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

forms of participation as elite-challenging activities (Inglehart 1990, 1997; Inglehart and
Catterberg 2003; Inglehart and Welzel 2005). These activities take place outside
institutionalized channels of political participation (like voting or joining a political
party) and are therefore distinct from elite-directed forms of mass activities (Inglehart
and Welzel 2005: 118). Elite-challenging activities are a spontaneous, short-term and
issue-oriented rather than long-term and permanent form of engagement. They range
from participation in demonstrations such as the Belgian white march 2 in 1996 or antiwar
protests around the globe in 2003, to petitioning against child labor, or to
deliberately buying CFC-free products, cosmetics that were not tested on animals, or
fair-trade products. As these activities confront political and other elites with demands
and pressure from below, “[c]itizen participation is becoming more closely linked to
citizen influence” (Dalton 2000b: 929). It should be noted that the term “elite” is not
referring to a group in a society that stands out by characteristics such as social class or
education but refers to people in leadership positions who regularly take part in
(political) decision-making (Hoffmann-Lange 2007: 910). In this sense, it follows a
broad understanding of the term as elites are not necessarily limited to political elites.
What are the implications of the expanded action repertoire? Addressing this question,
the thesis aims at contributing to the debate about declining civic activism (Putnam
(1993, 1995a, 2000, 2002). The research question guiding this thesis is: What are the
dynamics, causes (determinants) and consequences of elite-challenging activities? This
question will be answered using a broad empirical database which combines information
from different large-scale comparative survey projects over a period of more than 30
years. The dynamic dimension refers to the expansion of the political action repertoire
and is the starting point of the empirical analyses: How has participation in elitechallenging
activities changed over the past decades? The descriptive part provides a
first test for the robustness of the findings in other studies: Is the increase in noninstitutionalized
forms occurring in all societies, or is this development restricted to
2 The Belgian white march took place in the aftermath of a large case of child abuse and murder. Around
300.000 people gathered in October 1996 in Brussels to demonstrate their solidarity with the victims and
their families and to display their anger about deficiencies in the police investigation and the judiciary
system (Lippens 1998).
3