Week 5: political participation en Caramani ch. 14 & 18 Flashcards
Political participation: how?
Many ways, different ways with different amounts of effort, but not only through parties:
- Political parties
- Social movements -> no formal membership, no infrastructure
- Interest groups -> membership, infrastructure. Centralized interests
Hierarchy of modes of political participation (Milbrath) -> least effort to most effort
Spectator, transitional, gladiator
Why political participation?
- Economists would say it’s a rational choice, because it requires a certain amount of effort. But: results of political participation are public goods, we cannot limit people in the enjoyment of these benefits.
- Will therefore lead to a collective action paradox (Olson): individual costs (effort) versus collective benefits (public goods). Creates a free rider problem.
Solution might be selective incentives -> to motivate rational individuals. For example extra insurance. But is only a partial solution
But: these economic theories don’t correspond with the numbers, people participate more than expected. Why?
- Not all people see political participation as a cost. Might actually give other benefits: enjoyment of voting and participating
- People might be strongly motivated by values and goals, political entrepreneurs are intrinsically motivated by these to participate.
- Social pressure might play a role
Political participation - who? Different factors
Macro factors
- Participation differs based on quality of democracy and
- Level of economic development
Meso factors (institutional factors that can make a difference in stimulating participation)
- Electoral systems -> proportional systems stimulate greater voter turnout. But also the way elections are organized, multiple elections on the same day. The day also matters, working day or weekend.
- Compulsory voting
- Labor organizations strength, opportunities and organization
- Opportunities for organizing interest associations
Micro factors (individuals)
- Resources -> education level, wealth, free time,
- Recruitment (by interest groups and political parties)
- Social networks -> peer pressure, educated groups, families
- Orientations -> ideology, attitudes
- Contextual clues -> country dependent
Heavily politicized social networks (micro)
Existence of large encompassing organizations and densely organized parties (meso)
Democratic institutions, strategic alignment among political forces (macro)
Nature of the party system (multiparty or two parties)
Voter turnout:
- Declined in the last few decades
- Citizens that live in free democracies are more likely to vote than voters in lesser democracies.
- Compulsory voting makes an average difference of 9%
- Voting is also strongly affected by age.
Interest groups (2 definitions)
Definition (Bently and Truman): associations that make claims to other groups in society
Definition (Wilson): Membership organizations that appeal to government but do not participate in elections
Formal properties of interest groups:
- Voluntary membership
- Bureaucratic structure of decision making
- Interest representation
But: these are based on functional equivalence. Context needs to be taken into account.
Interest groups action repertoires:
- Direct lobbying (inside lobbying) -> classic lobby from firms
- Contentious politics (outside lobbying) -> public demonstrations, protests, strikes
- Political exchanges -> union and employer associations who negotiate with government. -Exchange of goods with government
- Private interest government -> policy networks. can self regulate, binding decisions
But: these aren’t available to all interest groups in the same extent.
Theoretical views of interest group representation:
- Republican or unitarist tradition
- Liberal or pluralist tradition
- (Neo) corporatist tradition
Republican or unitarist tradition
- Interest groups undermine the general will of the people, threat to democracy. Particular interests should not prevail over the general will (Rousseau)
- The law is the expression of the general will -> all citizens (as individuals) have the right to contribute to its formation. It must be the same for all.
- Interests of society are expressed by the law, which is the general will.
- Not a contemporary view
Liberal or pluralist tradition
- Interest associations are an essential source of liberty (Tocqueville)
- Civil organizations are schools of democracy, training to fight against the tyranny of the majority
- As modern states would make individuals weaker, they would have to unite with fellow citizens to defend themselves against the despotic influence of the majority
- Relies on two debatable assumptions: (1) all people enjoy the same capacity to associate and (2) interest associations are equally distributed across the political spectrum
- Interest groups compete with each other for influence and dominance
(Neo) corporatist traditions
- Political system is body politic: one general will.
- The body politic is constituted by not only individual cells, but also by organs that perform different, but complementary functions. Therefore, it depends on the organic solidarity between its organs as much as on the vitality as its individual cells.
- No free battle: state protects and guarantees certain balance between interest groups. Some interest groups are far too important to be left to their own
- Free competition could lead to stronger interest groups prevailing over weaker ones, therefore it should be regulated to ensure a balance of power (mostly between capital and labour)
- For example: labor unions
Differences in collective action (labour and capital)
- Labour requires collective organization to be powerful
- Capital can rely on capital itself, because politicians and societies are dependent on it (on investments for example)
Interest groups and their action repertoires can be posed on two axis
- Autonomy from the political system
- Necessity of collective action
Ghent system:
governments delegated tasks like administering unemployment insurance to labor unions. Giving a very powerful selective incentive
The nature of political stakes shapes the organization of political participation
- Single issue causes typically result in social movements with little organizational structure
- Efforts mobilizing around a range of specialized issues that persist over time facilitate the construction of interest groups.
- Complex agendas of interdependent issues -> political parties.
