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The Meaning of Democratic Participation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

William R. Schonfeld
William R. Schonfeld
Affiliation:
University of California (Irvine).
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Type
Review Article
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World Politics , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , October 1975 , pp. 134 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1975

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References

* Much of this paper was originally written while I was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques (Paris). I would like to thank the Fulbright Commission for financial support, and Serge Moscovici, Director of the Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale, for providing me with working space. I would also like to thank Harry Eckstein and W. Lance Bennett for the careful scrutiny they gave to an earlier version of this paper and for the insightful comments and helpful suggestions they offered.

1 The terms “asymmetry” and “symmetry” are taken from Eckstein, Harry, “Authority Patterns: A Structural Basis for Political Inquiry,” American Political Science Review, LXVII (12 1973), 1142–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Ibid., 1146.

3 Dahl, Robert A., “Further Reflections on ‘The Elitist Theory of Democracy,’” American Political Science Review, LX (06 1966), 298Google Scholar.

4 Schumpeter, , Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York and London: Harper and Row 1942), 269Google Scholar.

5 Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday 1963), 27Google Scholar.

6 From Eckstein, A Theory of Stable Democracy, reprinted in Eckstein, Division and Cohesion in Democracy: A Study of Norway (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1966), 235n. and 229.

7 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1963), 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Dahl, , Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press 1971). 4Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., 5–6.

10 This compilation is drawn from the following articles and books: Converse, Philip E. and Dupeux, Georges, “Politicization of the Electorate in France and the United States,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXVI (Spring 1962), 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palma, Giuseppe Di, Apathy and Participation: Mass Politics in Western Societies (New York: Free Press 1970)Google Scholar; Dupeux, Georges, “France,” International Social Science Journal, XII (No. 1, 1960), 40–52Google Scholar; Lancelot, Alain, La participation des Francois a la politique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1971)Google Scholar; Lane, Robert E., Political Life: Why and How People Get Involved in Politics (New York: Free Press 1959)Google Scholar; McClosky, Herbert, “Political Participation,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, XII (New York: Macmillan and Free Press 1968), 252–65Google Scholar; Milbrath, Lester W., Political Participation: How and Why Do People Get Involved in Politics? (Chicago: Rand McNally 1965)Google Scholar; Nie, Norman H., Powell, G. Bingham, and Prewitt, Kenneth, “Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships, I,” American Political Science Review, LIII (06 1969), 361–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rokkan, Stein, “Introduction,” International Social Science Journal, XII (No. 1, 1960), 7–14Google Scholar.

11 For a breakdown of the authors who refer to each of these activities, see Schonfeld, William R. and Toinet, Marie-France, “Les abstentionnistes ont-ils toujours tort? La participation electorate en France et aux Etats-Unis,” Revue Francaise de Science Politique, XXV (08 1975), Table VGoogle Scholar.

12 The availability of previously gathered data seems to be an additional criterion. For example, see Nie, Powell, and Prewitt (fn. 10), 364.

13 See, for example, Milbrath (fn. 10).

14 See, for example, McClosky (fn. 10).

15 Himmelstrand, , “Depoliticization and Political Involvement: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach,” in Allardt, Erik and Rokkan, Stein, eds., Mass Politics: Studies in Political Sociology (New York: Free Press 1970), 64–92Google Scholar.

16 Lipset (fn. 5), 183.

17 Inkeles, , “Participant Citizenship in Six Developing Countries,” American Political Science Review, LXIII (12 1969), 1123Google Scholar.

18 Rousseau, , The Social Contract, trans, by Cranston, Maurice (Baltimore: Penguin Books 1968), 141Google Scholar.

19 Duverger, , La democratie sans le peuple (Paris: Editions du Seuil 1967), 11Google Scholar.

20 Note that Rousseau and Duverger do not suggest that citizens in existing “democratic” polities are without any freedom or influence, but rather that the freedom and influence citizens have are limited to the vote.

21 In addition to the books listed in the masthead, see Nie, Norman H., Verba, Sidney, and Kim, Jae-on, “Political Participation and the Life Cycle,” Comparative Politics, VI (04 1974), 319–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Verba, Sidney, “Cross-National Survey Research: The Problem of Credibility,” in Vallier, Ivan, ed., Comparative Methods in Sociology: Essays on Trends and Applications (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1971), 309–56Google Scholar; Verba, Sidney, Ahmed, Bashiruddin, and Bhatt, Anil, Caste, Race and Politics: A Comparison of India and the United States (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications 1971)Google Scholar; and Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman H., Barbie, Ana, Irwin, Galen, Molle-man, Henk, and Shabad, Goidie, “The Modes of Participation: Continuities in Research,” Comparative Political Studies, VI (07 1973), 235–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Verba, Nie, and Kim analyze the data from Austria, India, Japan, Nigeria, and the United States. In the article in Comparative Political Studies, ibid., data from the Netherlands and Yugoslavia are analyzed.

23 Th e civic attitudes characteristic of the “highly participant” are “psychological involvement in politics (measured by a variety of items dealing with expressed interest in and attention to political matters), a sense of political efficacy, information about politics, and a sense of contribution to the community” (Verba and Nie, 133).

24 It is important to note that in their analysis Verba, Nie, and Kim “assume a particular causal ordering… by which attitudes such as psychological involvement lead to activity. This is an assumption, not something demonstrated in the data. One could redraw… the causal arrows running from participation to the orientations. And there is a tradition in democratic theory that would suggest this alternative ordering-the tradition that considers participation to be an educative experience” (p. 73). That tradition is exemplified by Carole Pateman's work which is discussed in the next section of this article.

25 I use the term “apparently” because Verba, Nie, and Ki m (pp. 53–61) study the “causal paths” from education (no t socioeconomic status) through political orienta tions to the four modes of activity. Moreover, “social status [measured in somewhat different ways] has a closer relationship to political participation in the United States” than in any other country (except India), surveyed by either Almond and Verba in The Civic Culture, or Verba, Nie, and Kim. (Verba and Nie, 339–40.)

26 Participators, it should be remembered, come disproportionately from the highest socioeconomic level.

27 Certain other “participatory acts” are not studied at all-e.g., running for or holding public or party office.

28 The variable used by Verba and Nie is more refined: active membershi p in an organization which, according to the respondent, “takes an active role in attempting to solve community problems” (p. 31).

29 Two of the communal activity variables are clearly new: working with others in the community to try to solve some community problem, and taking part in forming a new group or organization to try to solve some community problem (pp. 31 and 352). Another variable, labelled contacting “a local government official about some issue or problem” (p. 31), is based on the following interview item:

We were talking earlier about problems that you and the people of this community have-have you ever personally gone to see or spoken to, or written to- some member of the local community about some need or problem? (p. 352; emphasis added).

Although contacting a local government official is often considered an act of political participation, contacting some member of the local community is not. So, we have not only a questionable translation of a survey item into a “concept” but also a new type of behavior being studied.

30 Milbrath (fn. 10), 17–18; Butler, David and Stokes, Donald, Political Change in Britain: Forces Shaping Electoral Choice (New York: St. Martin's Press 1969), 25Google Scholar; Lane (fn. 10), 93–94.

31 Verba, Nie, and others (fn. 21), 249.

32 Lester Milbrath is also a nonconformist. He explains: “Although political demonstrations are considered a legitimate expression of political feeling in a democracy and are widely held, it is a behavior used by only certain sectors of the society. Many other sectors look upon demonstrations as undignified and refuse to use them. Thus, this type of behavior does not fit into the hierarchy of political involvement in the United States” (Milbrath [fn. 10], 18). Whether this behavior is more or less restricted to certain “sectors” of society than other participatory acts-e.g., active membership in a political party-is an empirical question. In order to respond to it, the meaning of the term “sector” would have to be specified and appropriate data gathered; Milbrath has done neither. More importantly, even if demonstrations were comparatively restricted, would that constitute a theoretically valid reason for excluding them from consideration? Such a criterion, if generally employed, could lead to excluding all behaviors; none is not in some way restricted. In addition, this procedure causes an unwanted and counterproductive confusion between definitional and empirical issues. (As long as a ! definition of political participation includes demonstrations within its purview, no lempirical characteristics of demonstrations, or attitudes of other groups toward this activity, can be considered a justification for omission.) Finally, excluding an activity Jfrom our purview because some consider it “undignified” just makes no sense. After all, many citizens of democratic polities view running for office as undignified.

33 It is especially interesting that the symmetricists-who accuse the “empirical” democratic theorists of having a conservative normative bias in favor of the status quo and a tendency to regard Anglo-American democracy as an ideal-have never drawn attention to this oversight.

34 Exceptions appea r wit h some frequency. Amon g the more noteworth y contemporary examples is the May crisis of 1968 in France.

35 For example, Verb a and Nie (chap. 15, esp. p. 283), briefly discuss protestors in the context of a n examination of the varieties of public opinion-depending on which public is being regarded-and explicitly refer to the sampling problem.

36 There is reason to doubt that exclusion on the grounds of illegitimacy is relevant; after all, the problem is to understand how citizens can and do influence their governments.

37 Michael Lipsky's study of protest by relatively powerless groups suggests that such participatory activities (at least in the United States) may only provide symbolic rewards. ( “Protest as a Political Resource,” American Political Science Review, LXII [12 1968], 1144–58.Google Scholar) However, if Murray Edelman's perspective on American politics is accepted, then Lipsky's findings are symptomatic and not specific to protest. See Edelman, , The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1964)Google Scholar.

38 See, for example, Bachrach, Peter, The Theory of Democratic Elitism: A Critique (Boston: Little, Brown 1967)Google Scholar; Kavanaugh, Dennis, “Political Behaviour and Political Participation,” in Parry, Geraint, ed., Participation in Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1972), 102–24Google Scholar; and Walker, Jack L., “A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy,” American Political Science Review, LX (06 1966), 285–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 The major thrust of their attack is centered on “exposing” the normative character and the undesirability of the values which are, supposedly, propounded by the behavioralists.

40 A critique in this vein was presented by Dahl (fn. 3), 298.

41 French, John R. P. Jr, Israel, Joachim, and As, Dagfin, “An Experiment in Participation in a Norwegian Factory,” Human Relations, XIII (No. I, 1960), 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See Verba, Sidney, Small Groups and Political Behavior (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1961), 220–21Google Scholar.

43 Specifically, workers at the Coventry Standard car plant and in the Durham coal fields.

44 Such a view is shared by one of Pateman's prime betes noires, Dahl, Robert. In After The Revolution: Authority in a Good Society (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1970)Google Scholar, notes, Dahl: “Yet if Yugoslavia is less democratic than the United States in the government of the state, it is more democratic in the government of the enterprise” (p. 130)Google Scholar.

45 Linkage arguments connect an individual's nongovernmental experiences and his political behavior. They may be distinguished according to the domain considered (e.g., a kind of social activity or sociological category) and the strength of the specified relationship. Scholars may focus on such phenomena as specific social and/or economic categories, socialization experiences, authority patterns to which an individual is habituated, or membership in voluntary associations. Within each domain, there are a variety of arguments. For example, in regard to organizational membership, Nie, Powell, and Prewitt argue that “those who are organizationally involved participate in politics at rates far greater than those who are not involved”; but Verba and Nie, after controlling for the basic socioeconomic variables, find that it is “active membership combined with exposure to political stimuli” within voluntary associations which is “associated with political participation.” See Nie, Norman H., Powell, G. Bingham Jr, and Prewitt, Kenneth, “Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships II,” American Political Science Review, LXIII (09 1969), 813Google Scholar; and Verba and Nie, 194–95. Regardless of the social activity or sociological characteristics being considered, such linkages are usually judged conditional. For example, Almond and Verba (fn. 7), note: “The individual who has had opportunities for non-political participation, compared with someone who has not had these opportunities, will be more likely to choose a participatory responsel a, political situation arises in which there is some chance to participate” (p. 307). Absolute linkage arguments do not exist, but there do appear to be some pseudo-linkage arguments. That is the case for Verba and Nie, in that they connect political discussion in nonpolitical environments with political activity (pp. 195–96).

46 Bachrach (fn. 38), 98.

47 Pateman also cites Blauner, Robert, Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Worker and his Industry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1964)Google Scholar, in support of the point that an individual's work environment affects his social character (Pateman, 52).

48 Almond and Verba (fn. 7), 370.

49 Ibid., 334.

50 Ibid., 342–43.

51 Pateman does not explicitly connect the concept of pseudo-participation to the tw o types of “real” participation; he r discussion treats this phenomeno n as the first step on the “participatory road.”

52 What happens when a compulsory system of voting is transformed into a voluntary one may also be relevant. The self-propelling quality of participation would lead us to expect a relatively constant or increasing level of turnout. Yet, in Holland and Switzerland (the canton of Vaud), turnout dropped significantly when the vote was made voluntary. See Irwin, Galen, “Compulsory Voting Legislation: Impact on Voter Turnout in the Netherlands,” Comparative Political Studies, VII (10 1974) 292–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Girod, Roger, “Facteurs de l'abstentionnisme en Suisse,” Revue Francaise de Science Politique, III (04-06 1953), 358Google Scholar.

53 Crozier, Michel, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1964), 204–06Google Scholar.

54 Crozier, for example, cites numerous research findings from non-French settings.(Ibid., footnotes 33, 34, and 36 on p. 205.)

55 For example, Ralph W. White and Ronald O. Lippitt found that the American children who took part in their experiments preferred autocracy to laissez-faire (a type of relationship which is rather close to symmetrical democracy). Autocracy and Democracy: An Essay in Experimental Inquiry (New York: Harper and Brothers 1960)Google Scholar.

56 That is so despite the fact that neither the research which argues for a hierarchy of political involvement nor that directed by Verba contradicts the notion of participation as self-propelling. If there were an accelerator effect, those wh o accomplish the most demanding acts would also be expected to do the less demanding ones-in conformity with the hierarchy hypothesis. The relationship between Pateman and the modes of participation research has been discussed in fn. 24.

57 Dahl, , Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1961), 279Google Scholar.

58 Butler and Stokes (fn. 30), 24–27.

59 Lancelot, , L'Abstentionnisme electoral en France (Paris: Armand Colin 1968), 164–67Google Scholar.

60 Dahrendorf, , Society and Democracy in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday 1969), 377Google Scholar.

61 Dahl (fn. 57), 279.

62 Ibid., 280.

63 Ibid.,

64 On the relationship between size and democracy in government, see Dahl, Robert A. and Tufte, Edward R., Size and Democracy (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press 1973)Google Scholar.

65 Dahl (fn. 44), 7.

66 The same implication may be drawn from Dahl's comparison of the United States with Yugoslavia; see the quote in fn. 44.

67 Dahl (fn. 44), 7.

68 This merges well with Harry Eckstein's suggestion that politics be equated with the study of authority relations (fn. i).