Participation

I. As anti-abortion demonstrations of various types indicate, political participation is more than just voting.

A. According to the democratic ideal, "government ought to be run by the people."

1. In the model of direct democracy, citizens participate directly in government affairs.

2. Indirect democracy relies on ELECTIONS--formal procedures for voting to make group decisions--as the formal mechanism for citizen participation.

B. UNCONVENTIONAL PARTICIPATION is relatively uncommon behavior that threatens or defies government channels.

1. Americans generally disapprove of unconventional political action involving destruction of property and physical violence.

2. Unconventional participation has been successful in influencing government decisions.

a. Notable successes include:

(1) discouraging President Johnson from seeking reelection.

(2) heightening concern over the Vietnam War.

(3) lowering the voting age to eighteen.

b. The civil rights movement relied on DIRECT ACTION--assembling crowds to confront business and local government--to demand equal treatment for blacks.

(1) Unconventional participation pressured Congress to pass civil rights laws against discrimination.

(2) Black protest in the South has been in part responsible for increased welfare support.

3. There are three characteristics of people participating in direct political action.

a. Distrust of the political system.

b. A strong sense of political efficacy.

c. A highly developed sense of group consciousness.

4. Studies suggest that Americans are more likely to participate in unconventional politics than citizens from other democratic countries.

C. CONVENTIONAL PARTICIPATION is relatively routine, non-threatening behavior that uses the channels of representative government.

1. SUPPORTIVE BEHAVIORS are purely ceremonial acts expressing allegiance to government and country.

2. INFLUENCING BEHAVIOR seeks to modify government policy.

a. Citizens may derive particular benefits from government.

(1) Behind-the-scenes influence is not always in the public interest.

(2) Individuals with higher economic status are more likely to contact public officials to ask for special services.

(3) Citizens demand more of local than of national government.

(4) Those with financial resources can make campaign contributions that result in future political favors.

b. Citizens engage in two kinds of activities that influence the selection of government personnel and policies.

(1) LOW-INITIATIVE acts, such as voting, do not require much effort by the individual.

(2) HIGH-INITIATIVE acts require active participation by individuals to obtain benefits for a group. Such activities can be associated with the electoral process, or they can be separate, such as filing class-action suits.

3. Compared to citizens of other countries, American are less likely to vote in elections but more likely to use other forms of conventional participation.

II. Participation through elections and voting lies at the heart of the democratic process.

A. Electoral procedures specify three rules for making collective decisions.

1. Who is allowed to vote.

2. How much each person's vote will count.

3. How many votes are needed to win the election.

B. The gradual elimination of property holding requirements expanded suffrage to all white males by the 1850s.

1. Though long in coming, actions by the national government to enforce political equality within the states dramatically
increased registration by blacks.

a. Although the Fifteenth Amendment gave blacks the right to vote, southern states reestablished restrictive registration requirements.

b. The Supreme Court decided in 1944 that laws preventing blacks from voting in primaries were unconstitutional.

c. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspended the remaining voting tests, which discriminated against blacks.

2. Women had to fight long and hard to win the right to vote.

a. No woman had the right to vote until 1869.

b. Pressured by unconventional tactics of the suffragettes, twelve states gave women the right to vote between 1869 and 1918.

c. The Twentieth Amendment, forbidding states to deny women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920.

C. PROGRESSIVISM--a philosophy of political reform popular during the 1920s--left an important legacy of mechanisms for direct participation.

1. The state-run DIRECT PRIMARY allows ordinary citizens to choose their candidates.

2. Through the RECALL, a special election initiated by petition, citizens could remove an unpopular official from office.

3. Through the REFERENDUM, citizens vote directly on issues written as propositions.

4. By means of the INITIATIVE, voters propose issues to be decided by the legislatures or directly determined by the voters.

D. Voting for candidates serves democratic governments in two ways. 

1. It allows citizen to choose the candidates they think would best serve their interests.

2. Elections make public officials accountable for their actions if we assume that citizens know their candidates and their offices.

III. Different explanations underlie differences in political participation across time and across nations.

A. Except for voting turnout rates, which have declined over time, Americans participate in politics about as much in the 1980s as they did in the 1960s.

B. The STANDARD SOCIOECONOMIC MODEL of participation suggests that people with more education, higher incomes, and white-collar jobs are more likely to participate in politics.

1. Unconventional behavior, however, is not related to higher socioeconomic status.

2. Education is the strongest single predictor of participation.

3. Regardless of socioeconomic status, young people are less likely than older people to participate in conventional politics.

C. Low voting turnout in the United States can be attributed to several factors.

1. Voting turnout has declined over time for two reasons.

a. Lowering the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen in 1971 increased the pool of eligible voters least likely to vote.

b. Studies have found that the belief in the efficacy of voting is declining among all voters.

2. Voting turnout in the United States is lower than in other democratic countries for three main reasons.

a. In the United States, voting laws and election procedures do not encourage voting.

(1) No election holidays are provided to allow people to vote.

(2) The burden of registration is placed on the individual.

b. Political parties fail to mobilize voters because of weak party-group linkages.

c. Inadequate information about a large number of candidates and offices discourages people from voting.

D. Achieving the democratic goal of political participation involves tradeoffs between freedom, equality, and order.

1. According to normative theory, individuals should be free to participate in politics as they wish and as much as they wish.

2. Citizens' ability to influence government should be equal regardless of differences in personal resources.

3. Governments have a stake in channeling participation to conventional channels to maintain order.

E. Apart from allowing citizens to choose candidates or issues, elections serve other important purposes.

1. Elections socialize political activity.

2. Elections institutionalize access to political power.

3. Elections bolster states' power and authority.

F. We can better understand participation through two models of democracy.

1. The MAJORITARIAN MODEL of democracy favors collective decisions formalized through elections over private influence on government.

2. The PLURALIST model of democracy favors a decentralized and organizationally complex form of government, and it encourages forms of conventional participation other than voting.