Standby citizens: diverse faces of political passivity

Abstract

The current debate on political participation is bound to a discussion about whether citizens are active or passive. This dichotomous notion is nurtured by an extensive normative debate concerning whether passivity is an asset or a threat to democracy; and it is especially manifest in studies of young people's political orientations. Drawing on this discussion, the present study goes beyond the dichotomy by keeping political interest conceptually separate from participation in order to improve our understanding of political passivity. Multivariate cluster analysis of empirical data on Swedish youth suggests that we need to consider three distinctive forms of 'political passivity'. In the paper we present empirical evidence not only of the existence of a particular 'standby citizen', but also of two kinds of genuinely passive young people: unengaged and disillusioned citizens. Alongside active citizens, these people are in distinctly different categories with regard to their political behavior. This entails a new analytical framework that may be used to analyze an empirical phenomenon that has received surprisingly little attention in the literature on political participation and civic engagement.

Theorizing Citizenship in Citizen Journalism

“…Empirical research in this area has centered on the nature of monitorial citizens in terms of the extent and nature of their levels of engagement with information and political participation, with studies in several countries finding evidence of distinct groups of citizens whose engagement and participation is selective (Lund 2006;Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007;Hustinx et al 2012). Criticism of the monitorial citizen model includes concerns about the passivity of citizens, both in terms of whether the extent and nature of monitorial citizens' selective engagement is sufficient to sustain democracy-for instance in the sense of the extent to which citizens are actually effectively able to understand, interpret and act upon information when only partially engaged-and also whether the model fails to differentiate between different kinds of passivity whereby presumed monitorial or "stand-by citizens" (Amnå and Ekman 2013) who have the desire and capacity to become informed and engaged when they decide to, need to be differentiated from those unwilling or unable to participate.…”

“…(Faulks 2000, 6) Outside of the citizen journalism literature, debates about what constitutes citizenship are a major feature of a significant body of academic literature (Putnam 2000;Annette 2010). Research has challenged idealistic conceptions of citizen behavior in terms of traditional practices of engagement and participation, looking at the variation in both the degree to and means by which people practice their citizenship (Amnå and Ekman 2013;Eveland 2004;Graber 2004;Henn and Foard 2012;Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007;Hustinx et al 2012;Livingstone and Markham 2008;Lund 2006;Schudson 1998;Walker 2002), particularly in relation to new media technologies (Bennett et al 2009;Coleman and Blumler 2012;Gerodimos 2008;Gil de Zúñiga et al 2012;Ikeda and Boase 2011;Kaufhold et al 2010;Pasek et al 2009;Scheufele and Nisbet 2002). Such literature highlights tensions within debates around citizenship, for instance in the distinction between civic and political citizenship (Heater 2004a(Heater , 2004bTheiss-Morse and Hibbing 2005;Annette 2010), revealing that the concept of the citizen is not an uncontested label to simply be tacked onto journalism.…”

Citizenship’s tangled web: Associations, gaps and tensions in formulations of European youth active citizenship across disciplines

“…While the finding that democracy is operationalized more in favour of those who govern than in favour of citizens will not be new to those who work in the field of citizenship research, this definitional tension between the democratic interests of different groups of citizens and the interests of the newly expanding body, the European Union, in relation to ways of regarding and promoting active citizenship and participation at a time of heightened economic uncertainty and new media connection informs our sample and analysis (below) and differentiates it from previous reviews of literature on citizenship and civic action. In examining existing scholarship in this arena (Amnå & Ekman, 2014;Benhabib, 1999;Hoskins & Villalba, 2015;Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2011 and many more) via a systematic meta-review, and in providing a critical epistemological take, this article presents original findings arising from (1) a quantitative thematic analysis of a corpus of 770 texts across 12 disciplines and sub-disciplines, and through (2) an in depth thematic qualitative analysis of methodologies, epistemologies, and ideological discourses in a selection of key texts across the corpus. Our findings problematize the key frames and themes that currently surround young people's active citizenship in a European context.…”

La desafección en las urnas las elecciones generales de 2015 en España

“…Those citizens have found a channel for their discontent which could activate them in the future into involved citizens. A part of disaffected citizens could be standby citizens (Amnå and Ekman, 2013), waiting for new actors who are able to engage them into politics. Disaffection at the Ballot Box: The 2015 General Election in Spain Standard errors within parentheses.…”