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

US). The follow-up project, looking at “Continuities in Political Action” (Jennings and
van Deth et al. 1990), replicated the measures introduced in the earlier survey. The
second Political Action Study was implemented in such a way that it had a crossnational
survey with a supplementary component in form of a panel study. For the panel
study, respondents of the first round were re-interviewed.
Both rounds of the Political Action Study included a broad variety of items to measure
elite-challenging activities. In order to assess (1) an affective orientation (indicating
approval or disapproval of action); (2) a cognitive orientation (judging effectiveness or
ineffectiveness of action); (3) a behavioral orientation (stating participation “have done”
or intention (“would do” or “would never do”), ten different forms of political
engagement were presented to the respondents:
(1) Signing a petition
(2) Joining in boycotts
(3) Attending lawful demonstrations
(4) Refusing to pay rent or taxes
(5) Joining in wildcat strikes
(6) Painting slogans on walls
(7) Occupying buildings or factories: “Sit ins”
(8) Blocking traffic with a street demonstration
(9) Damage things like breaking windows, removing road signs, etc.
(10) Using personal violence like fighting with other demonstrators or the police
The respondents were confronted with cards showing the activities, and the following
questions: “On each of these cards you will find a description of some kind of action
that people sometimes take to protest about something or simply to make their view
known to other people. Are there any you’ve never heard about or don’t understand?
(…) We would like to know how you feel about these things. Please look at this card.
26 Due to the fact that Italy, Switzerland and Finland joined the project only at a later point in time, the
analyses of the “Political Action” book are limited to the five original countries. A second book, published
in 1990 (Sänkiaho et al.: People and their Polities), encompasses results from all the eight countries.
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