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58 The Network Society
Although Inglehart does not present data that allow one to compare
the 1970s, the decade of revolution and transition to democracy
in Spain and Portugal, one can observe this type of behavior in the
new democracies in Eastern Europe, which are characterized by periods
of a rapid surge in participation followed by periods of less civic
involvement. What the data do allow us to infer is the relative proximity
of the participation levels between all the countries that have gone
through transition to democracy in the last thirty years, regardless of
whether they are in Europe or South America.
The post-honeymoon decline is no doubt significant but the fact that
these societies experienced authoritarian regimes, be they of the left
or the right, for many years is also justification for the low levels of
political participation.
A third factor one must take into account in analyzing participation
is the relationship between participation and trust in others. The
World Values Survey data (2001) furthermore shows that countries
with geographical and cultural affinities with Portugal—such as Spain,
France and Italy—present relatively homogeneous intermediate values
for membership of associations.
In Spain, the figures, for men and women respectively, are 32% and
26%, for Italy 46% and 38% and for France 36% and 43%. Where
the differences are clearly greater is in the trust in others, for Spain
(35%), Italy (32%) and France (20%) are clearly above the Portuguese
values. This mistrust in relation to others is also obviously a factor to
be taken into account in analyzing the low levels of civic participation.
Continuing the analysis of the possible factors that condition political
participation in the context of the informational development
models, one must including one more explanatory factor—education.
An analysis of the participation dimensions must also make reference
to the Putnam analyses (1993) on the relationship between reading
newspapers and participation in civic associations. Putnam argues
that there is a direct correlation between reading newspapers and
membership of associations (other than religious associations) and that
the regions with the highest readership levels are also those that, as a
rule, have the strongest civic communities. If we test this hypothesis,
we see that, at least in Europe, more than just influencing engage-