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

have differentiated between two types of context factors that can mobilize citizens into
action. On the one hand, their environment is shaped by an interplay of collective actors,
for example political parties, interest groups, citizen groups, etc. On the other hand,
political and socioeconomic characteristics of a society can work in favor or against
citizen participation. Both kinds of contextual factors shape the opportunity structure for
individual activity.
Firstly, individual participation can be seen as an outcome of her/his personal
organizational context. Challenging Verba and his colleagues’ view on the importance
of individual characteristics for political activism (Verba et al. 1995a), Rosenstone and
Hansen (1993: 5) have argued that people “participate in politics not so much because of
who they are but because of the political choices and incentives they are offered”. In this
way, the mobilization approach is closely related to Putnam’s work on the importance of
dense social networks and a lively associational life (Putnam 1995, 2000). On the
individual level, opportunity structures closely relate to mobilizing capacities of
organizations, in particular organizational membership (Kaase 1990; Parry, Moyser and
Day 1992). Roller and Wessels (1996: 2) refer to the organizational context of an
individual as the close context. With respect to individual-level participation in elitechallenging
activities this means: Embeddedness into an organizational context (in an
association or an informal network) creates a favorable mobilization context, thus
increasing the chances that a person participates in elite-challenging activities (cause
dimension).
Beyond the individual embeddedness into an organizational context, societal and
political factors can also serve as opportunity structures for political participation. Roller
and Wessels (1996: 2) have defined these conditions as the wider context for
participation. In particular, the institutional set-up in a country can create or impede
opportunities for participation. A simple example is to differentiate between democratic
and non-democratic types of political regimes – whether citizens have the opportunity to
effectively participate depends on what participation means in a political system and
which functions it has. In addition, the time span people have experienced political and
civil rights, lowering the barrier for all kinds of political participation (Dahl 1975: 125).
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