Political Participation

Henry E. Brady, Sidney Verba and Kay Lehman Schlozman (1995). Beyond SES: A Resource Model of
Political Participation. American Political Science Review, 89, pp 271-294.

The authors of this journal provided a resource model of participation wherein the factors that are
involved are time, funds, and civic skills. According to them, these organizational capacities are vital to
political activity in which the skills stated are developed in a nonpolitical institutional settings of adult
life. The authors used a two-stage least squares analysis as their research method to find out whether
the resources stated are distributed differ among groups which is defined by socioeconomic status or
not. The results shows that these resources have powerful effects on overall political activity. With this,
they concluded that the results explains the reason behind socioeconomic status wherein it has been
influential in expecting participation. The model developed in the paper revealed that incentives in
politics are not simply enough to elucidate political participation.

Arthur H. Miller, Patricia Gurin, et al. Group Consciousness and Political Participation. American Journal
of Political Science. Vol. 25, No. 3 (Aug., 1981), pp. 494-511

The focus of this paper mainly explains theoretical and methodological issues in the relationship
between group consciousness and political participation. The authors used a survey for their research
method. The survey question questions used to measure each of the conceptual components
consciousness. They gathered this data from the center for political studies and national election
studies. The authors examined the relationships with the four components of consciousness with an
“electoral and non-electoral participation” to both subordinate and dominant social groups. The results
stated that an interactive model fits both a theory of mobilization and the additive model. They
concluded that group consciousness integrates the concept of shared interests and recognizes that the
individual's welfare is inseparable from the group per se.

Mutz, D. (2002). The Consequences of Cross-cutting networks for Political Participation. American
Journal of Political Science. Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 838-855

The study in this paper is central to the concept of cross-pressures. Mutz observed that this concept
lacked empirical data and theories. With this, he examined whether the actors whose advocacies
encompasses “greater political disagreement” are the ones who do not wish to participate in politics.
Mutz examined this case through two social psychological processes. First, those who are involved in
cross-cutting social and at the same time political networks are more likely to hold hesitant political
views but in turn, they discourage political involvement. And second, the author found out that
accountability pressures in cross-cutting networks discourage political participation. Certain actors
believed that politics discouraged social relationships of different actors. The author concluded that
models linking the quality and quantity of social interaction to democratic values need to consider the
roles served by various types of social interaction.

Jack M. Mcleod, Dietram A. Scheufele, & Patricia Moy. Community, Communication, and Particpation:
The Role of Mass and Interpersonal Discussion in Local Political Participation. Vol. 16, Issue 3. (1999).
Political Participation

In this paper, the authors examined the role of community, mass, and interpersonal
communication in which they predicted two types of local political participation. The authors’
hypothesis focused on the communication variables and their influence on participation. According to
them, the relationships among the said variables preceded mass and interpersonal communication have
been documented by McLeod and other actors. Their hypotheses concerning the communication
variables were divided into two groups namely those relating the variables to each other and those
associating communication with local political participation. The authors of this paper conducted
telephone interviews with a sample of 389 adults in Madison, Wisconsin, and other towns nearby
through random digit-dialing techniques. The results showed an effective role in newspaper readership
but has a lower effect in interpersonal discussion on participation. The interpersonal discussion had the
most influence than of the three communication variables. Based on their result, the variable named
television news use had no influence on either type of participation. However, despite the latter, the
variable did had a modest indirect impact on institutionalized participation. The authors also found out
that the data also showed effects of dimensions of community integration for participation but only in a
form of a forum. They concluded that orientations toward the larger were positively related to
participating in a civic community rather than certain local neighborhoods. The authors also found out
that there is a positive influence on a respondent’s orientation toward the larger community rather than
local neighborhood. With this, having a well-developed interpersonal networks showed a positive
relationship with local political interest.

Dawes, C., Loewen., & Fowler, J. (2007). Social Preferences and Political Participation. Social Science
Research Network

In this paper, it was indicated that there are various models of political participation that
incorporates various actors who have their own social preferences such as the rational model theory.
However, according to the authors, these models failed to consider the contrasting political objectives of
different social preference types. These political objectives play a critical role in shaping political
behavior of different actors. To find out the result, the authors of this paper conducted an experiment
wherein various participants played five rounds of a so-called “modified dictator game” which will
achieve the following objective. One is to allocate the choices of the actors in each relative price
condition if they will be able to meet the conditions mandated for rationality. And second is to
determine whether their choices can determine one’s preference type. They used this game as a
methodology to observe the effect of social preferences on political activities. The choices or the result
in the games were used to find out their preference type and then linked the types to reported political
activity. The outcome of the experiment showed that those actors who were interested in terms of
increasing the total welfare in the game were the ones who are willing to participate in politics than
actors who have the self-centered preferences. On the other hand, the authors also found out that the
actors who were most interested in reducing the modification between their own well-being and the
well-being of others were who do not like to participate than actors with selfish preferences. They
concluded that utilitarian actors view political means to increase social value.

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Political Participation