Political Participation and Civic

Engagement: Towards A New Typology

Joakim Ekman
Associate Professor of Political Science
School of Social Sciences
Södertörn University
SE – 141 89 Huddinge
Sweden
Phone: +46 8 608 44 97
E-mail: joakim.ekman@sh.se

Erik Amnå
Professor of Political Science
School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Örebro University
SE – 701 82 Örebro
Sweden
Phone: +46 19 30 10 53
E-mail: erik.amna@oru.se

Youth & Society (YeS)

Working Paper 2009: 2
Political Participation and Civic Engagement: Towards
A New Typology

Joakim Ekman and Erik Amnå

Abstract Reviewing the literature on political participation and civic engagement, the paper offers a
critical examination of different conceptual frameworks. Drawing on previous definitions and
operationalizations, a new typology for political participation and civic engagement is developed,
highlighting the multidimensionality of both concepts. In particular, the typology makes a clear
distinction between manifest “political participation” (including formal political behavior as well as
protest or extra-parliamentary political action) and less direct or “latent” forms of participation,
conceptualized here as “civic engagement” and “social involvement”. The article argues that the
notion of “latent” forms of participation is crucial, if we want to understand new forms of political
behavior and the prospects for political participation in different countries. By introducing a typology
covering both manifest and latent forms of political behavior, the article contributes to a much-needed
theoretical development within the literature on political participation and citizen engagement.

Key words: political participation; civic engagement; typology; involvement; latent participation

INTRODUCTION

In the past two decades, we have witnessed a growing academic interest in political
participation in the established or “old” democracies. Much of this scholarly interest seems to
be justified by a concern about declining levels of civic engagement, low electoral turnout,
eroding public confidence in the institutions of representative democracy, and other signs of
public weariness, skepticism, cynicism and lack of trust in politicians and political parties. In
the post-industrial societies, we are told, citizens have become increasingly disengaged from
the traditional channels of political participation.1 In the preface to one significant
contribution to this debate about the decline of civic activism and distrust in political
institutions, Susan J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam note that “it is a remarkable irony that just
at the moment when liberal democracy has defeated all its enemies on the battlefields of

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ideology and politics, many people in the established democracies believe that their own
political institutions are faltering, not flourishing”.2
Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community is perhaps
the most well known contribution to this debate, but similar concerned voices have resonated
in a number of other democracies worldwide, in Western Europe, in Scandinavia, and in
South-East Asia. At the same time, it has been argued that such fears are exaggerated – the
development of “critical citizens” is not the same thing as the erosion of democracy, and the
assumption of the decline and fall of civic engagement is, at best, premature.3
Here, focus is not on the debate about declining levels of participation per se, but on the
concepts used by scholars to capture changes in citizens’ participation and engagement in
politics and society. More specifically, the aim of this paper is to enhance our understanding
of different forms of civic engagement as well as political participation, by suggesting a new
conceptual framework for analyzing different forms of social engagement and political
activities. In order to illustrate the need for such a framework, or more specifically, a new
typology, we will start out by looking at two descriptions of current research on citizens’
engagement and participation, demonstrating on the one hand the conceptual confusion
surrounding the notion “civic engagement” and, on the other hand, the confined way of
thinking about “political participation”.

Civic engagement: too wide?

In a recent article in Perspectives on Politics, Ben Berger argues that “civic engagement” as a
concept is ready for the dustbin. Ever since it was popularized by Putnam it has been used as a
buzzword, to cover everything from voting in elections to giving money to charity:

Scholars use “civic engagement” to describe activities ranging from bowling in leagues to
watching political television shows, writing checks to political advocacy groups, and participating
in political rallies and marches. For many journalists, public officials, and political activists civic
engagement can mean everything from charitable giving to associational membership, political
participation, artistic expression, or community service.4

As for Putnam, he quite simply utilized the concept of “civic engagement” to point out the
importance of “social capital” for a vital democratic society. In a manner of speaking, his
focus was more on “engagement” than on the “civic” or the “political”. When analyzing

3
citizens’ levels of engagement, Putnam covered just about everything from reading
newspapers, political participation, social networks and interpersonal trust to associational
involvement. All of this was labeled civic engagement and the point was very simplified that
such civic engagement tended to correlate with a functioning democracy and market
economy. It made democracy work, basically. In Putnam’s original study, Northern Italy
illustrated this positive relationship, while the situation in Southern Italy was the other way
around; here, poorly functioning institutions went hand in hand with low levels of civic
engagement and social capital.5
In a few articles and a larger study, Putnam expanded his thesis, and argued that civic
engagement was on the decline in the US. American democracy was supposedly eroding from
the inside.6 This sparked a global debate about the future of the established democracies. But
again, as noted by Berger, Putnam was somewhat unclear about what it is was that was
actually declining, since “civic engagement” was a bit of everything.7 Still, the crucial
importance of civic engagement quickly became part of the conventional wisdom within
political science.
What we have here, Berger tells us, is a typical example of conceptual stretching.8 If civic
engagement is used by scholars to mean completely different things, it is basically a useless
concept – it confuses more than it illuminates. If the crucial issue for the established
democracies has to do with declining levels of “civic engagement”, as Putnam and others
have argued,9 then we certainly need to be more clear about what it is that is actually
declining or what exactly it is that we so desperately need as much of as we can possibly get.
Other scholars too have noted the lack of consensus on what constitute civic engagement.
Reviewing existing definitions of the term, Adler and Goggin conclude that there is no single
agreed-upon meaning of civic engagement. That does not mean that all definitions are broad
and all-encompassing. As Adler and Goggin point out, there are a number of more confined
definitions that restrict civic engagement to apply to very specific action, such as community
service, collective action and even political involvement.10
The definitions that limit civic engagement to mean community service stress voluntary
work in the local community, as something close to a duty for all citizens. Definitions of civic
engagement as collective action assumes that such engagement most often comes in the form
of collaboration or joint action to improve conditions in the civil sphere. Other definitions
emphasize the political aspect of “civic”, and consequently equalize civic engagement with
“activities that are not only collective but that are specifically political (i.e., that involve
government action)”.11

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 Others have chosen to conceptualize civic engagement in more expansive ways, to include
a number of activities, like Putnam. Adler and Goggin point out that Putnam in fact avoids
any explicit definition of civic engagement.12 Rather – as Berger also have noted – all sorts of
informal social activities alongside associational involvement and political participation are
included in Putnam’s analysis of what foster “social capital”. Also, Adler and Goggin point to
Michael Della Carpini as someone who defines civic engagement to include activities ranging
from voluntary work and organizational involvement to electoral participation. Adler and
Goggin thus demonstrate the wide variety of activities that are actually included in different
notions of “civic engagement” in the literature.
The two writers also ask us to think about the term as a continuum, spanning from the
private sphere to the formal or public sphere. The former covers individual action like helping
one’s neighbors or simply discussing politics with one’s friends. The latter encompasses
collective action, like activity within a party, an organization or interest group. Adler and
Goggin also proposes their own definition of civic engagement; it has basically to do with
“how an active citizen participates in the life of a community in order to improve conditions
for others or to help shape the community’s future”.13
We certainly like to applaud Adler and Goggin’s attempt to conceptualize civic
engagement and bring order in the rich flora of definitions of the term. However, we also feel
that Berger has a point when criticizing such broad definitions. It is hard not to agree that a
term covering everything from helping a neighbor to voting in elections or running for public
office in fact entails conceptual stretching. Let us proceed by contrasting the image depicted
by Berger and Adler and Goggin with another description of a field of research, focusing
more narrowly on “political participation”.

Political participation: too narrow?

Political science research on citizens’ engagement in politics has conventionally focused on

electoral participation.14 For a long time, voting was perceived as the primary way for a
citizen to make his or her voice heard in the political system, and voting turnout has been
described as the most commonly used measure of citizen participation in the US. When post-
war American political scientists thought about political participation, they quite simply
thought about acts intentionally aimed at influencing governmental decisions. A frequently
cited definition by Verba and his associates, from the 1970s, testifies to the focus on the
election of political leaders and the approval of their policies:

5
 By political participation we refer to those legal acts by private citizens that are more or less
directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions that they
take.15

Other often-cited definitions from the same era are quite similar: political participation
was understood as “actions of private citizens by which they seek to influence or support
government and politics” or as “all voluntary activities by individual citizens intended to
influence either directly or indirectly political choices at various levels of the political
system”.16
At the same time, Verba and others admitted that all allocations of values in society are
not determined by political elites alone – also, private and civil society actors could fill this
function. Still, most political scientists at the time were not really interested in civic
engagement in wider sense or in how citizens acted in relation to social elites outside of the
political domain; rather, it was a matter of pointing out that citizens could also, in addition to
voting, participate in politics in-between elections:

Political participation does not take place only at election time, nor is participation at election time
necessarily the most effective means of citizen influence. Though elections are a major means of
citizen control over government officials, they are rather blunt instruments of control. For the
individual or for particular groups of citizens, the most important political activities may be those
in the between-elections period, when citizens try to influence government decisions in relation to
specific problems that concerns them.17

This way of thinking about political participation at least implicitly opened up for analyses of
activities that included not only voting behavior, but also e.g. demonstrations, strikes,
boycotts and other forms of protest behavior. This line of thought was also quite early on
followed by Barnes and Kaase in their seminal work on Political Action.18 Consequently,
actions directed against all political, societal, media or economic actors (or elites) could be
analyzed as “political participation”.19
More recent definitions of political participation have thus tended to be wider in scope.
Brady for example defines political participation as “action by ordinary citizens directed
toward influencing some political outcomes”.20 Brady emphasizes that we should think about
political participation, firstly, as manifest and observable actions or activities that people

6
voluntary take part in. Secondly, “people” means ordinary citizens, not political elites or civil
servants. Thirdly, the concept refers to deliberate attempts to influence the people in power, to
make a difference. To be interested in politics and societal issues, or even to discuss politics
frequently is not enough, Brady tells us. Political participation refers to attempts to influence
others and their decisions that concern societal issues. These others need not necessarily be
political elites; it could be any powerful actors, groups or business enterprises in society.
Brady thus offers us a wider definition of political participation. At the same time, one could
argue that Brady too tends to place more weight on actions directed at political elites than on
actions directed at other elites. This has in fact been a typical feature of the research field;
even if scholars have suggested ever broader definitions of political participation, focus has
remained on a more confined set of citizen activities. To give but one example, Parry et al.
define political participation as “action by citizens which is aimed at influencing decisions
which are, in most cases, ultimately taken by public representatives and officials”.21
Drawing on Verba and Nie as well as Brady, Teorell et al. have more recently developed
what is perhaps the most comprehensive definition of political participation to date,
encompassing actions or activities by ordinary citizens that in some way are directed toward
influencing political outcomes in society. In line with this, Teorell et al. have introduced a
wider typology than found in previous research.22
Verba and Nie used four dimensions of participation in their often-cited typology: voting;
campaign activity (including membership in or work for political parties and organizations as
well as donating money to such parties or groups); contacting public officials; and
cooperative or communal activities (basically understood by Verba and associates as all forms
of engagement that focused on issues in the local community).23
Teorell et al. suggest a more extensive typology, encompassing five dimensions. Electoral
participation is the first of these. Consumer participation covers donating money to charity,
boycotting and political consumption, as well as signing petitions. In a manner of speaking, it
taps the role of citizens as critical consumers. The third dimension is party activity: to be a
member of, active within, do voluntary work for or donating money to a political party.
Protest activity is the fourth dimension, which covers acts like taking part in demonstrations,
strikes and other protest activities. Contacting organizations, politicians or civil servants
constitute the fifth dimension, contact activity.

7
Latent forms of political participation

Innovative as it is, the typology suggested by Teorell et al. is not without flaws. The strength
of the typology is the explicit focus on manifest political participation in a more narrow sense
– i.e. activities intended to influence actual political outcomes by targeting relevant political
or societal elites.24 At the same time, the typology is wide enough to cover a lot more than just
participation in elections. Moreover, the typology is based on previous studies that have
demonstrated empirically that different forms of participation seem to be related: citizens
involved in one mode or dimension of political behavior tend to be involved in other forms of
political behavior within the same dimension, but not necessarily involved in political
activities in other dimensions. For example, citizens involved in illegal demonstrations also
tend to get involved in legal demonstrations, but not necessarily in conventional party
activity.25
However, we would nevertheless like to argue that the typology suggested by Teorell et
al. is not optimal. For one thing, it is not obvious that all “protest behavior” could be tapped
with measures like participation in demonstrations, strikes and illegal political action. Certain
forms of voting – e.g. blank voting – could be described as a protest as well. Or, for that
matter, non-voting, the signing of petitions and political consumption. In the typology
suggested by Teorell et al., the two latter forms of participation are called “consumer
participation”, a label that may in fact obscure the protest character of the specific action.
More importantly, the typology does not take into account latent forms of political
participation, the kind of engagement that may be regarded “pre-political” or on “stand-by”.
This notion of latency is based on the simple observation that citizens actually do a lot of
things that may not be directly or unevoqually classified as “political participation”, but at the
same time could be of great significance for future political activities of a more conventional
type. If we are interested in declining levels of political participation, we must not overlook
such potentially political forms of engagement. People of all ages and from all walks of life
engage socially in a number of ways, formally outside of the political domain, but
nevertheless in ways that may have political consequences.26 Even the relatively extensive
typology developed by Teorell et al. ultimately fails to take such “pre-political” actions or
activities into account, focused as it is on electoral participation, party activity, political
consumption, manifest political protests and formal contacting activities.
What do we miss, employing such a theoretical framework? A bit pointedly, only the rest
of the iceberg. To be very clear, we very much appreciate the typology suggested by Teorell

8
et al., and we are in fact very close to it in our own understanding of what constitute actual
“political participation” (see below). But, we also feel a broader perspective is called for. A
lot of citizen engagement in the contemporary democracies seems to be formally non-political
or semi-political on the surface, that is, activities not directly aimed at influencing the people
in power, but nevertheless activities that entail involvement in society and current affairs.
People in general discuss politics, consume political news in papers and on TV or on the
Internet, or talk about societal issues. People are aware of global problems, like environmental
issues and the poverty or HIV situation in different parts of the world. People have political
knowledge and skills, and hold informed opinions about politics. Some people write to editors
in local papers, debating local community affairs. Others express their opinions on-line, in
blogs or on chat sites. It does not have to be very high profile issues; citizen may just want to
get their point across on health care services, public transportation, current affairs, or the
conditions in public schools. Trivial as such things may seem, these are still statements about
issues of concern for more than just the own family and the circle of close friends. This entails
social involvement or engagement.
Moreover, people with such attention to societal affairs take more active part in society as
well, in different ways. People get involved. People donate money, to support the building of
schools or clean water delivery systems in developing countries, or to support research on
cancer and heart diseases. People of all ages recycle. People come together to protect local
environment areas, get organized to help disabled people or the homeless. People organize
fund raising concerts for good causes. People help their non-native speaker neighbors to fill
out government forms, or the non-native speaker’s children with their homework. Concerned
parents form groups to walk the streets at night, in down town city centers or in troubled
areas, in order to look after teenagers that have been drinking or to prevent violence and
crime. People organize car pools to get to work in an environmental friendly way.
All of this is excluded from the typology suggested by Teorell et al. Although this is
perfectly reasonable, we still feel that it is a shortcoming, since all these things may be
important for us to accurately analyze and understand the conditions for political participation
in different countries. What is more, if we are interested in explaining different forms of
engagement in political affairs among different groups in society, e.g. youth, women, or
immigrants, we certainly cannot afford to overlook these aspects of “pre-political”
orientations and activities.
As we have demonstrated so far, what we have are two related research literatures, both
partly flawed. On the one hand, we have academic works on “civic engagement”, a term that

9
has become something of a catch-all concept in recent years, less than ideal for precise
empirical analyses of the conditions for citizens’ involvement in society. On the other hand,
we have the literature on “political participation”, which stands out as too narrow in scope.
Important aspects of citizens’ political (or pre-political) engagement are systematically
overlooked, using the standard definitions of political participation. Here, the idea is thus to
enhance our understanding of the much-debated declining levels of political engagement, low
electoral turnout, and eroding public confidence in the institutions of representative
democracy, by constructing a new typology of citizens’ political/pre-political behavior. The
proposed typology (below) includes not only manifest political participation, but also the
latent forms of participation in politics, here conceptualized as “civic engagement” and
“social involvement”. The typology will be explained in detail in the next section.

DEVELOPING A NEW TYPOLOGY

To begin with, the typology discriminates between latent and manifest forms of political
participation. Also, we want to make a point out of discriminating between individual and
collective forms of engagement and participation (thus constructing a matrix), in order to
highlight distinct forms of political behavior (Table 1).
Liberal democracy is based on the notion of individual political rights and liberties, but at
the same time on the idea of political representation, through different collectives, most
notably of course the political parties. Parties represent different segments of society and
articulate the interests of different groups or collectives. People supposedly have interests in
common with others, then. Making a distinction between individual and collective forms of
political behavior makes sense from another angle as well. The sociological debate has for at
least two decades focused on value changes among citizens in postmodern or late modern
society. Here we find the idea of collective identities (e.g. social class, nationality, or party
identification) slowly being replaced by various individual identities. This transformation is
sometimes being used to account for different forms of political behavior – in late modernity,
citizens have allegedly become increasingly disengaged from the traditional channels of
political participation, and “life politics” has become more important. People chose for
themselves when and how to get involved politically, and parties or other intermediate
institutions are not seldom considered inappropriate. Another way of putting it would be to
say that collective forms of political participation have to stand back for individual forms of
political involvement.27 This is ultimately a question for empirical testing, and the point here

10
is just to explain why we find this distinction (individual/collective forms) relevant for our
typology.

Manifest political participation

Turning next to manifest political behavior, the idea is to emphasize that what we refer to as
actual “political participation” is quite simply all actions directed towards influencing
governmental decisions and political outcomes. It is goal oriented or rational, if you will. It is
observable and can be measured straightforwardly. It has to do with the wishes of ordinary
citizens to influence politics and political outcomes in society, or the decisions that affect
public affairs.28
Within the framework of a representative democracy, this is what we in our typology refer
to as formal political participation. Citizens vote in the general elections, in order to support
some parties or candidates, or to make sure others will not gain too much influence. People
take part in referenda for similar reasons. To some, it may be a deliberate political act to
abstain from voting in an election or a referendum, as a protest against the political order or
the incumbents. Or, they may cast a blank vote in an election to demonstrate political
dissatisfaction.
Other types of formal political participation, on the individual level, cover what other
scholars have referred to as “contact activities”. Citizens may write to politicians or civil
servants, in order to try to influence the political agenda or political outcomes. Also,
individuals may run for office themselves, in local or national government. As for “formal”
collective forms of political behavior, the typical example would be membership: in a political
party, a trade union, or any organization with a distinct political agenda, e.g. human rights
advocacy groups, peace organization, or environmental groups.
However, political participation need not relate directly to the formal political institutional
framework of a country (the parliamentary sphere) or to the conventional actors within that
framework (political parties, political actors, trade unions and organizations). In order to
influence the political agenda or the political outcomes, citizens may engage in extra-
parliamentary activities and manifestations, sometimes referred to as protest behavior or
“unconventional” political participation. Here however, we have deliberately avoided the
notion of “unconventional” participation, since such forms of what was once considered
protest behavior – like signing petitions or taking part in demonstrations and strikes – are not
really unconventional any more.29 Instead, we simply talk about extra-parliamentary forms of

11
political participation, and make a special point out of distinguishing between legal and
illegal forms of extra-parliamentary activism.
Legal forms of extra-parliamentary activities include participation in demonstrations,
strikes and other manifest forms of protest actions. Also, under this heading we place
membership in (or activity within) groups or parties that deliberately stand outside of the
parliamentary sphere, like network-based social movements or political actions groups of
various kinds.
Such forms of political participation include involvement in e.g. women’s rights groups,
animal protection organizations, or the global justice movement. Such expressions of political
interest and channels for political participation seem to fit young people particularly well; it is
not organized in a conventional (or hierarchical) way, like a political party, nor is it just about
supporting a good cause. Extra-parliamentary activity within network-based groups provides
its members or supporters with a sense of “doing something”, an opportunity to personally
take a stand and make a difference. For many people, the manifest political activities becomes
concentrated to particular and not seldom spectacular events, like the World Social Forum
(WSF) or European Social Forum (ESF) meetings, or counter-demonstrations at G8 meetings
or EU top meetings. More locally, people take part in e.g. Pride festivals and street parades, in
order to change society’s outlook on gay and lesbian people.
Also, on the individual level, extra-parliamentary activism could come in the form of
boycotting or “buycotting”. Certain brands and products are bought – or refuted – for
ideological, ethical or environmental reasons. This is also a way for ordinary citizens to
directly influence the people in power (not necessarily politicians), and thus a rational form of
manifest political action. People are aware of different brands and company reputations, and
can identity some as politically incorrect and others as practicing fair trade, and as a
consequence, they buy certain products and avoid buying others. In an emerging political
science literature, such behavior is referred to as “political consumption”.30 Furthermore, on
the individual level, citizens may sign or collect petitions or hand out political leaflets.
Some forms of extra-parliamentary political activities are unlawful, like participating in
illegal demonstrations or violent protests bordering on riots. For example, in Europe, the
autonomous radical left has since the 1970s been something of a standing feature in some
major cities, like Berlin, Paris and Copenhagen. The Antifascist network (“Antifa” groups
consisting of anarchists, syndicalists and non-compromising anti-capitalists) regularly take
their struggle to the streets, and organize counter-strikes when the neo-Nazis or extreme right-
wingers are demonstrating. The police is often targeted at such occasions, alongside the actual

12
political opponents, as it is a way of getting the message across: if the capitalist state allows
the extreme right-wing groups to demonstrate, society will have to pay the price (riots,
smashed windows, burned cars, et cetera).
Other forms of illegal political action encompass animal liberation groups that set animals
free or attack stores selling furs or laboratories where animal testing is conducted. Anti-sexist
attacks on porn shops by militant feminist groups would also fit this category, alongside all
sorts of civil disobedience activities.
It is not always self-evident what constitutes illegal political action and what does not.
Some civil disobedience actions – like blocking streets for a few hours to protest against car
pollution – would not really be considered a criminal offence, while other civil disobedience
actions, like organized attacks on factories producing military weapons typically would.
Sometimes the gray zone between legal and illegal is related to unclear legal practices. In
some countries, like the Netherlands, squatting buildings is legal under certain conditions; in
other countries, no squatting at all would be tolerated by the authorities. Some types of
political behavior is unlawful but so uncommon – like “freeganism” (i.e. dumpster divers that
take care of left-over and thrown away food as part of a protest against consumerism and
capitalist society’s waste of resources) – that is not really considered an offence, even if it
would technically involve trespassing. Other forms of political expressions that border on
illegal would be political street art or graffiti; by some considered justified forms of modern
art or political communication and by others as vandalism.31
For all practical purposes, extra-parliamentary actions – especially of the illegal variety –
are collective actions. In our typology, we still remain open to the possibility of individual
forms of illegal political action as well. This need not be dramatic actions bordering on
terrorism, like the fictional and slightly romantic anarchist with his bomb, like in Èmile Zola’s
Germinal or in Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Rather, it could be citizens free-riding on
the subways or trams, as a protest against fee-based public transportation. In countries with
mandatory military training, it would be an individual form of illegal protest to refuse to
attend such training (like in Israel, for example).
Furthermore, hiding refugees would be another example of individual political activism,
even if the practice as such would not be considered unlawful. In some instances, it could
perhaps be a matter of unclear legal practices; it is not necessarily a criminal offence to hide
illegal refugees, as long as it is not done for profit. Also, it would in most countries be illegal
to employ a “paperless” refugee, even if it is done to help him or her. At the same time, the
very action of hiding a refugee is close to what would conventionally be referred to as civil

13
disobedience; it has not only to do with legal practices, but with moral principles. A political
decision in a democratic society “should” be accepted by its citizens; this is the rules of the
game. Even if we do not personally approve of all policies or laws, as good democrats we are
supposed to accept these as binding, if they are based on formal democratic procedures. Thus,
when the authorities decide to deny refugees the right of staying in a country, we “should”
accept this. When we do not accept it, and let our moral principles guide our actions, we do
not necessarily break the law, but we nevertheless break the rules of the game, in a manner of
speaking. To some, this is a noble thing, done out of compassion and for altruistic reasons.
For others, it means showing disrespect for the law. In any case, it could be perceived as a
distinctly political act.

Civic engagement

So far, we have covered the manifest forms of “actual” political participation in our typology:
formal types such as voting or being a member of a political party, as well as more protest
oriented or “new” forms of political participation, like taking part in demonstrations, engaging
in extra-parliamentary political protests, or boycotting and political consumption. It should be
noted that we are in fact very close to Teorell et al. and Brady (above) in our way of thinking
about what activities constitute political participation, even if we employ a somewhat
different conceptual strategy. What Teorell and associates refer to as “electoral participation”,
“contact activity” and “party activity” are all included under our heading formal political
participation, and what they call “consumer participation” and “protest activity” are covered
by our label extra-parliamentary activism (in Table 2).
However, as noted above, is not enough to analyze the different modes of manifest
political activities. If we want to understand the conditions for participation in different
countries, we must not overlook the latent forms of political behavior. People engage in
society in a number of ways that do not formally relate to the political (parliamentary) domain
– or in ways that are clearly not any sort of political protest – but that nevertheless could be
seen as “pre-political”. In our typology, we want to cover these expressions of societal
engagement as well.
It should be noted at this stage that we do not necessarily think about the different
concepts as part of a model, with an underlying causality. Manifest “political participation”
does not necessarily presuppose active “civic engagement” (cf. Table 1). It could very well be
the case that different forms of societal or civic engagement would be strongly correlated with

14
more specific political activities, but that is ultimately a question for empirical testing. Here,
we are primarily interested in mapping the totality of different types of political and civil
participation, as a way of order our thinking in terms of the different types of phenomena we
can empirically study. Moreover, it could very well also be the case that civic engagement is a
necessary but not in itself sufficient condition for political participation – other individual or
institutional political opportunity structures may be needed as well for actual political action.
Here, we are in fact close to Berger’s way of thinking:

Must citizens be politically engaged all the time or only episodically? Perhaps liberal democracies
can flourish with relatively low levels of political engagement if they also feature continuously
high levels of societal and moral engagement – which can be channeled into political engagement
should the circumstances warrant – and political institutions able to process that episodic
engagement and respond satisfactorily. Perhaps liberal democracies do require high and
widespread political engagement for the sake of fair representation and political legitimacy. These
are questions for further research.32

We will shortly return to Berger’s notion of social and moral engagement. First, we will
present what we mean by “civic engagement” in our typology.
Civic engagement refers to activities by ordinary citizens that are intended to influence
circumstances in society that is of relevance to others, outside the own family and circle of
close friends.33 In our typology (Table 1 and 2), the concept refers specifically to such
individual or collective actions noted above. People engage in society in a number of different
ways: they discuss politics, follow political issues, write to editors, donate money, and recycle
for environmental reasons. People do voluntary work to help others. People get organized to
solve local problems or to improve conditions for certain groups in society.
In Table 1, we place all such activities under the heading civil participation, which we
also think of here as latent political participation. To be very clear, the civil actions we refer
to are of course manifest (observable) behavior as well, but “latent” in relation to specific
political parliamentary and extra-parliamentary actions. Again, this reflects our wish to cover
not only activities intended to influence actual political outcomes by targeting relevant
political or societal elites, but activities and forms of engagement that could very well be of
great relevance for e.g. future manifest political action, even if “pre-political” or “potentially
political” rather than directly political as such. Of course, to cover such actions also gives us a
more nuanced picture of the total engagement/participation situation in a given country at a

15
given point in time, and consequently, we become better equipped to analyze supposed crises
of democracy and participation.

Table 1. Latent and manifest political participation

Civil participation (latent Manifest political participation

political participation)

Involvement Civic Formal Activism

(attention) engagement political (extra-parliamentary
(action) participation participation)

Legal Illegal
Individual forms
Personal interest in Activities based on Electoral Extra- Politically motivated
politics and societal personal interest in participation and parliamentary unlawful acts on an
issues and attention to contact activities forms of individual basis
Attentiveness to politics and societal participation: to
political issues issues make once voice
heard or to make
a difference by
individual means
(e.g. signing
petitions, political
consumption)
Collective forms

A sense of Voluntary work to Organized Loosely Illegal and violent

belonging to a improve conditions political organized forms activities and
group or a collective in the local participation: or network-based protests:
with a distinct community, for membership in political demonstrations,
political profile or charity, or to help conventional participation: riots, squatting
agenda others (outside the political parties, new social buildings, damaging
Life-style related own family and trade unions and movements, property,
politics (e.g. circle of friends) organizations demonstrations, confrontations with
identity, clothes, strikes, and the police or
music, food, values) protests political opponents

Also, the distinction is made to point out that there are limits to what we would refer to as
political participation. Not everything fits this category. Recycling, for example, even if done
for environmental reasons, is not “political participation” in our typology, since the action is
not directly aimed at any specific actor (like a boycott, for example). Rather, recycling for
environmental reasons could be seen as an act of civic engagement in our typology.
It should be noted here that our conceptualization differs from the one suggested by
Berger. As already noted, Berger is highly skeptical towards the concept “civic engagement”,

16
as he feels that it has been stretched beyond recognition; it presently covers everything from
voluntary work to feed homeless people to bowling in leagues to membership in political
parties. Instead, Berger asks us to distinguish between political, social and moral engagement.
Political engagement refers to

[…] the activities that we normally associate with political participation or citizenship: voting,
contacting representatives, contributing financially to representatives or interest groups, following
political issues (via any media format), associating with groups intended to influence political
outcomes, attending rallies or demonstrations intended to influence political outcomes, or running
for (or holding) political office.34

This notion of specifically political activities is somewhat broader than the notion of “political
participation” in our typology (Table 1 and 2), as it includes political news consumption. In
our typology, we are closer to for example Brady (above) when we reserve the term political
participation for distinct action by ordinary citizens, directed toward influencing political
outcomes. Following political issues on TV, in the papers or on the Internet do not constitute
such political action. Aside from that, we acknowledge the point Berger makes: there are
limits to what we should include in the concept. Voting is not part of “civic engagement”.
Also, it should be underlined that this desire for conceptual clarity does not disqualify the
feminist idea of “the personal being political”, that a strict demarcation line between the
political and the private sphere may prevent certain social injustices to be included on the
political agenda, as they are supposedly not “political”.35 Rather, this is a matter of
articulating and politicizing certain issues, in the everyday struggle of competing interests.

The personal or private can indeed be political, if and when citizens seek to express personal
decisions or influence previously “private” issues through the polity’s organs: political processes
and institutions. Until then, their pursuits are either unpolitical or pre-political.36

Moving on to Berger’s social engagement, this includes all forms of engagement that are
strictly speaking non-political (associational membership or involvement being perhaps the
most obvious example). What Berger refers to is basically activities within the civil society
sphere (the realm in between the market and the formal political domain). Of course, not all
forms of social engagement need necessarily be instrumental to a vital liberal democracy, as
may be incorrectly assumed when reading Putnam. Berger uses Weimar Germany to illustrate

17
this point; the hectic associational life in the Weimar Republic was for all intents and
purposes a way for many ordinary Germans to escape from politics, and it certainly
undermined the fragile democratic republic and ultimately facilitated Hitler’s rise to power.
This demonstrates that political activity is something more distinct than social activity; and
consequently that “only when we distinguish between political and social engagement rather
than compressing them under a single ‘civic engagement’ can we draw helpful lessons” from
e.g. the German experience.37 In line with this, Berger introduces the notion of moral
engagement:

Moral engagement encompasses attention to, and activity in support of, a particular moral code,
moral reasoning, or moral principles. […] Of course, even moral engagement conceptualized as
attention and activity does not ensure morally desirable outcomes. Even the best intentions, and
morally defensible reasoning and actions, can lead to unintended consequences. […] Thus, we
might claim that stable liberal democracies require a certain kind of moral engagement from its
citizens, involving attention and activity relating to moral principles such as toleration, reciprocity
and law-abidingness.38

However, Berger is not very clear about how these three concepts actually relate to each
other, and it would seem like his main point is to demonstrate the weakness or fuzziness of
“civic engagement”, as the concept is presently used in the literature. According to Berger,
political, social and moral engagement may exist separately or may be combined in different
ways; the important thing is to make an analytical distinction.
In out typology, we have chosen not to follow all of Berger’s recommendations. Instead,
we stick with the notion of “civic engagement” as presented above. Here, we are closer to
Zukin et al., in that we are satisfied with a basic distinction between political participation
(“electoral” and “political voice” engagement, according to Zukin’s conceptualization) and
“civic” engagement. Berger would not approve; he would say that we too – like Zukin et al. –
mix associational involvement with all kinds of moral based voluntary work.

Zukin’s “civic engagement” includes any kind of associational membership or social engagement
in addition to explicitly moral, community-oriented involvements. In other words, it includes
involvement in bowling leagues as well as in soup kitchens.39

18
We acknowledge overlooking this particular distinction, but we still feel that we can live with
this. In our typology (Table 2), we are less interested in the actual motives behind various
forms of pre-political engagement and manifest political participation, and more interested in
mapping out the total variety of types of behavior. The individual motives accompanying
specific combinations of civic engagement and political participation is a question for
empirical research; something we may do at a later stage.

Involvement and interest in politics

We have so far covered political action or participation (like electoral participation and protest
activities), aimed at influencing the political agenda or political outcomes, as well as civic
engagement, which in our typology is being conceptualized as “latent” (or pre-political)
participation. In many ways, this distinction encompasses the central idea of the typology.
The very notion of latent forms of political participation constitutes a theoretical innovation
and thus contributes to the literature on citizens’ involvement in politics and the wider debate
on the conditions for democracy in a new millennium.
In addition, the idea with this typology is to counteract the conceptual confusion that may
be found in current research on civic engagement and declining levels of political
participation. As already noted, in previous studies, definitions of one thing (e.g. non-political
forms of civic engagement like associational involvement) have tended to overlap with actual
political participation (like membership in political parties or voting in elections). For
analytical reasons, we thus need a more sophisticated theoretical framework.
Table 1 includes another aspect as well, namely attention to – and interest in – political
and societal issues. This category encompasses the feeling or awareness of being a member of
society, of being a zoon politikon in the Aristotelian sense. This entails a specific intellectual
orientation, to be a part of a political context. In our typology, we refer to this as social
involvement. Involvement may be seen as something that precedes both “civic” and “political”
activities. While civic engagement and political participation refer to specific actions,
involvement refers to attentiveness to social and political issues.40
Is this dimension really needed in the typology? One could, like Berger argue that the very
notion of “engagement” include a combination of attentiveness and action. Here, however, we
have included “social involvement” as a specific category in our full typology (Table 2), for
two reasons. For one thing, in this way we relate more closely to the literature on political
participation. In a recent contribution to the field, van Deth, Montero and Westholm argues

19
that “involvement” should be understood as a distinct dimension of democratic participation.
Citizens may be more or less “involved” in society, i.e. be curious or interested in political
and societal affairs. Without such a basic curiosity, citizens would not pay attention to
political and civic affairs, learn about the political process, formulate opinions or chose to get
informed. Ultimately, it is a precondition for looking after your own political interests.41
Also, “involvement” should be analytically distinguished from “civic engagement” since
we are dealing with two distinctly different empirical phenomena. Employing the strategy
suggested by Martín and van Deth, we may measure “involvement” by two standard survey
items: the respondents’ interest in politics and societal affairs, and the respondents’ perception
of politics being important. Civic engagement on the other hand is measured by self-reported
activities within the civil society sphere.42
To be consistent, in the full typology of political participation (Table 2), we have included
examples of societal involvement on the collective level. This could be people who, because
of their interest in and attention to politics chose more “political” lifestyles. This political
component may be a part of the own identity, and in Table 2 we illustrate with examples like
belonging to a political “scene”, like a left-wing anarcho-punk community, a right-wing
skinhead gang or having a circle of friends who are into veganism. In addition to such exotic
examples, collective forms of “involvement” may quite simply be about identifying with a
particular party or an ideology.

Disengagement: active and passive forms of non-participation

Finally, a few remarks on the mirror image of political participation. There are, as we know,
people who just do not care about politics. These are the people who stay at home on election
day, who would not dream about becoming member of a political party, or just cannot be
bothered to join any associations of any kind. To make our full typology even more all-
embracing, we have thus included one more heading in Table 2, covering the very opposite of
engagement and participation, i.e. non-participation.
Non-participation (or disengagement) could be seen as something separate, and something
more than just a lack of engagement; indeed, why should we expect such negative orientations
or forms of behavior to be less distinct than civic engagement and manifest political
participation? At the same time, “active political dissatisfaction” among citizens seems to be a
somewhat neglected aspect within in research on citizens’ support for the political system.43

20
 In our typology, we make a simple analytical distinction between passive and active non-
engagement (Table 2). The passive form of non-engagement would be found among citizens
who perceive politics as not interesting. Citizens with this orientation do not feel any
particular need to make their voices heard, and politics is simply left to others. They do not
follow political and civic affairs, and typically hold no strong opinions about politics. The
motives or the reasons behind this orientation could we leave for now – it could be contented
as well as disillusionized citizens. It does not necessarily mean that one is preoccupied with a
consumerist or hedonistic lifestyle, but it does mean that one has very little room for politics
in one’s life, and is quite happy about it.
Another disengaged orientation is possible as well: active types of non-participation. By
this category, we mean citizens who are not only uninterested in politics, but actually feel
disgusted with political issues. Politicians are perceived as crooks. Political discussions are
actively avoided, and on election day, citizens with this orientation make a demonstrative
point out of not voting. It is basically an anti-political orientation, in contrast to the apolitical
orientation described above. In the more extreme cases, such an anti-political stance could be
combined with violent behavior bordering on riots. For example, we have seen such
expressions of random violence and civil unrest in the suburbs of the major French cities in
recent years. Socially excluded and frustrated young unemployed second generation
immigrant men from destitute suburban housing projects have torched cars and buildings, as a
protest against a society that they feel no part of.

The full typology

In Table 2, the full typology is presented. For illustrative purposes, we have included a
number of specific examples of orientations and actions that would be typical for each “type”.
The important thing, however, are not the actual contents in the boxes, but the headings, i.e.
the categories/types. One could of course come up with a number of other examples that
would fit each category, and some examples in Table 2 could perhaps be contested. The
reader should bear in mind that what we want to achieve with this table, is to present a
typology that could capture basically all types of political behavior that we would consider to
be of relevance when analyzing civic engagement and political participation.

21
Table 2. Typology of different forms of disengagement, involvement, civic engagement and political participation
N o n-pa rticipa tio n
(disen g age m e nt)
Ac tive fo rm s
(a ntipo litical)
Ind ividua l No n-vo ting
form s
A ctively av oiding
reading n ew sp apers
or w atc hing TV w hen
it c om es to politic al
iss ues
A void talking a bout
politic s
P erce iving po lit ics as
dis gus tin g
P olitic al disaf fect ion
Co llec tive De lib erate n on-
form s politic al lifes tyles, e.g.
hed onis m,
co nsum eris m
In e xtrem e c as es:
rand om acts of non-
politic al vio lenc e
(riots ), reflecting
frus tratio n, a lien atio n
or s ocial e xclusion
C ivil pa rticipatio n
(la ten t– po litica l)
Pas sive fo rm s Soc ia l
(a politic al) involvem en t
(a ttention)
Non -voting Ta king in teres t in
p olit ics and so cie ty
P erceivin g politics as
unin teres tin g an d P e rc eiv ing politic s a s
unim porta nt im po rt ant
P olit ical pas sivity
“N on -ref lec ted” n on- B e longing to a grou p
politic al lifes tyles w ith soc ie tal focu s
I dentifying w ith a
c ertain id eolo gy
a nd/o r party
L ife-s tyle rela ted
involvem ent : mu sic ,
g ro up iden tity ,
c lot hes , et c ete ra
Fo r exam ple:
v ega nism , rig ht-wing
S k inh ead s c ene, or
left-w ing anarc ho-
p unk sc ene
22
Civic eng agem en t
(ac tion)
W riting to an e dit or
G iving m oney to cha rity
D isc uss ing politic s and
s ocietal iss ues , w ith
frie nds or on the
Int ernet
R eading n ew spa pers
and w atc hing TV w hen
it com es t o po litical
is sue s
R ecy cling
V olunte ering in s oc ial
wo rk, e.g. to s upp ort
wo me n’s sh elter or to
help h ome les s pe ople
C harit y w ork or faith-
bas ed com mu nity wo rk
A c tivity w ithin
c omm unit y ba sed
orga niz atio ns
P o litical pa rticip ation (m a nifes t)
F orm al politic al Activ is m (extra-pa rliam e ntary
participation p olitica l participatio n)
Lega l/ e xtra- Illegal
p arliam entary prote sts or
protests o r ac tions
a ctions
V oting in elec tio ns B u yco ttin g, C iv il
and re feren da b oyc otting a nd d is obedienc e
p olit ic al
Delibera te ac ts of c ons um ptio n P o lit ically
non-v otin g or b lank m otivate d att ack s
voting S ignin g p etitions o n pro perty
Con tac ting politic al H and ing ou t
re prese nta tive s o r p olit ic al le afle ts
civ il s ervan ts
Run nin g for o r
holding pub lic off ice
Don atin g m oney to
politic al p arties or
organizat ions
B eing a m emb er of a I nvolvem ent in n ew C iv il
politic al p arty, an s oc ial mov emen ts d is obedienc e
organizat ion, or a o r forum s a ctions
trade u nio n
D em ons tratin g, S a bota gin g or
A ctiv ity within a p artic ipa ting in o bst ructing ro ads
party, an s trik es, protes ts a nd ra ilw ays
organizat ion or a a nd o ther act ions
trade u nio n (e .g. s treet fes tiva ls S q uatting
(v olun tary wo rk or w ith a dist inc t b uildings
atten d m eetings ) p olit ic al a gend a) P a rticipating in
v iolent
d em onst ratio ns
o r anim al rights
a ctions
V iole nce
c onf rontat ion s
w ith politic al
o ppo nent s o r the
p olice
CONCLUDING REMARKS

To conclude, the typology developed here has a number of advantages, compared to previous
typologies or theoretical frameworks. It makes a clear distinction not only between concepts
frequently used as synonyms, i.e. civic engagement and political participation, or any other
combination like “political engagement” or “civic participation”. What is more, the typology
takes into account the theoretically important distinction between manifest and latent forms of
political participation. This distinction is crucial, if we want to understand new forms of
political behavior and the prospects for political participation in different countries. We would
thus like to argue that the literature on political participation is in need of theoretical
development. The fact that the typologies employed within this particular literature have
tended to become more sophisticated over the years does not really reflect such a
development.44 The typology developed by Teorell et al. (above) is no exception; it is rather a
part of an empirical comparative and survey-based research tradition with its intellectual
foundation in the classical research project on Political Action. The expanded typologies are
“indicator-driven” rather than theory driven; as more indicators have become available, the
models have simply expanded as a response.45
As van Deth has noted, “the study of political participation in the last fifty years is the
study of a continuously expanding number of specific forms of political participation”.46 This
is explained with reference to the growing relevance of the government and politics for
citizens in modern welfare societies, but also to a “continuing blurring of the distinction
between political and non political activities; that is, between the private and public
spheres”.47 Another way of putting it is to say that both the repertoire of political activities
and the domain of political participation have expanded. As van Deth aptly put it, the study of
political participation has thus become “a theory of everything”.
We certainly agree that the theoretical frameworks have expanded, but again, we also feel
that this is not the result of theoretical development. Actual societal and political changes
have alerted scholars to the need for covering increasingly more aspects of political
participation; but a more elaborated theory is still missing. By introducing the notion of
“latent” political participation, our modest goal is to vitalize such a theoretical debate.
The typology developed in this paper breaks new ground in other ways too, as it tries to
incorporate not only civic engagement and political participation, but also the notion of
“involvement” as well as the opposite of participation – “non-participation” – into the same

23
analytical framework. We feel that this too could serve as a basis for future debate and
research.
Admittedly, other conceptual strategies could perhaps work just as well as our proposed
typology. For example, in order to illustrate the different character of the activities in Table 2,
we could well have included the actual spheres or domains in which the different activities
belong. Adler and Goggin employ such a conceptual strategy in order to illustrate the wide
variety of activities that make up “civic engagement” in their analysis: some activities belong
in the private domain, others in the public domain.48 In our typology (Table 2), a more
extensive set of domains could have been used. Manifest political participation refers to the
public or the political domain, first and foremost. It is here you exercise your political rights
that come with citizenship: you vote, you engage within a political party, or you run for
office. Or, you choose to get your voice heard outside of the formal parliamentary domain, by
e.g. attending demonstrations or joining a social movement. Or, you engage in more violent
protests. At the same time, manifest political participation may also take place within the
market domain. As critical consumers, we can make a potential impact by e.g. boycotts or
signing petitions.
Civic participation, on the other hand, refers to activities within the civil domain.
Associational involvement and voluntary work are typical examples of such actions that take
place outside of the political domain. What we refer to here as social involvement, finally, is
related to the private domain.
Here however, we have chosen not to explicitly include the different spheres or domains
in Table 2. Rather, what we would like to stress is above all the need for incorporating the
notion of “latent” participation into any theoretical framework that deals with political
participation. The existence of such a latent dimension – citizens’ readiness or willingness to
take action – has indeed been noted before, but since it has not been perceived as an activity in
itself, it has simply been excluded from most definitions of political participation.49
However, without the latency component, our analyses will ultimately become too
confined. We will systematically overlook important aspects of political behavior, and focus
on changes (i.e. declining levels of participation) within the more limited political–
parliamentary sphere. Accordingly, we will find low electoral turnout, eroding public
confidence in the democratic institutions, skepticism, cynicism and lack of trust. At the same
time, we will completely overlook a number of “pre-political” or “potentially political”
activities that citizens may be involved in. More importantly, we will overlook the potential
willingness to take action. The really interesting question is of course if and in what ways such

24
“pre-political” or “stand-by” engagement can be channeled into manifest political
participation. For example, are the current political institutions able to process such
engagement into conventional political action, or are we in fact facing a paradox here: may
we find vivid civic engagement or at least strong feelings of readiness and willingness to act
in combination with declining levels of manifest political participation? Here lies the real
challenge for future research.
Previous research has not really focused on this potential paradox. Rather, scholars have
analyzed the possible relation between different forms of activities within the same category,
i.e. political participation. Teorell et al. have for example examined the possible trade-off
between conventional and unconventional political participation, and concludes that there is
in fact no trade-off.

It is not the case, as is commonly held, that some citizens continue to use the traditional channels
of participation, such as contacting officials and working for a political party, whereas other
favour the less conventional modes such as protest or consumer participation. On the contrary,
activists within one mode of activity tend to be activists within the others as well.50

It would be more interesting to investigate a possible trade-off between civic engagement

and more specifically latent participation (the willingness to take action should the
circumstances warrant) and (manifest) political participation. This is of course a more
demanding task, since it ideally would involve longitudinal rather than cross-sectional public
opinion survey data.51 Still, this would provide us with the insights we need, and it would
certainly shed new light on the “crises” debates of recent years. It may very well be the case
that citizens today have become increasingly disengaged from the traditional channels of
political participation. However, that does not mean that such “critical” citizens turn to
unconventional political behavior, like protest, political consumption or new social
movements. It could mean though that increasing number of citizens turn away from the
political sphere, into the private sphere. Here, a reservoir of participation could emerge.
Citizens are still very much interested in politics, informed, skilled, and have political efficacy
beliefs. But, for the time being, many of them chose not to take part in politics in a
conventional sense. However, they are on “stand-by”; and if something would trigger them,
they certainly would not have any problems getting their voices heard.
Is this actually the case? We do not know this yet, since the major cross-national public
opinion surveys include very few if any relevant questions to accurately tap “latent” political

25
participation. There are of course a large number of survey items tapping “civic engagement”
activities, but what we really need – in addition to the political participation items – are items
tapping civic engagement in combination with items tapping the readiness or willingness to
take action, should the circumstances warrant such action.
It could also be the case that individuals during the course of their lives go in and out of
different modes, when it comes to political participation. At some points in time, one would
find e.g. a preference for political action; and at other points in time, one would find a period
of intense civic engagement, followed later in life by conventional and episodic electoral
participation. Of course, to analyze such a life-long process of political participation would
also require longitudinal data. Again, the more modest aim with this paper has been to suggest
a typology that allows us to think about all these issues, without losing sight of the latent
dimension when analyzing, for example, the declining levels of manifest political
participation.

Notes
1. See for example Skocpol and Fiorina 1999; Dalton 1998; 2006; Norris 1999; 2010.
2. Pharr and Putnam 2000, xviii.
3. See for example Kaase and Newton 1995; Putnam 2000; Norris 1999; 2002, 5–7; 2010; Holmberg 1999;
Amnå 2009; Rose, Shin and Munro 1999; Pharr and Putnam 2000.
4. Berger 2009, 335; cf. Putnam 1993; 1995; 1997; 2000.
5. Putnam 1993.
6. Putnam 1995; 1997; 2000.
7. Berger 2009.
8. Berger 2009, 336; Sartori 1970.
9. Putnam 2000; cf. Pharr and Putnam 2000.
10. Adler and Goggin 2005, 238–240.
11. Adler and Goggin 2005, 238.
12. Here, Adler and Goggin refers to Putnam 2000.
13. Adler and Goggin 2005, 241.
14. See for example Brady 1999 and van Deth 2001. The literature on political participation is vast, and here, the
idea is not to cover the entire field. Rather, we want to point out the general focus of previous research.
15. Verba, Nie and Kim 1978, 1. Cf. Verba and Nie 1972; Easton 1953, 134.
16. Milbrath and Goel 1977, 2; Kaase and Marsh 1979, 42.
17. Verba, Nie and Kim 1978, 47.
18. Barnes and Kaase et al. 1979; Kaase and Marsh 1979; cf. Verba and Nie 1972; Montero, Westholm and van
Deth 2007, 434.

26
19. Teorell et al. 2007, 335–336; Norris 2002, 193.
20. Brady 1999, 737; cf. Teorell et al. 2007, 336.
21. Parry et al. 1992, 16; cf. Brady 1999, 738.
22. Teorell 2007, 336–337.
23. Verba and Nie 1972, 56–63; Verba et al. 1978, 53–56.
24. cf. Brady 1999; Niculescu 2003, 8.
25. Teorell et al. 2007, 434; cf. Dalton 2006, 33.
26. The notion of pre-political or latent political activity is taken from Berger 2009, 337 and Amnå 2009. The
idea may also be found, implicitly, in previous research. See for example Parry et al. 1992, 16; van Deth 2001,
11–12. Still, this idea seems to be very underdeveloped in contemporary analyses of political participation.
27. For various aspects of this development, see for example Giddens 1991; Beck 1992; Inglehart 1977; 1990;
1997; Inglehart and Welzel 2005.
28. This definition is in line with e.g. Conway 1991, 3–4; Verba, Schlozman and Brady 1995, 9; Brady 1999,
737; and Teorell et al. 2007.
29. Niculescu 2003; cf. Barnes and Kaase 1979.
30. Stolle, Hooghe and Micheletti 2005.
31. Schwartzman 1995.
32. Berger 2009, 345.
33. Adler and Goggin 2005, 241.
34. Berger 2009, 341.
35. Pateman 1988.
36. Berger 2009, 337.
37. Berger 2009, 342.
38. Berger 2009, 342–343.
39. Berger 2009, 344.
40. Martìn and van Deth 2007, 303–304.
41. van Deth, Montero and Westholm 2007; cf. Martín and van Deth 2007, 303.
42. Martín and van Deth 2007, 312.
43. Consider the opposite of “support” in e.g. Easton 1959; 1975; Norris 1999; 2010; cf. Torcal and Montero
2003.
44. Verba and Nie 1972; Verba et al. 1978; Brady 1999; van Deth 2001.
45. See van Deth 2001, 6–8; Brady 1999. The Political Action research tradition includes Kaase and March
1979; Jennings et al. 1990; Topf 1995; Dalton 2002; Teorell et al. 2007, 337.
46. van Deth 2001, 5.
47. van Deth 2001, 5.
48. Adler and Goggin 2005, 240.
49. Parry et al. 1992, 16; van Deth 2001, 11–12.
50. Teorell et al. 2007, 354.
51. For example, Armingeon 2007 uses cross-sectional opinion data when analyzing this relationship.

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