PIDOP WORK PACKAGE 5 The extent and nature of political and civic participation across EuropeDr Ian Brunton-Smith, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey

Paper presented at the Surrey PIDOP Conference on “Political and Civic Participation”, April 16th-17th, 2012, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

Aims• Analyse existing survey data on political and civic participation:• European Social Survey, Eurobarometer, International Social

Survey Programme, Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, World Values Survey

• Describe patterns of political and civic participation in different EU member states, over time and across key social and demographic groupings

• Identify variations in these patterns which occur within and between countries

• Examine possible causes of these variations – impact of macro socio-political context, demographic factors, and psychological factors

Key findings

MICRO• Research reveals many political, social, and psychological factors

that facilitate and hinder political and civic participation• E.g. Political interest, internal efficacy, attentiveness, opinionation,

ideological identity, trust in institutions, perceptions of discrimination

• Differences in participation evident as a function of age, gender, and minority status (and differential contribution of political, social, and psychological factors amongst these groups)

MACRO• Differences in participation evident as a function of the broader

socio-political context in which people live• Partially shapes individual differences in participation

Approach• Exploring the processes leading to participation• Structural equation models used to link psychological and sociological

processes that contribute to differences in political and civic participation• Compare processes based on gender, age, and minority status

• Examining the role of the broader socio-political context• Multilevel models used to examine country differences in political and

civic participation• Macro variables capturing the broader socio-political context introduced

to explain these variations• Macro context linked back to individual differences

• Linking together forms of participation• Latent class analysis to identify distinct groups of participation based on

4 types of participation (vote, conventional, non-conventional, civic)

DatasetsSEM and Multilevel models• European social survey• 22 countries in Europe, multiple indicators of all concepts, high quality

sampling methodology• International Social Survey Programme• 39 countries, including some beyond Europe, focus on citizenship

• World Values Survey• 42 countries, limited information on participation (intention to vote only),

comparatively few independent predictors

Descriptive statistics• Eurobarometer • Time series data since 1970, voting only, inconsistent independent predictors

• Comparative Study of Electoral Systems• Voter turnout

Political and Civic participationFour types of participation examined:• Voting• Intention or self report (survey specific)

• Conventional political activities• Contacting a politician, being a member of a political party, donating

political organisation or group, wearing a campaign badge, working for a political party

• Non-conventional political activities• Taking part in illegal protest activities, lawful demonstrations, buying or

boycotting certain products, signing a petition

• Civic engagement• Involvement in a social club, education or teaching group, religious or

church organisation, cultural or hobby group, sports or outdoor activity club, environmental or humanitarian organisation, business or professional group, or trade union

European Social Survey (2002)

European Social Survey (2002)

European Social Survey (2002)

European Social Survey (2002)

Exploring the processes leading to participation

• Exploring the processes leading to participation• Structural equation models used to link psychological and

sociological processes that contribute to differences in political and civic participation

• Compare processes based on gender, age, and minority status

• Measurement models to capture difficult to measure ‘latent’ variables – attentiveness, engagement, efficacy...

• Structural models to explore (direct and indirect) pathways to participation (probit regression)

• European Social Survey data (round 1) • Contained maximum number of potential explanatory variables

(multiple indicators)• High quality methodology for data collection

Measurement models – independent variablesFactor loadings

B SE B(Std)

Attentiveness TV watching, news/ politics/current affairs on average weekday 1.00 0.00 0.47 Radio listening, news/ politics/current affairs on average weekday 0.96 0.03 0.40 Newspaper reading, politics/current affairs on average weekday 1.06 0.02 0.70

Political engagement (interest and internal efficacy) How interested in politics 1.00 0.00 0.82 How often discuss politics/current affairs 1.75 0.02 0.63 Politics too complicated to understand 0.75 0.01 0.48 Could take an active role in a group involved with political issues 0.93 0.01 0.51 Making mind up about political issues 0.74 0.01 0.51

External efficacy Politicians in general care what people like respondent think 1.00 0.00 0.80 Politicians are interested in votes rather than people's opinions 0.92 0.01 0.75

Institutional trust Trust in the police 1.00 0.00 0.82 Trust in country's parliament 0.86 0.01 0.66 Trust in the legal system 0.67 0.01 0.54 Trust in the United Nations 0.75 0.01 0.58

Social capital (trust) Most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful 1.00 0.00 0.76 Most people try to take advantage of you, or try to be fair 0.98 0.01 0.76 Most of the time people helpful or mostly looking out for themselves 0.83 0.01 0.65

FIT .975/.967/.032

Additional variables:• Opinionation – DK to 12 variables• Extremity of ideological identity –

strong left/right position• Identity threat – member of group

discriminated against• Social capital (meet people socially)Demographics• Gender• Age (under 25/25+)• Minority status (self rated)

Attend

Towards a model of political participation

• Models derived from conceptual work undertaken in work package 4• Direct and indirect pathways to forms of political participation

• Exploratory work began with simpler models, before including full range of possible explanatory measures

• Final models selected based on modification indices and assessments of model fit

Towards a model of political participation

• Models derived from conceptual work undertaken in work package 4• Direct and indirect pathways to forms of political participation

• Exploratory work began with simpler models, before including full range of possible explanatory measures

• Final models selected based on modification indices and assessments of model fit

Towards a model of political participation

• Models derived from conceptual work undertaken in work package 4• Direct and indirect pathways to forms of political participation

• Exploratory work began with simpler models, before including full range of possible explanatory measures

• Final models selected based on modification indices and assessments of model fit

Voting: SEM results based on probit estimationModel 1 Model 2

Estimate SE Z   Estimate SE ZVote              

Attentiveness 0.37 0.03 12.09   0.23 0.03 6.74Political engagement 0.35 0.02 17.98   0.44 0.02 20.70Institutional trust 0.06 0.01 12.07   0.07 0.01 13.08Extreme ideological identity 0.06 0.01 4.96   0.07 0.01 5.54Identity threat -0.35 0.03 -11.35   -0.29 0.03 -8.84               

Opinionation              Political engagement -0.57 0.02 -37.08   -0.57 0.02 -35.63Social trust -0.03 0.01 -5.84   -0.03 0.01 -5.67External efficacy -0.05 0.02 -3.39   -0.05 0.02 -3.02Identity threat 0.09 0.03 2.96   0.07 0.03 2.13Meet socially -0.07 0.02 -4.46   -0.06 0.02 -3.90

               Extreme ideological identity              

Political engagement 0.27 0.02 16.66   0.28 0.02 16.49Social trust -0.03 0.01 -6.08   -0.03 0.01 -5.86External efficacy -0.08 0.01 -5.57   -0.08 0.01 -5.42Identity threat 0.19 0.03 6.28   0.14 0.03 4.49

               Demographics              

Minority         -0.40 0.04 -9.52Male         -0.17 0.02 -9.52Young         -0.86 0.03 -34.08               

FIT .935/.966/.031     .923/.956/.032  

• Some similarities across models for different forms of participation• Positive association with political engagement (interest and internal

efficacy)• More politically engaged more opinionated and more extreme

ideological identity

• But also clear differences in predictors of voting, conventional, non-conventional, and civic engagement:• Positive link from political attentiveness to voting and civic engagement,

no link to conventional participation, and negative link to non-conventional participation

• People who feel their identity under threat are more likely to participate in conventional and non-conventional ways, but less likely to vote

• More opinionated about political issues more likely to participate in non-conventional ways and be civically engaged, but not vote or participate in conventional ways

• Demographic differences in participation evident having adjusted for structural model • Young people less likely to vote, but more likely to

participate in non-conventional activities and be civically engaged• Minority groups less likely to vote or participate in non-

conventional activities• Men less likely to participate (with exception of civic

engagement)

Allowing for differential processes by demographics

• Structural models also examined separately based on gender, age, and minority status• Intersectionality captured by retaining the remaining demographics in

each model

• Some differences in predictors of each form of participation evident between men and women, young and old, and minority and non-minorities• No strong evidence that interactions exist between demographics

• But some consistent patterns also evident (e.g a positive link from engagement to all forms of political participation), even if strength of association differs

Examining the role of the broader socio-political context

How differences in the socio-political context of different countries manifest in individual variations in political participation

• Individual data:• European Social Survey – excellent variable coverage, but limited

countries (n=20)• International Social Survey Programme – reduced variables (and no

measure of voting), but better country coverage (n=39)• World Values Survey – only includes voting (and some independent

variables), but better country coverage (n=42)

• Macro data:• Following initial scoping ‘Country Indicators for Foreign Policy’ (CIFP)• Parallel models examined data from ‘Economist Intelligence Unit’ (EIU) –

not reported here

• Number of countries still limited (max 42), restricting the complexity of the macro models. • Explore macro variables independently

Individual data• ESS uses same range of individual measures – but scales based on

principal components analysis for simplicity• WVS uses reduced range of variables – single indicators• ISSP uses reduced range of variables (includes demographics)

Macro data - Country Indicators for Foreign PolicyBased on administrative data held for each country including information from the

world bank, polity IV, world development indicators, and CIRI human rights index• Democratic participation – party dominance, legislature fractionalisation,

democracy score, proportion female parliamentarians, proportion minorities in public service, minority voting rights

• Government and economic efficiency – growth and debt, economic freedom, ease of trading, unemployment, tax rates, educational attainment

• Accountability – corruption, political freedom, political donations• Human rights – extent of torture, number of disappearances, freedom of speech,

women’s political and social rights, civil liberties• Political stability and violence – years since regime change, size of black market,

degree of dependence on external support, political fragmentation• Rule of Law – prison population and occupancy rating, property rights, juridicial

independence

Higher scores represent poorer performing countries

Standard regressionParticipation Participation

Participation

Political engagement Political engagement

Political engagement

Random intercept

Random coefficient

Multilevel models in brief...

• Here, we use the logistic extension to this approach

European Social Survey (2002)

Austria

Belgium

Germany

Denmark

Spain

Finland

France

UK

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Israel

Italy

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Sweden

Slovenia

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

Conventional participation

Conventional participation• Individual demographics similar to SEM analyses• Significant variation between countries (5% ESS and 10% ISSP)• Largest reduction in residual country variation for ‘rule of law’, ‘government accountability’

and ‘human rights’• (NB. Higher scores poorer performing countries)

Other forms of participation• Significant differences in participation across countries

• Voting (5%/15% ESS/WVS) – but no significant macro effects• Non-conventional participation (19% ESS/ISSP)• Civic engagement (>20% ESS/ISSP)

• Independent effects of macro variables (CIFP)• Residents of better performing countries more likely to participate • Largest reduction in residual country variance (>50%) when looking at:

• Rule of law (all), government efficiency (non-conventional/civic engagement), and government accountability (conventional/non-conventional)

• And some evidence of significant links between individual differences and macro variables:• Men and politically engaged less influenced by context when considering

conventional and non-conventional forms of participation• Those with higher social trust more shaped by context when considering civic

engagement

Identifying distinct ‘citizenship’ clusters

• Examine the extent that distinct ‘citizenship’ clusters with qualitatively different patterns of participation can be identified

• LCA – Factor analysis with unobserved latent categorical variable (as opposed to series of continuous latent variables)

• ESS data based on 20 countries

• Restricted to participation measures (and gender, age, minority status)

Identifying the optimal number of classes of participation

2 3 4 5 6157500

158000

158500

159000

159500

160000

160500

161000

161500

Optimal class size

AIC

BIC

Sample size ad-justed BIC

Number of Classes

Mod

el fi

t

• Exploratory approach.• 4 classes seems optimal

Defining the classesLatent Class Analysis  Predicted probability SEClass 1 - Highly politically activeVote 0.98 0.02Conventional participation 0.52 0.01Non-conventional participation 0.82 0.01Civic engagement 0.92 0.01

Class 2 - Not politically activeVote 0.19 0.11Conventional participation 0.05 0.01Non-conventional participation 0.09 0.02Civic engagement 0.36 0.02

Class 3 - Non-conventional participationVote 0.51 0.09Conventional participation 0.40 0.02Non-conventional participation 0.84 0.05Civic engagement 0.82 0.02

Class 4 - Voters onlyVote 0.95 0.04Conventional participation 0.09 0.01Non-conventional participation 0.11 0.01Civic engagement 0.43 0.01

Who belongs to each class?Multinomial regression (reference category: Highly politically active)  B SE Odds RatioClass 2 - Non-politically activeCons -1.20 0.26Male -0.38 0.05 0.68Young 2.33 0.47 10.31Minority 1.13 0.16 3.09

Class 3 - Non-conventional forms of participation

Cons -1.46 0.30Male -0.23 0.17 0.80Young 2.62 0.57 13.78Minority 0.77 0.20 2.16

Class 4 - Voters onlyCons 0.16 0.09Male -0.35 0.05 0.71Young 0.34 0.63 1.40Minority 0.05 0.14 1.05

Relative to the highly politically active...• Young people and minorities are more likely to be non-political active, or involved in

non-conventional activities• Men are less likely to be in the non-political active group or voters only

Summary

Key findings

MICRO• Research revealed many political, social, and psychological

factors that facilitate and hinder political and civic participation• E.g. Political interest, internal efficacy, opinionation, ideological

identity, trust in institutions, perceptions of discrimination• Differences in participation evident as a function of age,

gender, and minority status

MACRO• Differences in participation evident as a function of the broader

socio-political context in which people live• Partially shapes individual differences in participation

ImplicationsMICRO• Political engagement (political interest and internal efficacy)

consistently identified as key drivers of all forms of participation• Educational interventions can be most usefully targeted here

• Psychological influences on participation vary considerably depending on the type of participation concerned • Different forms of intervention may be required to enhance

different forms of participation

• Forms of participation vary by age, gender and minority status• Interventions aimed at enhancing participation should recognise

these differences and engage with them

ImplicationsMACRO• Differences in participation evident as a function of the

broader socio-political context in which people live – particularly rule of law, government accountability and efficiency• Also shape individual differences in participation

• National governments should ensure their own mode of operation is always fully transparent, accountable and efficient• Includes controlling corruption, disclosing financing of political

parties, and ensuring freedom of the press• Ensuring their Country’s record in relation to the rule of law (e.g.

guaranteeing independence of judiciary, impartiality of the courts, and legal protection of minorities)

The PIDOP project is supported by a grant received from the European Commission 7th Framework Programme, FP7- SSH-2007-1, Grant

Agreement no: 225282, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) awarded to the University of Surrey (UK), University of Liege (Belgium), Masaryk University (Czech Republic), University of Jena

(Germany), University of Bologna (Italy), University of Porto (Portugal), Orebro University (Sweden), Ankara University (Turkey) and Queen’s

University Belfast (UK)