Participation - Revision

Question 1

Why should people participate?

Answer 1

• It exercises our rule of democracy

- Gives you a voice

Question 2

How can people participate?

Answer 2

• Voting in elections
• Joining pressure groups
• Joining political parties

Question 3

Give some evidence that people do participate:

Answer 3

• Pressure groups such as Friends of the earth encourage s its members to support a political party that endorses their views e.g Green party.
• Pressure group membership is on the rise - the National Trust for example has 4.5 million members.
• Many people are actively involved online. For example, many people engage with popular petition sites like change.org. For example, over 1.8 million signed a petition on change.org calling for Trump to be prevented making a state visit to the UK. It ended up getting debated in Parliament.

Question 4

Give some evidence for lack of participation:

Answer 4

• Electoral turnout has declined since 1992. In 1992, 77.7% voted but in the 2017 election the turnout has fallen to 68.7%.
• Party membership is declining too. In 1980, 4.12% of the public were members of political parties; today it has fallen to just above 1%.

Question 5

Judgement: What should we do about it?

Answer 5

• The UK is currently suffering from a ‘political participation crisis’ where the public are becoming increasingly disengaged with UK politics.
• Option 1 - Make voting mandatory in the UK
• In Australia, voting in elections is mandatory, and in the 2013 federal election, there was turnout of 93.45%, compared to the 2017 UK election turnout of 68.7%.