lecture 6 Flashcards
Political culture – defined as a set of
orientations towards political objects
■ 4 classes of political objects
■ 3 types of political cultures
■ The relevance of Almond and Verba’s research and the concept of the civic culture
Political participation
pt. 1
■ Definitions of political participation, civic engagement and civic
disengagement
■ Modes of political participation
■ Possible causes of civic disengagement
Political participation
■ Df. „the act of taking part in the formulation, passage or
implementation of public policies” [Heywood 2013: 444]
■ Modes:
– Voting
– Party campaigning
– Communal activity
– Contacting a representative or official about a particular personal
matter
– Taking part in demonstrations, signing (online) petitions
Heywood 2013
On the face of it, it seems odd to suggest that politics is in crisis. In some respects,
politics has never been healthier. Dramatic demonstrations of ‘people power’
have brought authoritarian regimes to their knees, as occurred in the Eastern
European Revolutions of 1989–91 and the Arab Spring (see p. 88), and the seemingly
remorseless advance of democratization (see p. 272) has led to a major
expansion of political and civic rights. Insofar as politics (in the sense of
compromise and consensus-building, see pp. 8–9) constitutes a distinctively
non-violent means of resolving conflict, the long- and short-term decline in
violence that has occurred mainly, but not only, in western societies (Pinker,
2011) surely provides evidence of both the effectiveness of politics and its wider
use. Yet, in other respects, a heavy cloud hangs over politics. In particular,
growing numbers of people appear to be disengaging from the political process,
or expressing disenchantment with it. Why is politics coming under attack? Has
politics become a problem, rather than a solution?
Declining civic engagement?
It has long been assumed that the level of civic engagement is an indication of
the health of a political system. Democratic theorists have certainly argued that
one of the key strengths of democratic rule (examined more fully in the final
section of this chapter) is that it offers wider opportunities for popular participation
than any other form of rule, ensuring not merely government for the
people, but also government by the people. Yet, however hard-won the rights of
political participation may have been, especially the right to vote in free and fair
elections, there is evidence (from mature democracies in particular) that citizens
are becoming less interested in using these rights.
For instance, in the period 1945–97, average voter turnout in UK general
elections usually remained above 75 per cent, with a postwar high of 84 per cent
being achieved in 1950. The turnout in the 2001 general election nevertheless fell
to 59 per cent, the lowest figure since 1918. Although the turnouts in 2005 and
2010 rose marginally (to 61 per cent and 65 per cent, respectively), these figures
were still more than 10 per cent below the 1945–97 average, and occurred despite
the wider use of postal voting (in 2005) and the first use of televised leaders’
debates (in 2010). In Canada, voter turnout in federal elections plummeted
during the 1990s from levels, once again, usually above 75 per cent to an average
of 61.5 per cent in the elections held between 2000 and 2011. As elsewhere,
declining voter turnout in Canada has been particularly evident amongst
younger voters, creating a situation in which only about one third of first-time
voters now actually vote, half the rate of a generation ago. Similar trends can be
found across Western Europe, in Japan and in parts of Latin America, leading to
the estimate that voter turnout has decreased globally by about 5 percentage
points since the 1950s (Lijphart, 1996).
Civic disengagement goes well beyond non-voting, however. As discussed in
Chapter 10, political parties in many parts of the world appear to be failing in
their traditional role as agents of popular mobilization and political participation.
This has been evident at a number of levels. Fewer people ‘identify’ with
political parties than they once did, in the sense of having a psychological attachment or loyalty towards a party. This trend is called partisan dealignment (see p.
217), and has been associated with more volatile voting behaviour and a growing
willingness to vote for ‘fringe’ parties. There is also evidence of a major longterm
decline in party membership across established democracies. During the
1980s and 1990s, party membership dropped by one million or more in Italy,
France and the UK, around half a million in Germany, and close to half a million
in Austria. Norway and France have lost well over half their party members since
the 1980s, while fewer than 1 per cent of adults in the UK belong to political
parties, down from 7 per cent some fifty years ago.
Declines in party membership are also matched by declines in levels of party
activism. Party members have increasingly become ‘cheque book members’, who
are prepared to pay their membership fees but are less inclined to attend regular
meetings or, in particular, get involved in canvassing or campaigning. Civic
disengagement may nevertheless go beyond conventional forms of political
participation, such as voting, party membership and campaigning, and affect
wider civic participation, in the form of church attendance, membership of
professional societies, sports clubs, youth groups and parent-teacher associations,
and the like. Robert Putnam (see p. 176) has interpreted such trends as
evidence of declining ‘social capital’ (see p. 175) in the USA and, by extension,
other industrialized countries, and of the emergence of a ‘post-civic’ generation.
However, the notion that modern societies suffer from a ‘participation crisis’
has also been criticized. The problem may not be so much that the overall level
of political participation has fallen, but that there has been a shift from one kind
of participation to another. In particular, as disillusionment and cynicism with
mainstream politics has grown, there has been an upsurge in interest in pressure
group politics, protest movements and the use of ‘new media’ to facilitate
political debate and activism (see p. 190). The rise of what has been called the
‘new politics’ – reflecting more fluid, participatory, non-hierarchical and, possibly,
more spontaneous styles of political participation – has been linked, variously,
to the emergence of post-industrial societies (as discussed in Chapter 7)
and to the spread of ‘postmaterialist’ values (as discussed in Chapter 8). As such,
it may reflect a shift from a traditional conception of citizenship to a kind of
‘reflexive’ citizenship, through which citizens seek a more critical and reciprocal
relationship with the structures of power.
The perception that politics is in crisis arises not merely from concerns about
civic disengagement, but also from evidence of growing cynicism about, and
even anger towards, mainstream political parties and politicians. What appears
sometimes to be a breakdown in trust (see p. 87) between the public and the
political class in general, sometimes seen as the rise of ‘anti-politics’, does not
simply encourage citizens to turn away from politics and retreat into private
existence. Instead, it has spawned new forms of politics, which, in various ways,
seek to articulate resentment or hostility towards conventional political structures.
Although such hostility is based on a common perception that established
political elites are ‘out-of-touch’, ‘privileged’, ‘corrupt’ or ‘self-serving’, anti-political
groups and movements have taken very different forms. Certain forms of
anti-politics clearly overlap with ‘new politics’, as in the case of the upsurge in anti-capitalist or anti-globalization protests since the late 1990s. The anti-capitalist
movement has embraced an activist-based, theatrical style of politics that
is sometimes called the ‘new’ anarchism. Its attraction, particularly to young
people, is its resistance to compromise for the sake of political expediency, borne
out of a suspicion of structures and hierarchies of all kinds (including governmental
arrangements and conventional parties), and the fact that it offers a form
of politics that is decidedly ‘in the moment’.
However, anti-politics has also been articulated though a range of rightwing
groups and movements that have arisen in recent decades. In many parts
of Europe, for example, far right or ‘neo-fascist’ groups have emerged that mix
an appeal based on opposition to immigration, multiculturalism (see p. 167)
and globalization (see p. 142) with avowed support for the ‘common man’ in the
face of ‘corrupt’ economic and political elites. Similar tendencies have been
evident in the Tea Party movement in the USA, which has emerged since
2009–10. Taking its name from the 1773 Boston Tea Party (a political protest
against colonial British tax policies, in which tea was thrown into Boston
Harbour), the Tea Party has built a separate and distinct political identity for
itself around the commitment to tax cuts, reductions in federal government’s
spending, support for unregulated markets, limited government and a strictly
literal interpretation of the US constitution. The overwhelming target of the Tea
Party’s lobbying and agitation has been ‘Washington’, represented both by the
Obama administration and its supposed imposition of ‘big government’, and
‘weak willed’, mainstream conservatives in the Republican Party, in both
Congress and the states. Nevertheless, there has been disagreement about the
extent to which the Tea Party should be viewed as a genuine spontaneous, grassroots
‘anti-political’ movement, or as the creation of wealthy interests, intent on
using populism (see p. 307) to further the agenda of a small number of rich
individuals in the USA.
The issue of civic disengagement – who is to blame?
■ Politics ■ Politicians and parties ■ The media ■ Modern society and its culture ■ The public Heywood 2013
Although there is ongoing, and possibly irresolvable, debate about whether the
overall level of political participation has declined, evidence of voter apathy
cannot be lightly dismissed. As all modern democracies are representative democracies,
elections lie at their very core. The level of voter turnout must, therefore, be
an important indication of the health of the larger democratic system. But who,
or what, is to blame for declining participation rates and, in particular, for falling
voter turnout? A number of possible culprits have been identified, as follows:
politics
politicians and parties
the media
the public
modern society.
Blame politics
Although it is common for civic disengagement to be laid at the feet of politicians
– they, after all, are the target of most of the criticism and abuse – the chief
trade-offs that are, at best, ethically imperfect (Flinders, 2012). So embedded in
political life are hypocricy, deception and double-dealing, that the public is
routinely left with a choice between, in Runciman’s (2008) words, ‘different
kinds of lies and different kinds of truth’.
Third, democratic systems create further difficulties for politicians by forcing
them to operate in a market in which each seeks to out-bid the others, inflating
expectations and making disappointment yet more certain. In short, democratic
politicians are always likely to promise more than they can deliver. In view of
this, it is no surprise that attempts have sometimes been made to replace politics
with technocracy, as has occurred in Italy (see p. 450). Once again, however, the
unchanging nature of these tendencies and pressures suggests that they are not
the cause of the modern trend towards civic disengagement. Nevertheless, there
are a number of reasons why may be held in their public standing may have
fallen even further in recent decades. These include the following:
Lack of vision. The shift from programmatic political parties to so-called
‘catch-all’ or ‘de-ideological’ parties (as discussed in Chapter 10) helps to
explain why modern politicians often appear to lack vision and a sense of
moral purpose. As modern politicians and political parties increasingly seem
to believe in nothing except getting elected, politics has become an end in
itself, and being a politician has become just another professional career.
Age of ‘spin’. One of the consequences of the modern media-obsessed age is
that politicians have become over-concerned about communication and
news management (as discussed in Chapter 8). The growth of what is called
‘spin’ creates the impression that politicians are less trustworthy than
before, and more willing to be ‘economical with the truth’.
‘All the same’. The declining significance of the left/right divide and the
emergence of managerial politics in place of ideological politics, means
that, regardless of their party allegiance, all politicians have come to look
the same and sound the same. The problem with this is both that, by abandoning
major issues and ‘big’ choices, electoral battles have become less
gripping and less meaningful, and that politicians have maintained their
adversarial rhetoric by dramatically over-stating minor or technical divisions
– a psychological tendency that Sigmund Freud referred to as ‘the
narcissism of small differences’.
‘In it for themselves’. The growth, in recent decades, of an industry of
professional lobbying has focused greater attention on politicians’ ‘outside
interests’ and on their sources of revenue other than from politics. This has
strengthened the image of politicians as self-serving and dishonest, and
created anxiety, generally, about declining standards in public life.
Blame the media
As discussed in Chapter 8, the media is sometimes charged with having created a
climate of cynicism amongst the public, leading to growing popular disenchantment
with politics generally, and a lack of trust in governments and politicians of
all complexions (Lloyd, 2004). This has occurred, in large part, because increasingly
intense commercial pressures have forced the media to make their coverage
of politics ‘sexy’ and attention-grabbing. Routine political debate and policy analysis therefore receive less and less attention, as the media focuses instead on – or
‘hypes’ – scandals of various kinds and allegations of incompetence, policy failure
or simple inertia. No longer are there ‘problems’, ‘challenges’ or ‘difficulties’ in politics;
everything is a ‘crisis’. Although the tabloid press in the UK is often seen as the
most advanced example of a media-driven ‘culture of contempt’, similar trends are
evident elsewhere. Healthy scepticism, which serves the interests of democracy and
freedom, may, thus, have turned into corrosive and aggressive negativity.
Blame the public
Are ‘we’ the problem? Is civic disengagement a ‘demand-side’ problem (stemming
from the attitudes and behaviour of the public), rather than a ‘supply-side’
problem (stemming from the performance of politics or politicians)? The argument
that ordinary citizens bear much of the blame for civic disengagement is
rooted in the allegation that consumerist attitudes and instincts, already widely
evident in society at large, are increasingly being applied to politics. It is in the
nature of consumerism (see p. 159) that people seek to acquire as much as possible,
but pay as little as possible in return. Insofar as citizenship is in the process
of being remodelled on consumerist lines, this implies that citizens are becoming
ever-more demanding of politics and politicians whilst, at the same time, being
less and less prepared to contribute to the maintenance of the political system in
which they live. Are we becoming a society of politically-apathetic ‘free-riders’,
who enjoy all the benefits of citizenship (schools, roads, free speech, economic
progress, public order and so forth) without accepting the associated costs, and,
especially, without bothering to vote? If this is the case, it is difficult to see how
the people can complain about the behaviour of politicians, or about allegedly
declining standards in public life – we get the politicians we deserve. Those who
explain civic disengagement in such terms, either wholly or in part, tend to advocate
one of two solutions. Either they call for improved education (for example,
compulsory citizenship classes in schools) to counteract consumerism, or they
support ways in which political participation can be made easier and more
convenient (such as postal voting or ‘e-voting’).
Blame modern society
The weakness in blaming the public for civic disengagement is that it suggests
that popular attitudes and perceptions emerge in a vacuum, when they are, in
important ways, shaped by the character of modern society. The social and
economic circumstances of modern society may have fostered civic disengagement
in two main ways. First, the spread of consumerist attitudes towards politics
– and, for that matter, other things – is less a consequence of rational
decision-making by independent citizens, and more a by-product of the growth
of consumer capitalism combined with modern technology. The advance of
neoliberal economic structures (as discussed in Chapter 6), which emphasize
aspiration and individual self-striving, weaken people’s capacity to think collectively
and tend to make forms of communal activity – the basis of civic engagement
– progressively less meaningful. The spread of neoliberalism (see p. 144)
has, moreover, damaged the image of politics in at least two ways. First, by
suggesting that political involvement in matters of economics and socialexchange is non-legitimate, it has forced political debate to revolve around technical
or managerial issues, rather than major projects of social transformation.
Second, it has associated politics with inefficiency and unwarranted interference,
certainly by comparison with the supposedly ‘higher’ sphere of private enterprise.
Modern information technologies have contributed to such tendencies, in
particular by allowing communication to take place without the need for faceto-face
interaction. Robert Putnam (2000), for instance, associated the decline of
social capital with, in particular, the growth of television.
The second major social and economic trend that has been linked to civic
disengagement is globalization. Globalization is often said to have contributed to
the advance of a culture of consumer capitalism, which has, as discussed above,
tended to ‘hollow out’ citizenship. Of no less significance, however, is the tendency
of globalization to diminish the capacity of political actors to ‘deliver the goods’,
leading to a profound crisis of both legitimacy and confidence in the process of
political deliberation (Hay, 2007). National politicians have thus been placed in
the uncomfortable position that, while they are confronted by rising demands
and expectations on the part of the population at large, their ability to respond to
these has shrunk, as domestic circumstances have increasingly been shaped by
events that are beyond their control. The ‘tyranny’ that global markets appear to
exercise over national economic decision-making may be the most obvious, but
certainly is not the only, example of this.
The concept of representation
■ „a relationship through which an individual or group stands for,
or acts on behalf of, a larger body of people” [Heywood 2013:
197]
■ „should representation be restricted to those who have the
competence. Education and, perhaps, leisure to act wisely and
think seriously about politics (variously seen as men, the
propertied, or particular racial or ethnic groups), or should
representation be extended to all adult citizens?” [197]
Heywood 2013
What is in fact represented?
–The views
–The values
–The interests
–The groups?
Four models of representation
■ Trusteeship
■ Delegation
■ Mandate
■ Resemblance
Voting behaviour
■ One of the most widespread and quantifiable forms
of political behaviour
■ Shaped by short-term and long-term influences
– Short-term influences specific to a particular elections,
such as the state of the economy, or the personality
profiles of the party leaders, or the mass media
– A more stable context of psychological, sociological,
economic and ideological influences
Heywood 2013
Models of voting
■ Models of voting – The party-identificaton model – The sociological model – The rational-choice model – The dominant-ideology model Heywood 2013
The party-identification model
■ „The sense of psychological attachment that people
have to parties” [Heywood 2013: 217]
■ Voting as a manifestation of partisanship, a party
belonging
■ A weakness? Partisan dealignment
Heywood 2013
The sociological model
■ Voting behaviour linked to group membership ■ The most significant of social divisions: – Class – Gender – Ethnicity – Religion – Region ■ The weaknesses? – Ignoring the individual – Weakening the link between sociological factors and party support (eg. Class dealignment) Heywood 2013
The rational choice
■ The perception of personal self-interest
■ Voting seen as essentially instrumental
■ Issue-voting
■ Weaknesses:
– Ignoring social and cultural contexts
Heywood 2013
The dominant ideology model
■ „Voters’ attitudes conform to the tenets of a dominant ideology”
(passed on via education, the government and the mass media”
[Heywood 2013: 219]
■ The electoral proces maintaining „the existing distribution of power
and resources in society” [219]
Ideology (df.) „a more or less coherent set of ideas that provides a basis for organized political action, whether it is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power relationships” [28]
Group politics
■ Types of groups
■ Interest groups classifications
■ Models of group politics
Types of groups
■ Communal groups
■ Institutional groups
■ Associational groups
