participation.There is a
very strong relationship between rates of voting and years of education. The most
significant effect in the framework of socio-economic status is observed to be made by
the variable of education. Moreover, as to the income-education relationship; the level
of participation of the people with higher education is also higher at all income levels.
One of the reasons why education increases participation is that it enhances civic skills.
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Therefore, even more complex and abstract political issues could be understood easily.
In addition, educated people get more satisfaction from political participation.
Education not only increases voting, but also participation in campaign activities,
organizational activities and other activity levels, as well. Furthermore, higher
education level leads the individual to follow up political events via mass media. This
enables the individuals to have information on political issues and make them take
place in politics, with their increased interest. Therefore, they may desire to participate
in politics, thinking that they could do something to change, improve or develop the
existing system.
Settlement
It is expected that with modernization process, political participation becomes
associated also with urbanization that emerges in parallel to this process. Because,
cities provide people with more education and culture means and facilities, and become
influential in the level of individuals’ consciousness. For this reason, the idea that urban
life has also a positive effect on political participation has become widespread. However
some studies found that in terms of participating in elections, villagers realized the
higher level of participation than urban people. Moreover, it is observed that there is a
relationship between the duration of a person’s residence at a place and his/her
participation.
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Socialization
According to socialization theory, rules and behavioural patterns are transferred
to children by parents, family, friends, and school. Because of the fact that the individual
has remained within these rules and behavioural patterns since his/her early childhood,
he/she tends to continue those rules and patterns. In this context, it is possible to claim
that family and peer group of the person also affect that person’s political participation.
Family is the first place where the individual learns about ethical, religious, social,
economic and politic values. Later, these values are reinforced by the individual’s peer
group and school. For this reason, if the individual’s family and friends have higher level
of participation, this would also affect positively the individual’s participation.
Political Mobilisation
Social networks like church, ethnic groups, interest groups, political parties
mobilise the people to participate. So participation is higher among individuals who are
members of such organisations.
Psychological factors
Psychosocial involvements in politics are a perceived as obligation to participate.
Interest in politics, interest in a current or upcoming political campaign, sense of
personal political efficacy, identification with a political party are associated with more
participation. There are positive and negative psychological variables which affects
political participation. While political activeness, citizenship duty, empathy and social
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assertiveness are considered positive factors; alienation, anomie and cynicism are
considered negative factors.
Conclusion
Political Participation is essential for every political system. If a political system
is to function, someone or the other must take part in it. In democracy participation is
the principal means by which consent is granted or withdrawn and the ruler are made
accountable to the people. However a very few people participate in political activities
except voting. This makes politics as a prerogative of elites. For making a democracy
successful masses must participate equally. A lot of research has been done to find out
the factors influencing political participation. However still no theory is able to fully
explain political participation. Moreover political participation is a multi-dimensional
concept. Different factors explain differently the different dimensions of political
participation. There is no unanimity in how to measure it. Validity and reliability is very
important to measure a social concept like Political Participation.
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Resource Model of Political Participation." The American Political Science
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Equality. New york: Harper & Row.
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Wolfinger, R.E., and S.J. Rosenstone. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
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