Democratic ideals and levels of political participation: The role of political and social conceptualisations of democracy

Abstract

Concerns about democratic legitimacy in contemporary democracies bring new urgency to understanding how citizens’ attitudes and ideals affect their political activity. In this article, we analyse the relationship between citizens’ democratic ideals and political behaviour in the European Social Survey’s 2012 uniquely extensive questions on these topics in 29 countries. Using latent class analysis, we identify two groups of citizens who emphasise different citizenship concepts as discussed by T.H. Marshall, namely, a political rights and a social rights conception. The multilevel regression analyses indicate that those who emphasise social rights have relatively high levels of non-institutionalised political participation, but are less involved in institutionalised participation. In contrast, those who emphasise political rights are more active in all forms of participation. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings that, even in an era of economic austerity, those who emphasise social rights are not the most politically active.

Preferences for Referenda: Intrinsic or Instrumental? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

“…Which of these three models is preferred also seems to depend on the issue at stake, as another study by Magdalena Wojcieszak (2014) shows: citizens seem to prefer direct decision making for what Edward G Carmines and James A Stimson (1980) called “easy” decisions and representative decision making for “hard” ones. Oser and Hooghe (2018) draw on data from the European Social Survey 6 (2012) to show that different “citizenship concepts” correlate with the willingness to engage in conventional and non-conventional political participation, while Lisbeth Hooghe et al (2017) find that strong democratic norms increase citizens’ dissatisfaction with democratic institutions and procedures, especially where the quality of government is low.…”

Determinants of political participation in Thailand: An analysis of survey data (2002–2014)

“…1 in the previous section, the term "active" and "passive" participant is introduced in terms of a continuum of political participationfrom traditional to nontraditional participations. 4 This continuum entails participatory action as simply as politically volunteering or contacting officials, which requires a lesser degree in expressive or instrument in participation, to electoral participation, which requires more degree in expressive and instrument in participation, to the other end, protesting which requires more psychological and physical engagement (Oser, 2017;Oser & Hooghe, 2018;Quaranta, 2013;Sloam, 2016). Political participation then was measured using responses to six questions that asked the respondents whether they: (1) voted in a recent national election;…”

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