Participation and Democracy: Dynamics, Causes ... - Jacobs University

unpaid voluntary work in citizen action groups. These results do not suggest that elitechallenging
activities became more widespread at the expense of other forms of political
activism.
This outcome can be generalized as no trade-off between elite-challenging and other
forms of political activism could be observed. At the aggregate level, the share of people
taking part in demonstrations, petitions, buy- or boycotts was not linked to voter turnout.
A positive relationship was found for conventional participation, suggesting that if a
society has generally a higher level of political participation, also participation outside
traditional channels is more pronounced. Finally, a positive linkage could be found
between the level of associational activity and elite-challenging activities, highlighting
the significance of a mobilizing context that provides opportunities for citizens to become
politically active. At the individual level, elite-challenging activities were only weakly
correlated with voting but positively linked with forms of conventional participation,
again suggesting that if people become active, they aim at influencing the political
decision-making process through multiple activities. This also applies to the personal
organizational context (although societal differences were pronounced) that mobilizes
people through direct contacts into elite-challenging activities, both in interest
organizations and citizens action groups. The following chapter examines this in more
detail, putting elite-challenging activities in the broader context of social capital research.
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