Disavowing Politics: Civic Engagement in an Era of Political Skepticism

Bennett, Elizabeth A.; Cordner, Alissa; Klein, Peter Taylor; Savell, Stephanie; Baiocchi, Gianpaolo

doi:10.1086/674006

Cited by 58 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…This is a confirmation of the sociological literature that shows that Americans avoid talking about issues when framed as being political (Bennett et al. ; Eliasoph ).…”

Section: Results: Aversion To Hearing God Talksupporting

confidence: 77%

Aversion to and Understanding of God Talk in the Public Sphere: A Survey Experiment

Evans

2017

Scientific Study of Religion

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“God talk” occurs when a member of the public gives religious reasons for a policy claim. The legitimacy of God talk is the subject of great debate among sociological and political theorists of the public sphere. There has never been an empirical study of the general public's views of the legitimacy of God talk itself. Using a vignette survey experiment, I find among the overall public that there is a statistically significant but extremely small degree of aversion to hearing God talk. Additionally, respondents claim to be able to understand God talk just as well as claims justified by science. Aversion to hearing and understanding God talk do differ by the religion of the respondent. I conclude with a discussion of how these results may influence theoretical debate about the public sphere.

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“…This is a confirmation of the sociological literature that shows that Americans avoid talking about issues when framed as being political (Bennett et al. ; Eliasoph ).…”

Section: Results: Aversion To Hearing God Talksupporting

confidence: 77%

Aversion to and Understanding of God Talk in the Public Sphere: A Survey Experiment

Evans

2017

Scientific Study of Religion

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“…Instead, they evade the system by engaging in meaningful activities outside the political-institutional infrastructure of voting and parties (cf. Eliasoph, 1998;Bennettt et al, 2013). The power-orientation theory presented here thus does not so much contradict as contextualise the channelling discontent thesis that is often mentioned as one of the benefits of populism for democracy.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 46%

“…Not much is known about the motivations of non-voters, but research does show that abstention from electoral participation does not unequivocally imply complete disengagement (e.g. Doppelt & Shearer, 1999;Wuthnow, 2002;Shyrane, Fieldhouse, & Pickles, 2006;Bennettt, Cordner, Klein, Savell, & Baiocchi, 2013;Hooghe & Marien, 2013). People can perform meaningful political activities via other means too, as will become clear below.…”

Section: Meaningful Political Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Channelling discontent? Non-voters, populist party voters, and their meaningful political agency

Kemmers

2017

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

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This article assesses the assumption that populist parties form an efficacious exhaust valve for voters, the channelling discontent thesis, as it is termed here. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Dutch PVV voters and (deliberate) nonvoters, I assess this thesis in a comparison between them. This analysis shows that non-voters do not lack political fulfilment on two of the three dimensions of efficacy I distinguish. On the third, it is not electoral participation, but respondents' perceptions of the locus of political power that explains differences in what I term 'meaningful' political agency. This inductively generated power-orientation theory contextualises the channelling discontent thesis, demonstrating that it only effectively applies to those citizens who share the definition of the situation the thesis assumes. I argue that these findings highlight an institutional blind spot in the study of populism and political discontents, and make a case for a cultural-sociological perspective.

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“…Civic engagement can be seen as citizens working together to make a change or a difference in their community (Delli, 2016), and includes communities working together in both political and non-political actions (Bennett, Cordner, Taylor Klein, Savell, et al, 2013). In this paper, I investigate how a 1.5 generation woman (Rumbaut, 2002) from a specific linguistic community (Low German-speaking Mennonites (LGMs) returning to Canada from Mexico) works to address issues of public concern in and through her talk about her experiences as a student and as a mother or children enrolled in a public school in Canada.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speaking Mennonite at School: A Narrative Analysis of the Role of Language in Immigrant Educational Experiences

Robinson¹

2017

L & L

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This paper examines the ways in which 1.5-generation immigrant mothers from a marginalized minority group (Low German-speaking Mennonites from Mexico) construct school experiences in relation to language. Starting from the perspective of identity as being constructed in language, analysis of audio-recorded interviews and focus group discussions collected during 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork demonstrates a connection and an inherent tension between the ways in which participants construct their own experiences and how they construct their children's experiences. Results illustrate the impact of language and literacy on their identity constructions, the use of language as an act of civic engagement, and how the agentive capacity demonstrated through these constructions both engages with and contests broader social processes.

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Disavowing Politics: Civic Engagement in an Era of Political Skepticism

Cited by 58 publications

References 32 publications

Aversion to and Understanding of God Talk in the Public Sphere: A Survey Experiment

Aversion to and Understanding of God Talk in the Public Sphere: A Survey Experiment

Channelling discontent? Non-voters, populist party voters, and their meaningful political agency

Speaking Mennonite at School: A Narrative Analysis of the Role of Language in Immigrant Educational Experiences

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