The cognitive mobilization of organizational participation: Missing evidence from Italy (1972–2006)

Abstract

The Cognitive Mobilization thesis (CM) claims that the increasing educational levels in postindustrial societies bring about changes in the relationship between people's education and their participatory behaviour compared to the past. Younger, well-educated and more politically interested citizens are less likely to participate in political parties than poorly educated citizens, but more likely to join unconventional types of activist organisations.Using Italy as a test case, this study looks at whether the CM mechanism ought to be considered as a key factor shaping organizational participatory trends over time. Contrary to the CM thesis, we find that the highly educated continue to participate the most in political parties and that the gap between well and poorly educated in terms of their participation in activist associations does not become larger compared to the past.

Partisanship in times of crisis: evidence from Italy

“…Dalton's (1996Dalton's ( , 2014 cognitive mobilization thesis posits growing non-partisanship among the best educated. Yet, others report higher levels of partisanship among the best educated (Dassonneville, 2012), including in Italy (Poletti, 2015). We find that among non-partisans, higher levels of education are associated with greater support for M5S, consistent with Dalton's thesis that the best-educated are better able to map their views onto political parties and candidates.…”

“…We find that among non-partisans, higher levels of education are associated with greater support for M5S, consistent with Dalton's thesis that the best-educated are better able to map their views onto political parties and candidates. At the same time-consistent with Dassonneville (2012) and Poletti (2015)-better educated partisans are less likely to support M5S. As a result, better-educated non-partisans are more likely to support an anti-establishment party whereas better-educated partisans do not.…”

“…This insight aligns with Dalton and Wattenberg's (2002) claim that politically sophisticated and better-educated voters are "the new non-partisans who remain interested in the political process, but who are more likely to think of democratic politics in apartisan or even anti-partisan terms" (p. 263). 1 These findings thus underscore the 1 It is important to note that other researchers report contrary evidence, showing that the best-educated remain the most staunchly partisan (Albright, 2009;Dassonneville, 2012;Poletti, 2015). For the purpose of our argument, we focus on the role of education among non-partisans rather than its differential effect between non-partisans and partisans.…”

Partisan heart and/or rational mind? Party identification, political knowledge and electoral turnout

“…Similar findings showed that political sophistication increases vote intention switching (Dassonneville, 2014). Others failed to find evidence in support of the cognitive mobilisation thesis in different countries (Albright, 2009;Arzheimer, 2006;Huber, Kernell, & Leoni, 2005;Poletti, 2015), showing that cognitive mobilisation in fact does not decrease, but quite the contrary, increases the probability of being a partisan. Zaller (1992) also argued that party attachments should be the strongest just for the cognitively sophisticated because they are best able to filter out information that conflicts their political predispositions.…”