The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

Societies in Transition to the Network Society 55
The reasons for the low participation levels are varied, but it is possible
to identify some guiding hypotheses if we focus on a specific
reality such as the Portuguese one.
Of the reasons for this lack of civic engagement, we can list, first
and foremost, the degree of public confidence in the politicians for
Portugal. Although it can be considered a global phenomenon
(Castells 2004), the development of the degree of trust of the citizens
in politicians is not identical in all societies. Whereas Portugal is in
28th place in terms of public trust in the honesty of its politicians,
sharing this level with a group of European countries—Belgium,
France, Italy and Ireland—Finland, in 3rd place, is one of the countries
with the highest degree of trust in the honesty of its politicians in
the world.
The analysis of civic engagement levels in the different countries
must also take into account historic conditioning factors of both a
global and local nature. What is known as unconventional political
participation has increasingly become the most common form of civic
engagement in our developed societies. Petitions, boycotts and other
forms of direct action have become more common. For this reason, we
should pay more attention to these forms of engagement than to membership
in parties or trade unions and participation in demonstrations.
However, in terms of civic engagement measures in these terms,
Portugal has even lower scores. The engagement index measured on
the basis of different forms of civic involvement and participation in
organizations shows that Portugal occupies the last place in an international
comparison of 22 European countries and Israel. Despite the
cultural and geographic proximity to Portugal, countries such as Spain
and Italy have much higher levels of civic engagement.
The historic context of each society can also help us to understand
the participation levels a little more. For example, in his analysis of
data gathered in more than 70 countries, referring to more than 80%
of the world population, on participation in established democracies
and new democracies, Inglehart (2001) has linked the scarce civic
participation in some societies to the post-honeymoon effect. Periods
of high civic participation levels are followed by decreases or stagnation
in participation, but in the long term the trend is for growth in
participation.