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Transcript of Political Participation and Voting. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.7 | 2...
Political Participation and
Voting
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 7 | 2
Democracy and Political Participation
• Political participation: the actions of private citizens seeking to influence or support government and politics
– Conventional participation: relatively routine behavior that uses institutional channels and is acceptable to the dominant culture
– Unconventional participation: relatively uncommon political behavior that challenges or defies established institutions and dominant norms
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Unconventional Participation
• Unconventional participation is stressful and occasionally violent
• Support for Unconventional Participation
– U.S. has a long history of unconventional participation beginning with the Boston Tea Party
– Americans tend to disapprove of unconventional participation
– Americans strongly disapprove of unconventional participation that disrupts daily life
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Unconventional Participation
• The Effectiveness of Unconventional Participation
– Unconventional participation has been successful
• Vietnam-era activism
• Civil rights activism
– Direct action: involves assembling crowds to confront businesses and local governments to demand a hearing
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Unconventional Participation
• Unconventional participation appeals to people who:
– Distrust the political system
– Have a strong sense of political efficacy
– Have a highly developed sense of group consciousness
• Unconventional Participation in America and the World
– Americans are about as likely to take direct action in politics as citizens of European democracies
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What Americans Think is Unconventional Political Behavior
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Conventional Participation
• A test of the democratic nature of any government is whether citizens can affect its policies by acting through institutions.
• If people must operate outside governmental institutions to influence policymaking, the system is not democratic
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Conventional Participation
• The objective of democratic institutions is to make political participation conventional—to allow ordinary citizens to engage in relatively routine, non-threatening behavior to get the government to heed their opinions, interests and needs
• Supportive behaviors: action that expresses allegiance to government and country
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Conventional Participation
• Influencing behaviors: behaviors that seek to modify or reverse government policy to serve political interests
– Influencing behaviors may be used to secure particular benefits
• Approaching government to serve one’s particular interests is consistent with democratic theory
• “Contacting behavior” may not necessarily be related to other forms of participation such as voting,
• Particularized participation is more common among higher SES citizens
• Particularized participation may serve private interests to the detriment of the majority
• Citizens demand more of local government
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Conventional Participation
• Influencing behaviors
– Influencing behaviors may be used to influence broad policy objectives
• May be activities that influence selection of government personnel and policies
• May or may not be associated with electoral process
• May be low or high initiative
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Conventional Participation
• May involve the courts through the class action suit: a legal action brought by a person or group on behalf of a number of people in similar circumstances
• Conventional Participation in America
– Voting turnout: the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote in a given election
– Americans vote at lower rates that people in other democracies
– Americans engage in other forms of participation at the same, or higher rates, than people in other democracies…with high and low levels of initiative
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Participating Through Voting
• Most common form of political behavior in democracies: voting for candidates
• Expansion of Suffrage in the United States
– Enfranchisement of Blacks
– Enfranchisement of women
– Enfranchisement of younger voters (ages 18-20)
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Voter Registration in theSouth, 1960, 1980, and 2000
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Participation Through Voting
– Progressivism: a philosophy of political reform based upon the goodness and wisdom of the individual citizen
– Progressives championed: • The direct primary: a preliminary election, run by the state
governments, in which the voters choose the party’s candidates for the general election
• The recall: an election to remove officials from elective office
• The referendum: allowed a direct vote by the people on either a proposed law or an amendment to a state constitution.
• The initiative: is a procedure by which voters can propose an issue to be decided by the legislature or by the people in a referendum; requires gathering a specified number of signatures and submitting a petition to a designated agency
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Participation Through Voting
• Voting for Candidates– Allows citizens to choose who best serves their interests
– Only two officeholders chosen nationally; most electing done on local level
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Explaining Political Participation
• Patterns of participation actually show little variation over time in the percentage of citizens who worked for candidates or attended party meetings
– Interest in election campaigns and persuading people how to vote have actually tended to increase.
– But voter turnout has declined over time.
– The major issue is not turnout, but registration (those who are registered vote at higher rates than those who are eligible)
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Political Participation
• Apathy is not the only cause of nonregistration – Apathy lack of interest in or concern for things that others
find moving or exciting
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Political Participation
• Apathy is not the only cause of nonregistration• a) Registration has costs in the U.S.• b) Motor-voter law of 1993 took effect in 1995
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Explaining Political Participation
• The standard socioeconomic model: a relationship between socioeconomic status and conventional political involvement; people with higher status and more education are more likely to participate than those with lower status
– Education is the strongest factor in explaining most types of political participation
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Effects of Education on Political Participation
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Explaining Political Participation
• Low Voter Turnout
• The Decline in Voting Over Time
– 26th Amendment expanded the electorate by lowering the voting age to 18
• But young people are the least likely to vote
• Probably accounts for 1-2% of the decline in voter turnout
– Decreasing faith in the effectiveness of voting
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Explaining Political Participation
• U.S. Turnout vs. Turnout in Other Countries
– Turnout is low because of voting laws and administrative machinery
• Election day is not a public holiday
• Burden of registration is on the voter
– Lack of political parties to mobilize particular social groups
– Learning about the scores of candidates on the ballot is daunting