The last post
discussed political participation
and identified the different level scholars have made of it. However, political
participation does not just vary from level to level and dimension to
dimension, certain factors determine these differences, and such factors are
what provide explanation for why some people and countries engage in politics
at different levels.
More
particularly, third world countries of the world do not have the same number of
people participating at transitorial level for instance, as one may get in
advanced countries. The factors that determine this difference are what will be
discussed in this post.
Table of
content
At the end
of this article you will be able to:
(a)
Identify and analyze the factors behind differences or variation in political
participation across nations and among social groups within nations
(b)
Assess, in a more detailed and competent manner, the nature, sources and
conditions of political participation in various political systems.
5 Factors Affecting Political Participation
Below are identified
5 determinants of political participation, namely:
1. Political
culture
2.
Institutional and electoral arrangement
3. Party
system
4. Political
leadership
5.
Socio-economic status
1. Political
Culture
Political
culture includes ‘the state of attitudes, beliefs emotions and values of
society that relate to the political system and to political issues'. Writers
like Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba have attempted to explain participation
and apathy in terms of national differences in political culture.
Some
countries are said to have participatory or participant cultures, and others
subject or non-participatory cultures. Where cultures are participatory,
citizens display great enthusiasm for politics, exhibit a high degree of pride
in national political institutions and have a high sense of political efficacy
and civic duty. Non-participatory or subject political cultures, on the other
hand, foster attitudes of passivity, isolation, deference and
citizen-withdrawal.
In their
book, The Civic Culture, for example, Almond and Verba describe the
United States of America and Britain as having participant culture, and Germany
and Italy as having a largely non-participant or subject culture.
It is,
however, significant to note that a higher percentage of the electorate
participate in voting in Italy, where voter turnout in the seventies was about
94 per cent, than in the United States, which had an average voter turnout of
54 percent in the same period. This suggests that there may be other factors,
apart from political culture, which influence political participation.
Read On: Impacts of Political Socialization on Political Behaviour
2.
Institutional and Electoral Arrangements
Institutional
and electoral arrangements have a significant impact on political
participation, particularly voter turnout. An electoral system based on
proportional representation, whereby all parties are represented in parliament
in proportion to the number of votes they receive, encourages parties and
candidates to mobilize voters everywhere and, therefore, increases voter
turnout.
On the
other hand, however, the use of the majority or first -past - the - post system
- which is based on single-member constituencies, with the party with the
highest votes in a constituency winning the seat for that constituency - leads
to an imbalance in the translation of votes into legislative seats and creates
a disincentive to voting and Voter turnout.
A
multi-party system, by encouraging coalition governments, gives elections a
less decisive role in government formation and, consequently, depresses voter
turnout. By the same token, a two-party system will tend to encourage voter
participation. Unicameral legislative system, by providing a clearer link
between electorates and legislation, encourages citizen participation. And
because this link is relatively less visible in bicameral systems,
participation in elections tends to be lower in such systems
Finally,
mandatory voting laws induce increased voter turnout, while difficult
eligibility or voting registration requirements dampen voter turnout.
For
example, countries like Australia, Belgium and Italy have laws that compel
voting, as did the Netherlands until 1970. In the United States of America, on
the other hand, electoral regulations requiring relatively stringent residency
and other eligibility requirements have inhibited voter differently.
In other
words, we have identified the impact of political culture and institutional and
electoral arrangements on political participation. Participant political
cultures tend to encourage greater citizen participation than subject cultures.
Similarly,
the proportional representation principle, two-party system, unicameralism and
mandatory voting laws encourage the participation of citizens in voting. The
first-past-the-post electoral system, multi-party system, bicameralism and
difficult voting registration or eligibility requirements, on the other hand,
discourage voter turnout.
Read On: 6 Functions of Political Socialization
3. The
Party System
Political
parties are extremely important in encouraging citizens to become politically
active. In some countries, the party system presents rather drastic choices of
policy, ideology and group benefits.
In
other countries, however, the parties do not offer sharply contrasting
alternatives to voters. Where choices are sharply divergent and parties are
clearly linked to particular groups, the stakes of participation are very high,
and citizens are more likely to get politically involved.
Furthermore,
some parties do make considerable efforts to get citizens to vote. In India and
Mexico, for example, political parties, especially the governing parties, have
often sent out trucks to round up voters in the rural areas.
In many
other nations, party officials make elaborate efforts to contact voters and to
ensure that they actually vote. Because these party mobilization strategies are
well developed in some nations, such as Austria and Netherlands, moderately
developed in others, such as Western Germany and France, and quite weak in
others, including most parts of Nigeria and the United States, voting turnout
is shaped accordingly.
4. Political Leadership
Leaders or
candidates with a particularly strong personal appeal can bring many apathetic
or apolitical people into political activity. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a hero of
the Second World War (1937-45), enjoyed such personal popularity or appeal in
the United States in the 1950s. Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and Fidel Castro in
Cuba are two charismatic leaders of developing countries who have mobilized
their respective citizens into often intermittent, and sometimes sustained,
political activity.
5.
Socio-economic Status (SES)
Studies
have repeatedly shown that better-educated, wealthier and
occupationally-skilled citizens are more likely, on the average, to develop
participant attitudes. These citizens invariably tend to be more politically
enlightened, more attentive to political information, more politically
efficacious and better able to make use of opportunities for participation,
than less socio-economically privileged citizens.
In short,
better off citizens tend to be the most active in politics. This tendency is,
however, less pronounced in voting participation and far more visible in the
forming of pressure groups to influence governmental decisions. This lecture
has, however, concentrated more on voting participation than any other form of
political participation because voting is the simplest and most common form of
participation in virtually all political systems.
In
conclusion, we should note that there are many factors, other than the five
discussed in this post, that affect political participation. Some of these
other factors can be stated as follows: sex (men are more likely to participate
in politics than women), residence (the longer a person resides in a given
community, the greater the likelihood of his participation in politics),
location (urban dwellers tend to be more active in politics than rural
dwellers) and social involvement (those who participate in trade-union or
voluntary activities are more likely to participate in politics than those who
do not take part in such activities).
Conclusion on Top 6 Factors Affecting Political Participation
There are many factors affecting political participation. This post has focused on five of these factors, namely political culture, institutional and electoral arrangements, the party system, political leadership and socio-economic status.
Essentially, political participation will be higher in political systems where a participant, as distinct from subject, political culture prevails, where institutional and electoral arrangements compel or induce participation, where parties make efforts to mobilize voters and are ideologically and socially differentiated, and where the political leadership is charismatic.
Furthermore,
participation tends to be higher among higher-status than lower-status groups.
A number of other factors, apart from the five enunciated above, which also
affect levels of participation, particularly among social groups, can include:
sex, residence location and social involvement.