CC BY
85
Section 4. Oomparative politics
Christian W Haerpfer, Prof. Dr. of Political Science Department of Political Science University of Vienna President of the World Values Survey Association E-mail: [email protected]
Kseniya Kizilova
Institute for Comparative Survey Research Vienna, Austria Secretary of the World Values Survey Association E-mail: [email protected]
Patterns of conventional and unconventional political participation in global comparison
Abstract: the article provides comparative overview of features of conventional and unconventional political participation in 7 world regions basing on the findings from the 6th wave of the World Values Survey, the world's largest academic program in social and political sciences. Indices of conventional and unconventional political participation are used to describe the patterms of political participation inherent to different world regions.
Keywords: conventional participation, unconventional participation, cross-regional comparison.
Political participation is an essential element ofpo-litical culture of the population and an important indicator and predictor of the democratic political system development. There is a big piece of literature available devoted to the definition of the concept as well as the main trends of dynamics of citizen's political participation in the last 70 years [1, 2]. In one of its broadest definitions, political participation is considered as an aggregated category for all those actions ofprivate citizens by which they seek to influence — support or challenge — government and politics. This influence can be realized either directly by affecting the decision-making process or the course implementation of public policy, or indirectly — by participating in the nomination of the group of people who will make those decisions and policies [3]. The range of concrete actions which can be defined as political participation varies from voting in national elections to organizing a demonstration, from writing a letter to a governmental official to establishing an online protest-community. Some forms of political partici-
pation, like voting, are among most traditional and have existed since many centuries while those which presume using the resources of Internet and social media are relatively new and evolving.
Development of comparative surveys in political science in the recent three decades has contributed to the establishment of an extensive empirical database in this field including such large-scale research programs as Eurobarometer, European Social Survey, International Social Survey Program, World Values Survey, European Values Study, Comparative National Elections Project as well as the group of regional barometers — Afro Barometer, Arab Barometer, Asian Barometer, Eurasia Barometer, and Latinobarometro.
The current paper is aimed at analysing available empirical evidence in order to compare the patterns of political participation worldwide. The main research question is if we can speak of one specific trend of political participation which is the same in all world regions or if we have to speak of regional
Patterns of conventional and unconventional political participation in global comparison
patterns of political participation. The empirical data-base used for the analysis is represented by the 6th wave of the World Values Survey completed under the leadership of the authors in 2011-2014 in 60 countries of the world. National representative samples with the minimal sample size of N=841 and the maximal sample size of N=4078 have been interviewed in every society using face-to-face interview as the main survey method. For the analysis of patterns of political participation in cross-regional perspective, all surveyed countries and societies have been grouped into 7 world regions: Sub-Saharan Africa; Asia; Oceania (Australia, New Zealand); Central and Western Europe; post-Soviet Eurasia; Latin America; Middle East and North Africa; North America (USA).
Following the established in the literature tradition, in our analysis we will be differentiating between the conventional and unconventional political participation. Conventional political participation comprises commonly accepted political behaviour that uses established institutional channels of representative government and includes voting in elections and referendums, volunteering for a political campaign or making a campaign donation, joining an activist group, serving in the public office etc. WVS-6 questionnaire includes the following indicators allowing to measure conventional political participation of citizens: voting in national elections; voting in local elections. For both questions, the respondents have been asked to indicate if they vote always, usually or never.
Unconventional political participation is a relatively uncommon behaviour that challenges or disregards the government channels and the traditional culture. Unconventional political participation includes signing a petition, supporting a boycott, organizing a strike, participating in a demonstration or protest. It is important to stress that unconventional participation is not necessarily an illegal action, such as political assassination or terrorism. WVS-6 questionnaire uses the following items to measure unconventional political participation: signing a petition, joining the boycotts, attending demonstrations, joining in strikes. For all types of actions, the respondents have been asked to indicate if they have done this, might do or would never do.
Obtained results have shown that conventional political participation, despite the documented downward trend, remains the prevailing type of political engagement worldwide. In particular, voting in national elections is the type of political action which is practiced by most of citizens in all world regions. On average, 58% of respondents in 60 world countries have stated that they always vote in national elections; 24% indicated that they vote usually while 18% said they never vote. The highest this indicator is in Australia and New Zealand where 89% of respondents stated that they always vote. The second most carefully voting part of the world where 78% of interviewed citizens indicated that they always attend the elections and always vote is Latin America. While in Australia and New Zealand high turnout and percentage of citizens voting could be explained by the existing legislative base (which makes voting a compulsory procedure), in Latin America high level of conventional political engagement is a part of the political cultural tradition. The share of "persistent voters" in national elections in Central and Western Europe is around 70%, in North America — around 59% while in post-Soviet Eurasia, Africa and Asia only between 52% and 55%. The least frequently voting part of the world is Middle East where only 46% of respondents stated that they always vote and where voting remains a comparatively innovative practice. At the same time, the part of respondents who said that they never vote in national elections is the highest in MENA (28%) and Africa (24%) and the lowest — in Australia and New Zealand (3%). Around 10% of citizens never vote in national elections in Latin America, Central and Western Europe; nearly 15% do not vote in national elections in former USSR countries; around 17% do not participate in national elections in Africa and a bit over 20% — in the United States.
Voting in local elections is a less important political exercise for citizens and therefore, the parts of those respondents who always vote in local elections are lower in all parts of the world: 74% in Australia and New Zealand, 74% in Latin America, 66% in Central and Western Europe, 54% in Asia, 53% in post-Soviet countries, 49% in Africa, 43% in MENA and only 38% in United States. At the same time, parts of respondents in every region who stated that
they never vote in local elections constitute 8% in Australia and New Zealand, 11% in Europe and 12% in Latin America, 15% in former USSR republics, 19% in Asia and 20% in Sub-Saharan Africa, 24% in the US and 30% in the Middle East. The rest of the respondents indicated that they "usually" participate in local elections.
Despite the numerous theories revealing shifts in types of political participation — decrease in conventional and increase in unconventional participation — in the second half of the twentieth century, WVS-6 findings show that traditional voting in national and local elections still remains the most widespread type ofpolitical action. Characterizing their involvement into unconventional political activities, most of respondents stated that they have never done it and would never do. The most widespread among the unconventional political actions is signing a petition: at least once in their lives have signed a petition 76% of respondents in Australia and New Zealand, 61% in the United States. In the rest of the world this indicator is at least twice lower: 34% in Central and Western Europe, 23% in Latin America, 18% in Asia. In post-Soviet Eurasia, Africa and Middle East less than 10% of population have ever signed a petition. Correspondingly, between 60 and 70% of respondents in these parts of the world have stated that they would never sign a petition. From the whole of 60 countries in the world, on average 19% of respondents indicated that they have ever signed a petition, 29% more said that they might do it in future and 52% said they would never sign one.
The other forms of unconventional political activity such as attending peaceful demonstration, joining a strike and joining a boycott involve even smaller parts of citizens in all parts of the world. In particular, around 13% of the respondents worldwide stated that they had attended a demonstration, 32% said
they might do it and 55% said would never do it. Regions of the world where citizens have the biggest experience of joining demonstrations are Australia and New Zealand, Central and Western Europe, Latin America, Middle East and the USA. Experience of joining a strike is familiar to only 8% of respondents while 26%said they might do it and 66% would never do it. Finally, participation in boycotts has been experienced by only 6% of respondents with 26% more saying they might do it and 68% stating that they would never do it. Boycotts are widespread as a practice of political participation in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Indexes of conventional and unconventional political participation (vary from 1 to 5) built using the main components analysis method allow to allocate different world regions on the two-axes map and reveal the following patterns:
- Conventional political engagement (3.76) is higher than unconventional (2.14) in all parts of the world;
- Countries with the highest indicators of unconventional political participation are Australia and New Zealand (3.35) and the United States (3.12) while the lowest engagement in unconventional political activity is observed in the former USSR republics of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (1.61);
- The lowest involvement into conventional political activity is recorded in the Middle East (3.31) and the highest in Australia and New Zealand (4.52) and Latin America (4.29);
- Asia (3.59), Africa (3.65), MENA (3.31) and the USA (3.53) are below the "world" mean (3.76) in their voting rates;
- Latin America (2.28), Central and Western Europe (2.68), Australia and New Zealand (3.35) and the United States (3.12) are above the "world" mean (2.14) in terms of population's involvement into unconventional political actions.
References:
1. Dalton, J. R., Klingemann, H.-D. (2007) The Oxford Hand book of Political Behaviour. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
2. Almond, G., Verba, S. (1963). The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes in Five Western Democracies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3. Verba, S. Schlozman, K. L., and Brady, H. (1995) Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press).
