Contemporary Political Participation Research: A Critical Assessment

The issue of political participation has been a substantive area of interest for both sociologists and political scientists, mainly because it pertains to the quintessential act of democratic citizenship – voting at election for the House of Representatives. While elections and voting behaviour attract the attention of many social science researchers, various manifestations and forms associated with political engagement in a broader sense have also received extensive study. This chapter aims primarily to critically present a selection of contemporary approaches and methodological tools for investigating political participation. Granted that this is already an enormous area of research being conducted, it is unrealistic to expect a fully-fledged examination of all works published so far. For the twofold purpose of this paper it suffices (a) to discuss a wide range as possible of quite different conceptualizations and definitions of political participation, while (b) attempting to show that the typological division between conventional and unconventional political participation is often artificial and elusive. Discussion about extremist and often aggressive forms of political participationist activism (as they are described in contemporary research), might be contrasted to the perceptions cherished by the ancient Greek democrats as to citizen roles and civil duties within their community, showing that classical Athenian democracy (in theory and practice) did not draw any sharp distinction between diverse or conflicting types of participation. The chapter concludes with a short section whereby the principalfindings from this critical assessment are briefly summarized along with some reflections on the foundational role of sociological perspectives on political participation analysis.