As well as breeding general apathy and antipathy, it is argued that events such as economic crises which lead to a degradation in social resources (time, money, energy) among citizens, and impacts on political participation; citizens exit participatory spheres as they find they simply no longer have the resources to remain active within them (see Deitz 1998). Often referenced are things like joining political parties, attending protests or demonstrations, writing or reading political discourse, and so on.
My question is whether we should expect that this would have the same impact on low-cost, low-resource elements of political participation? By this I mean things such as wearing campaign badges, signing petitions, boycotting products, and so on.
Academics such as Hilton (2002) and even Hay (2007) have long acknowledged that such alternative, informal participatory modes as these have not been subject to the same general decline as participation in formal modes such as voting and joining parties, but I believe that events such as economic crises provide a unique phenomenon which may affect this trend.
I am writing a quantitative piece on this topic for the ECPR Glasgow conference, and have already done the data analysis. So although I kind of know the answer to this already (whether it does or not), I would like to pick your collective brains about the theories and ideas which surround it.
Inglês:
I liked it ...
I can not wait to read your answer on the subject.
Interesting angle of analysis, look forward to read your findings.
In my experience and observation unfortunately the sort of participation you are referring to doesn't bring any change as governments are cruel and instead of listening to masses, worrying about common people following rent seeking group interests.
Having said that, I find it as an interesting longitudinal study where a control group wear some badge or a strip as protest or for a cause and see its impact after sometime. To me it can be seen as passive advertising which somehow have an influence on buyers sub-conscience.
Andrea, Babar, thank you for your responses.
Perhaps though Babar I am not so concerned with how much of an impact these modes of participation quantitatively have on governments and policy, but rather if citizens themselves continue to engage with them post-economic crises despite their social resources being depleted. Various authors have stated that formal participation drops post-crises for this reason, but I think because 'personal' participation is so easy and low-resource, we could expect that citizens' ability to participate in this manner shouldn't be affected too much by crises? Is this something which seems agreeable? Is there any literature which could assist?
However, your point is a strong one and alludes to something I perhaps have not considered as of yet - do people even think these forms of participation are worth engaging in? In terms of trend analyses that perhaps could lead us to expect that while participation in this mode might not be falling, we won't see a growth in participation of this sort, because citizens do not believe it is worth doing? Do you have any literature to support such a view?
- Badges
- Science topic
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- Political Science