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![Page 1: PIDOP WORK PACKAGE 5 The extent and nature of political and civic participation across Europe Dr Ian Brunton-Smith, Department of Sociology, University.](https://reader035.fdocuments.net/reader035/viewer/2022062518/56649e005503460f94aea02b/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
PIDOP WORK PACKAGE 5 The extent and nature of political and civic participation across EuropeDr Ian Brunton-Smith, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey
Paper presented at the Surrey PIDOP Conference on “Political and Civic Participation”, April 16th-17th, 2012, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
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Aims• Analyse existing survey data on political and civic participation:• European Social Survey, Eurobarometer, International Social
Survey Programme, Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, World Values Survey
• Describe patterns of political and civic participation in different EU member states, over time and across key social and demographic groupings
• Identify variations in these patterns which occur within and between countries
• Examine possible causes of these variations – impact of macro socio-political context, demographic factors, and psychological factors
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Key findings
MICRO• Research reveals many political, social, and psychological factors
that facilitate and hinder political and civic participation• E.g. Political interest, internal efficacy, attentiveness, opinionation,
ideological identity, trust in institutions, perceptions of discrimination
• Differences in participation evident as a function of age, gender, and minority status (and differential contribution of political, social, and psychological factors amongst these groups)
MACRO• Differences in participation evident as a function of the broader
socio-political context in which people live• Partially shapes individual differences in participation
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Approach• Exploring the processes leading to participation• Structural equation models used to link psychological and sociological
processes that contribute to differences in political and civic participation• Compare processes based on gender, age, and minority status
• Examining the role of the broader socio-political context• Multilevel models used to examine country differences in political and
civic participation• Macro variables capturing the broader socio-political context introduced
to explain these variations• Macro context linked back to individual differences
• Linking together forms of participation• Latent class analysis to identify distinct groups of participation based on
4 types of participation (vote, conventional, non-conventional, civic)
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DatasetsSEM and Multilevel models• European social survey• 22 countries in Europe, multiple indicators of all concepts, high quality
sampling methodology• International Social Survey Programme• 39 countries, including some beyond Europe, focus on citizenship
• World Values Survey• 42 countries, limited information on participation (intention to vote only),
comparatively few independent predictors
Descriptive statistics• Eurobarometer • Time series data since 1970, voting only, inconsistent independent predictors
• Comparative Study of Electoral Systems• Voter turnout
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Political and Civic participationFour types of participation examined:• Voting• Intention or self report (survey specific)
• Conventional political activities• Contacting a politician, being a member of a political party, donating
political organisation or group, wearing a campaign badge, working for a political party
• Non-conventional political activities• Taking part in illegal protest activities, lawful demonstrations, buying or
boycotting certain products, signing a petition
• Civic engagement• Involvement in a social club, education or teaching group, religious or
church organisation, cultural or hobby group, sports or outdoor activity club, environmental or humanitarian organisation, business or professional group, or trade union
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European Social Survey (2002)
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European Social Survey (2002)
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European Social Survey (2002)
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European Social Survey (2002)
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Exploring the processes leading to participation
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• Exploring the processes leading to participation• Structural equation models used to link psychological and
sociological processes that contribute to differences in political and civic participation
• Compare processes based on gender, age, and minority status
• Measurement models to capture difficult to measure ‘latent’ variables – attentiveness, engagement, efficacy...
• Structural models to explore (direct and indirect) pathways to participation (probit regression)
• European Social Survey data (round 1) • Contained maximum number of potential explanatory variables
(multiple indicators)• High quality methodology for data collection
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Measurement models – independent variablesFactor loadings
B SE B(Std)
Attentiveness TV watching, news/ politics/current affairs on average weekday 1.00 0.00 0.47 Radio listening, news/ politics/current affairs on average weekday 0.96 0.03 0.40 Newspaper reading, politics/current affairs on average weekday 1.06 0.02 0.70
Political engagement (interest and internal efficacy) How interested in politics 1.00 0.00 0.82 How often discuss politics/current affairs 1.75 0.02 0.63 Politics too complicated to understand 0.75 0.01 0.48 Could take an active role in a group involved with political issues 0.93 0.01 0.51 Making mind up about political issues 0.74 0.01 0.51
External efficacy Politicians in general care what people like respondent think 1.00 0.00 0.80 Politicians are interested in votes rather than people's opinions 0.92 0.01 0.75
Institutional trust Trust in the police 1.00 0.00 0.82 Trust in country's parliament 0.86 0.01 0.66 Trust in the legal system 0.67 0.01 0.54 Trust in the United Nations 0.75 0.01 0.58
Social capital (trust) Most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful 1.00 0.00 0.76 Most people try to take advantage of you, or try to be fair 0.98 0.01 0.76 Most of the time people helpful or mostly looking out for themselves 0.83 0.01 0.65
FIT .975/.967/.032
Additional variables:• Opinionation – DK to 12 variables• Extremity of ideological identity –
strong left/right position• Identity threat – member of group
discriminated against• Social capital (meet people socially)Demographics• Gender• Age (under 25/25+)• Minority status (self rated)
Attend
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Towards a model of political participation
• Models derived from conceptual work undertaken in work package 4• Direct and indirect pathways to forms of political participation
• Exploratory work began with simpler models, before including full range of possible explanatory measures
• Final models selected based on modification indices and assessments of model fit
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Towards a model of political participation
• Models derived from conceptual work undertaken in work package 4• Direct and indirect pathways to forms of political participation
• Exploratory work began with simpler models, before including full range of possible explanatory measures
• Final models selected based on modification indices and assessments of model fit
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Towards a model of political participation
• Models derived from conceptual work undertaken in work package 4• Direct and indirect pathways to forms of political participation
• Exploratory work began with simpler models, before including full range of possible explanatory measures
• Final models selected based on modification indices and assessments of model fit
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Voting: SEM results based on probit estimationModel 1 Model 2
Estimate SE Z Estimate SE ZVote
Attentiveness 0.37 0.03 12.09 0.23 0.03 6.74Political engagement 0.35 0.02 17.98 0.44 0.02 20.70Institutional trust 0.06 0.01 12.07 0.07 0.01 13.08Extreme ideological identity 0.06 0.01 4.96 0.07 0.01 5.54Identity threat -0.35 0.03 -11.35 -0.29 0.03 -8.84
Opinionation Political engagement -0.57 0.02 -37.08 -0.57 0.02 -35.63Social trust -0.03 0.01 -5.84 -0.03 0.01 -5.67External efficacy -0.05 0.02 -3.39 -0.05 0.02 -3.02Identity threat 0.09 0.03 2.96 0.07 0.03 2.13Meet socially -0.07 0.02 -4.46 -0.06 0.02 -3.90
Extreme ideological identity
Political engagement 0.27 0.02 16.66 0.28 0.02 16.49Social trust -0.03 0.01 -6.08 -0.03 0.01 -5.86External efficacy -0.08 0.01 -5.57 -0.08 0.01 -5.42Identity threat 0.19 0.03 6.28 0.14 0.03 4.49
Demographics
Minority -0.40 0.04 -9.52Male -0.17 0.02 -9.52Young -0.86 0.03 -34.08
FIT .935/.966/.031 .923/.956/.032
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• Some similarities across models for different forms of participation• Positive association with political engagement (interest and internal
efficacy)• More politically engaged more opinionated and more extreme
ideological identity
• But also clear differences in predictors of voting, conventional, non-conventional, and civic engagement:• Positive link from political attentiveness to voting and civic engagement,
no link to conventional participation, and negative link to non-conventional participation
• People who feel their identity under threat are more likely to participate in conventional and non-conventional ways, but less likely to vote
• More opinionated about political issues more likely to participate in non-conventional ways and be civically engaged, but not vote or participate in conventional ways
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• Demographic differences in participation evident having adjusted for structural model • Young people less likely to vote, but more likely to
participate in non-conventional activities and be civically engaged• Minority groups less likely to vote or participate in non-
conventional activities• Men less likely to participate (with exception of civic
engagement)
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Allowing for differential processes by demographics
• Structural models also examined separately based on gender, age, and minority status• Intersectionality captured by retaining the remaining demographics in
each model
• Some differences in predictors of each form of participation evident between men and women, young and old, and minority and non-minorities• No strong evidence that interactions exist between demographics
• But some consistent patterns also evident (e.g a positive link from engagement to all forms of political participation), even if strength of association differs
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Examining the role of the broader socio-political context
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How differences in the socio-political context of different countries manifest in individual variations in political participation
• Individual data:• European Social Survey – excellent variable coverage, but limited
countries (n=20)• International Social Survey Programme – reduced variables (and no
measure of voting), but better country coverage (n=39)• World Values Survey – only includes voting (and some independent
variables), but better country coverage (n=42)
• Macro data:• Following initial scoping ‘Country Indicators for Foreign Policy’ (CIFP)• Parallel models examined data from ‘Economist Intelligence Unit’ (EIU) –
not reported here
• Number of countries still limited (max 42), restricting the complexity of the macro models. • Explore macro variables independently
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Individual data• ESS uses same range of individual measures – but scales based on
principal components analysis for simplicity• WVS uses reduced range of variables – single indicators• ISSP uses reduced range of variables (includes demographics)
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Macro data - Country Indicators for Foreign PolicyBased on administrative data held for each country including information from the
world bank, polity IV, world development indicators, and CIRI human rights index• Democratic participation – party dominance, legislature fractionalisation,
democracy score, proportion female parliamentarians, proportion minorities in public service, minority voting rights
• Government and economic efficiency – growth and debt, economic freedom, ease of trading, unemployment, tax rates, educational attainment
• Accountability – corruption, political freedom, political donations• Human rights – extent of torture, number of disappearances, freedom of speech,
women’s political and social rights, civil liberties• Political stability and violence – years since regime change, size of black market,
degree of dependence on external support, political fragmentation• Rule of Law – prison population and occupancy rating, property rights, juridicial
independence
Higher scores represent poorer performing countries
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Standard regressionParticipation Participation
Participation
Political engagement Political engagement
Political engagement
Random intercept
Random coefficient
Multilevel models in brief...
• Here, we use the logistic extension to this approach
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European Social Survey (2002)
Austria
Belgium
Germany
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
UK
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Sweden
Slovenia
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Conventional participation
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Conventional participation• Individual demographics similar to SEM analyses• Significant variation between countries (5% ESS and 10% ISSP)• Largest reduction in residual country variation for ‘rule of law’, ‘government accountability’
and ‘human rights’• (NB. Higher scores poorer performing countries)
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Other forms of participation• Significant differences in participation across countries
• Voting (5%/15% ESS/WVS) – but no significant macro effects• Non-conventional participation (19% ESS/ISSP)• Civic engagement (>20% ESS/ISSP)
• Independent effects of macro variables (CIFP)• Residents of better performing countries more likely to participate • Largest reduction in residual country variance (>50%) when looking at:
• Rule of law (all), government efficiency (non-conventional/civic engagement), and government accountability (conventional/non-conventional)
• And some evidence of significant links between individual differences and macro variables:• Men and politically engaged less influenced by context when considering
conventional and non-conventional forms of participation• Those with higher social trust more shaped by context when considering civic
engagement
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Identifying distinct ‘citizenship’ clusters
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• Examine the extent that distinct ‘citizenship’ clusters with qualitatively different patterns of participation can be identified
• LCA – Factor analysis with unobserved latent categorical variable (as opposed to series of continuous latent variables)
• ESS data based on 20 countries
• Restricted to participation measures (and gender, age, minority status)
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Identifying the optimal number of classes of participation
2 3 4 5 6157500
158000
158500
159000
159500
160000
160500
161000
161500
Optimal class size
AIC
BIC
Sample size ad-justed BIC
Number of Classes
Mod
el fi
t
• Exploratory approach.• 4 classes seems optimal
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Defining the classesLatent Class Analysis Predicted probability SEClass 1 - Highly politically activeVote 0.98 0.02Conventional participation 0.52 0.01Non-conventional participation 0.82 0.01Civic engagement 0.92 0.01
Class 2 - Not politically activeVote 0.19 0.11Conventional participation 0.05 0.01Non-conventional participation 0.09 0.02Civic engagement 0.36 0.02
Class 3 - Non-conventional participationVote 0.51 0.09Conventional participation 0.40 0.02Non-conventional participation 0.84 0.05Civic engagement 0.82 0.02
Class 4 - Voters onlyVote 0.95 0.04Conventional participation 0.09 0.01Non-conventional participation 0.11 0.01Civic engagement 0.43 0.01
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Who belongs to each class?Multinomial regression (reference category: Highly politically active) B SE Odds RatioClass 2 - Non-politically activeCons -1.20 0.26Male -0.38 0.05 0.68Young 2.33 0.47 10.31Minority 1.13 0.16 3.09
Class 3 - Non-conventional forms of participation
Cons -1.46 0.30Male -0.23 0.17 0.80Young 2.62 0.57 13.78Minority 0.77 0.20 2.16
Class 4 - Voters onlyCons 0.16 0.09Male -0.35 0.05 0.71Young 0.34 0.63 1.40Minority 0.05 0.14 1.05
Relative to the highly politically active...• Young people and minorities are more likely to be non-political active, or involved in
non-conventional activities• Men are less likely to be in the non-political active group or voters only
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Summary
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Key findings
MICRO• Research revealed many political, social, and psychological
factors that facilitate and hinder political and civic participation• E.g. Political interest, internal efficacy, opinionation, ideological
identity, trust in institutions, perceptions of discrimination• Differences in participation evident as a function of age,
gender, and minority status
MACRO• Differences in participation evident as a function of the broader
socio-political context in which people live• Partially shapes individual differences in participation
![Page 36: PIDOP WORK PACKAGE 5 The extent and nature of political and civic participation across Europe Dr Ian Brunton-Smith, Department of Sociology, University.](https://reader035.fdocuments.net/reader035/viewer/2022062518/56649e005503460f94aea02b/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
ImplicationsMICRO• Political engagement (political interest and internal efficacy)
consistently identified as key drivers of all forms of participation• Educational interventions can be most usefully targeted here
• Psychological influences on participation vary considerably depending on the type of participation concerned • Different forms of intervention may be required to enhance
different forms of participation
• Forms of participation vary by age, gender and minority status• Interventions aimed at enhancing participation should recognise
these differences and engage with them
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ImplicationsMACRO• Differences in participation evident as a function of the
broader socio-political context in which people live – particularly rule of law, government accountability and efficiency• Also shape individual differences in participation
• National governments should ensure their own mode of operation is always fully transparent, accountable and efficient• Includes controlling corruption, disclosing financing of political
parties, and ensuring freedom of the press• Ensuring their Country’s record in relation to the rule of law (e.g.
guaranteeing independence of judiciary, impartiality of the courts, and legal protection of minorities)
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The PIDOP project is supported by a grant received from the European Commission 7th Framework Programme, FP7- SSH-2007-1, Grant
Agreement no: 225282, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) awarded to the University of Surrey (UK), University of Liege (Belgium), Masaryk University (Czech Republic), University of Jena
(Germany), University of Bologna (Italy), University of Porto (Portugal), Orebro University (Sweden), Ankara University (Turkey) and Queen’s
University Belfast (UK)