Comparing Political Activism Worldwide Democratic Phoenix

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Comparing Political Activism Worldwide
Democratic Phoenix
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Structure

• Theoretical overview
• Civic decline or evolution in political activism?
• Evidence
• Trends in party membership civic activism
• Rise of protest and cause-oriented politics
• Generational patterns of activism
• Conclusions
• Causes consequences of trends?

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Democratic Phoenix (Cambridge University Press
August 2002)

• Introduction
• 1.       The Rise and Fall of Political Activism?
• 2.       Theories of Political Activism
• I. The Puzzle of Electoral Turnout
• 3.       Mapping Turnout
• 4.       Do Institutions Matter?
• 5.       Who Votes?
• II Political Parties
• 6.       Mapping Party Activism
• 7.       Who Joins?
• III Civic Activism
• 8.       Social Capital Civic Society
• 9.       Traditional Mobilizing Agencies Trade
  Unions Churches
• 10.   New Social Movements, the Internet
  Protest Politics
• Conclusions
• 11.   Conclusions From Loyalties to Choice?

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The civic decline thesis

• Half-empty ballot box? (Wattenberg)
• Desertion of party members? (Dalton, Mair)
• Partisan dealignment?
• Hemorrhaging union rolls?
• Emptying church pews?
• Anemic voluntary organizations? (Putnam)
• Rising political cynicism? (Nye et al)

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Model of change
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If participation is changing

• Causes?
• Long-term processes of societal modernization?
• Growing educational civic skills
• Decline of deferential loyalty to hierarchical
  institutions
• Gradual bottom up generational shift in
  critical citizens
• Result of changing institutions of representative
  democracy?
• Top down explanations
• Globalization, decentralization role of nation
  state
• Growth of cross-cutting issues not accommodated
  by parties
• Rational response to context of choices and
  channels of influence

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If participation is changing

• Consequences?
• Social inequality?
• Greater civic skills, more demanding acts?
• Who participates by class, income, education,
  gender, ethnicity
• Quality of deliberative democracy
• F-to-f interaction, on-going co-operation, social
  trust?
• Rise of more demanding citizens?
• For governance?
• Stability and violence?
• Fragmentation of policy process?

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Evidence civic activism
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Trends official party membersTable 6.1 Phoenix
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Party membership

• Decline in many Western nations
• Broader erosion of partisanship
• Yet substantial cross-national variations
• Does erosion of membership matter?
• For party in government?
• For party finance and staff?
• For party or campaign activism?

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US Turnout
US Turnout 59.5 in 2000, 63.8 in 2004
(Vote/VAP) Source US Census Bureau
www.census.gov
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Trends in Gross Union DensitySource Bernhard
Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser. 2000. Trade Unions
in Western Europe since 1945. London Macmillan.
CD-Rom.Note Net density I (Total union
membership as a share of the gainfully employed
wage and salary earners.)
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Union Density Table 9.1
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Interpretation

• No simple decline in union membership across
  Western Europe
• Substantial cross-national variations worldwide
• Institutional explanations not secular trends

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Secularization Trends Church attendance
Eurobarometer 1970-2000
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Interpretation?

• Evidence of secularization in W.Europe
• Development is linked to secularization
• Political implications?

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Experience of Political Activism
Source WVS mid-1990s
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Rise of Protest Politics Have done in 8
postindustrial societies WVS
Source World Values Surveys
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Protest democracy
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Protest econ development
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Generational shifts?
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Age differences?

• Age differences?
• If so three possible causes
• Generational effects,
• Period effects, and
• Lifecycle effects.
• European Social Survey 2002
• 15 European nations (22)

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Type of acts

• Citizen-oriented repertoires
• Voted
• Contacted a politician or official
• Donated money to political organization
• Party member
• Worked for a political party
• Cause-oriented repertoires
• Bought products for political reasons
• Signed a petition
• Boycotted certain products
• Lawfully demonstrated
• Took part in illegal protest

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Age profile of activists
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Citizen-oriented acts
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Citizen-oriented acts by cohort
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Mean age of activists
Note Whether the respondent did these acts
during the previous 12-months Source The
European Social Survey, 2002
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Causeoriented acts
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Cause-oriented acts by cohort
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Age of members
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Membership in associations
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Conclusions

• From the politics of loyalties to the politics of
  choice?
• Citizen oriented action peak in middle age
• Cause-oriented acts most common among young
  people
• Associations Mixed pattern
• Young people not more engaged in new social
  movements

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Discussion Questions

• Does this reflect your own experience?
• If so, what are the causes?
• Globalization reducing the power of the
  nation-state?
• Rise of more critical citizens?
• And what are the consequences?
• For democracy
• For governments policy process