Political Sociology

PPT-6

Political Participation
Lecture-1
• Political participation is simply any activity which is
designed to influence public opinion or decision. It can be
direct or indirect, individual or group-oriented.

✓ The concept of political participation has been popularized

in Political Science by the Behaviouralists.

✓ Since the 1950's, it has attracted widespread attention.

✓ Earlier, the theory of participatory democracy was

developed by Rousseau and later promoted by J.S. Mill
and G. D. H. Cole, who argued that political participation is
indispensable for the realization of a just society.
✓ Gabriel Almond may be considered as the pioneer of the
concept of Political Culture, in contemporary times.

✓ He defined it as ‘pattern of individual attitudes and

orientations towards politics among the members of a political
system’. Such individual orientations involve several
components which are as under.

✓ Cognitive orientation (knowledge and awareness of the

political objects and familiarity with the way the political
system actually works),

✓ Affective orientation (emotions and feelings of the people

towards their political system),

✓ Evaluative orientation (judgments and opinions about

political objects).
✓ Almond (with Verba) later developed a typology of ideal political
cultures or citizen types.

✓ Parochial Political Culture (People who exhibit little or no

awareness of the political system. People who have no
inclination to participate in input process and not aware of the
output process)

✓ Subject Political Culture (this category includes all those

individuals who are oriented to the political system or aware of
various governmental roles such collection of taxes, law making
etc.,. But they were not oriented to take part in output structure
as they don’t have any clear knowledge of the way in which they
can influence the political system).

✓ Participant Political Culture (Where members of society are

oriented to both the input and output aspects the political
system. The British, American and Scandinavian political systems
best represent this ideal).
 Meaning of Political Participation
✓ Political participation denotes a series of voluntary activities
which have a bearing on the political process that involves
issues like the selection of rulers and the various aspects of
the formation of public policy.

✓ The concept of political participation accommodates the

following main forms of political participation:

1. voting in local or national elections;

2. voting in referendums;
3. canvassing or otherwise campaigning in elections
4. active membership of a political party;
5. active membership of a pressure group;
6. taking part in political demonstrations, industrial strikes with
political objectives, rent strikes in public housing, and similar
activities aimed at changing public policy;

7. various forms of civil disobedience, such as refusing to pay taxes

or obey a conscription order;

8. membership of government advisory committees;

9. membership of consumers' councils for publicly owned

industries;

10. client involvement in the implementation of social

policies.
 Hierarchy of Political Participation
Lester Milbrath has classified activities into three levels in
a Hierarchical manner.
Gladiatorial activities
Gladiators represent that small number of party activists
whose active association with political parties keeps them
engaged in a series of direct party activities like

✓ holding party offices,

✓ fighting the elections as party candidates,
✓ raising party funds,
✓ attending party meetings and
✓ joining the party campaigns.
Transitional activities
✓ attending party meetings as party supporters or
party sympathisers or just as neutral but attentive
listeners,
✓ making contributions to the party funds
✓ contacting public officials or party personnel.

Spectator activities
✓ Voting
✓ influencing others to vote in a particular way
✓ initiating a political discussion
✓ exposing oneself to political stimuli
✓ wearing a button or putting a sticker on the car.
 Types of Participation

✓Active and Passive participation

✓Instrumental and Expressive participation
✓Autonomous and Mobilised participation
Active and Passive participation
• Political participation in every society has a cost that
involves time, energy and resources and whether one
individual would take part in politics depend s on his
ability to afford the cost.

• Any activity that involves least effort, less influence, less

time and less knowledge is considered as passive
participation in general.

• Active participation is that activity involving greater

effort, energy, time, influence and knowledge.
• Voting, seeking information, and communicating with
representatives come under passive participation.
Instrumental and Expressive Participation
✓ Instrumental participation aims at achieving definite
objectives or concrete results.

✓ A voter may have in mind the victory of a party or a

candidate. He may also hope some benefits for his family or
for his area if the party or candidate he votes for wins.

Expressive Political Participation

✓ It does not aim at the realization of any concrete goal.

✓ Many candidates seem to cast their votes without any specific

consideration or calculation.

✓ They vote because they feel it to be their duty as citizens of

the country or the exercise of franchise gives them happiness.
 Autonomous and Mobilised Participation

✓ Autonomous participation refers to the political

involvement of a person on his own. He takes
initiative in this regard. He is not directed or
controlled by another person or group.

✓ In case of mobilized participation, an individual

takes part in politics because he is asked or
persuaded by somebody else to do it.
✓ This type of participation lacks initiative on the part
of the concerned person . His participation is more
mechanical than genuine and spontaneous.
Political Non-Participation
✓ Political non-participation refers to dissociating
oneself from all those political activities or from
some of them.

✓ In other words, Non-participation is the absence of

citizens from the political process.

✓ Non-involvement in politics can be ascribed to the

following factors;
1. Apathy
2. Cynicism
3. Alienation
4. Anomie
1. Apathy
✓Apathy refers to lack of interest in or lack of
concern for persons, situations or phenomena in
general or particular.

✓Some of the characteristics of apathy are inability

to recognize personal responsibility and examine
one's own emotions and feelings.

✓A person who is politically apathetic is passive

in politics or he totally abstains from it.
Morris Rosenberg cites three factors of political apathy.

✓ Firstly, an individual will abstain from politics if he

perceives that the consequence of his involvement in
politics will prove detrimental to his interest .

✓ Secondly, a person will shun politics if he thinks that

he cannot change things for the better, or influence
any political decisions or choice.

✓ Thirdly, political non-participation may be a function

of the absence of spurs to action and that of political
stimuli .
Robert Dahl suggested four motives of political apathy .

✓ Firstly, a person is likely to be involved in politics if he thinks

that the reward he expects from political activity is of less
value than what he can expect from some other activity.

✓ Secondly, a person is unlikely to indulge in political activity

if he feels that he has little to choose between the
alternatives before him.

✓ Thirdly, apathy is caused by lack of a sense of political

efficacy.

✓ Fourthly, If a person believes that even without any effort

on his part the outcome anyway will be relatively
satisfactory to him, he is less likely to be involved in politics.
2. Cynicism

• Cynicism means being contemptuously distrustful of human

nature .

• A cynic is thus highly suspicious of others; he is intensely pessi-

mistic and self-centred.

• Cynicism refers to lack of confidence in the political systems.

• Political cynicism reveals a feeling of distrust in politics,

politicians, and governmental institutions by the public.

• Cynical voters are found to believe that the political system and
governments are corrupt and problematic and they cannot be
trusted .
3. Alienation
✓ Political Alienation defined as attitudes of
estrangement from the political system.

✓ Political alienation falls into two broad categories:

political incapability and political discontentment.

✓ In the first instance, alienation is forced upon the

individual by his environment, whereas in the second
case it is voluntarily chosen by him.
✓ There are at least four expressions of political alienation.

✓ Political powerlessness: An individual's feeling that they

cannot affect the actions of the government.

✓ Political meaninglessness: An individual's perception that

political decisions are unclear and unpredictable.

✓ Political normlessness: An individual's perception that

norms or rules intended to govern political relations are
broken down, and that departures from prescribed
behavior are common.

✓ Political isolation: An individual's rejection of political

norms and goals that are widely held and shared by other
members of a society.
4. Anomie
✓ Anomie means a sense of value loss and lack of direction .
✓ Typically causes people to feel a lack of belonging and that they
are disconnected form their society.
✓ This concept was first used by a French sociologist Emile
Durkheim in 1893.
✓ He used the term to explain the characteristic feature of a
society/ social group in which there is no proper structure or
there are no guiding principles and regulations, which usually
help people (in a well structured/regulated society) in deciding
what to choose and what not to ; or precisely what is desirable
and what is not desirable, what is right and what is wrong.
✓ So what happens is , the individual belonging to such a society is
simply lost.
✓ It is necessary to make a distinction between Apathy,
Cynicism, Alienation and Anomie.

✓ Apathy is a lack of interest,

✓ Cynicism is an attitude of distaste and disenchantment,

✓ While Alienation and Anomie both involve a feeling of

estrangement or divorce from society,

✓ but where Alienation is characterized by hostility and

✓ Anomie is characterized by bewilderment.

Next Lecture on ‘Factors influencing Political
Participation’