political participation

Pol10/5 What is POlitical participation? - DEFINITION: ?behavior on the part of those outside government to influence the selection of government officials and the policies they set.? Societal/ government definition legal input or illegal activity? Laws & norms sanction certain behavior Response/ standard varies by political system Everyone may not accept standard ?winners? defined retrospectively Types of Participation 1. Conventional Routine, non threatening behavior that uses channels of representative government Public approves & supports Two types of conventional behaviors Supportive behaviors (supports) Express allegiance Often symbolic& ceremonial Influencing behaviors ( Demands) Seek policy change Examples?? 2. Borderline/less Conventional Non-routine behavior that demands change Non-violent, but possibly disruptive Public does not normally approve nor support Examples?? Direct action and civil disobedience Sometimes effective= promotes reform 3. Unconventional Uncommon behavior that threatens or defies government channels or the dominant culture Violent Most of the public does not approve nor support Examples?? Level of participation by americans 1. Unconventional= low 2. Borderlines/less conventional= low Characteristics of participants Trust in the participants Low faith Political efficacy= high Very active in government (personal sense you have ability to affect politics) Group consciousness= high Black ppl civic engagement to further civil liberties Black feel sense of closeness w. Other black ppl 3. Conventional=?? (most common) Absolute standard= low Sort of curve results Comparative standard= high Compared to other countries around the world Voting vs. Other forms of participation Lower compared to other countries Difference b.w us being higher than other countries low- initiative vs. High- initiative effort?? (see slide) SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT Jail time to fight for beliefs Is it really worth cause Will the world reallly change Risk factors Who participates in politics? political participation (POLPART) is a multifaceted concept Includes all forms of political participation Includes: Lobbying Voting Protesting Contacting officials Petitioning Campaigning blogging Boycotting Joining groups Contributing Talking && MOre Ways to get data to speek to you Standards socioeconomic status (SES) model illustrate bivariate relationships ( see next two slides) How things are connected See if data is similar to hypotheseis How two things may be related To things can be related w.o being causal SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT Correlation does not equal causation Correlations can be spurious Illustrate multivariate model building (More complicated) Illustrate model modification process Always have trouble in relationships Variables in the SES Model 1. Socioeconomic status (SES) Education, income, occupational status Education is the most important factor 2. Age 3. Race Biacks= whites (control for other variables) 4. Sex Females= males (control for other variables) 5. Organizational involvement 6. Strength of political partisanship (PID) 7. Electoral competitiveness Simplified model of political participation illustrate types of variables ( see next slide) SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT Neeed to modify? How??