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PART I
The chapter in this opening section by Martyn Barrett and Bruna Zani provides an introduction to and overview of the book. It discusses what is meant by the term ‘political and civic engagement’ in the context of this book, and offers some observations on why political and civic engagement is important for democratic societies. The chapter also provides an overview of the range of factors that are related to political and civic engagement and of the multiple levels at which these factors operate. It is argued that the complexity of these factors and levels means that a multidisciplinary approach is required for the investigation of political and civic engagement. Four specific groups of individuals that have traditionally been considered to be at risk of disengagement and which are the focus of many of the discussions in this book are introduced: youth, women, ethnic minorities and migrants. The chapter then provides an overview of the PIDOP project, which was an international research project through which much of the theoretical, empirical and policy work reported in this book was conducted. The chapter concludes by offering a general overview of the structure and contents of the book.
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1
Theoretical understandings, evidence and policies
Martyn Barrett and Bruna Zani
This book aims to provide a comprehensive overview of current understandings of the factors and processes which influence the political and civic engagement of citizens. The book draws on theoretical insights provided by a range of disciplines including Politics, Sociology, Social Policy, Psychology and Education, presents a wealth of new evidence on political and civic engagement that has recently been gathered from across Europe, and reports on the policy discourses which frame debates about citizen participation in Europe. It also offers a series of wide-ranging reflections on the nature of political and civic engagement and disengagement, and presents a set of evidence-based recommendations for policy, practice and intervention that can be used by political and civil society actors to enhance levels of political and civic engagement and participation, particularly among youth, women, ethnic minorities and migrants.
Much of the discussion in this book is based on work which was conducted as part of an international research project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP). This multidisciplinary research project collected data on political and civic engagement in nine European countries and has significantly advanced our understanding of the factors and processes that influence citizen engagement and participation.
What is political and civic engagement?
Before proceeding further, however, it will be helpful to clarify the meanings of some of the key terms which are used throughout this book. Unless specified to the contrary, the term citizen is used in this book to refer to all individuals affected by political and civic decision-making and who can engage with political and civic processes through one means or another. Not all of those who are citizens in this broad sense of the term are legal citizens. For example, first-generation migrants may not have legal citizenship of the country in which they reside; however, even if they are unable to vote in national elections, they are able to participate in political and civic processes through a variety of other means, including community organisations, trade union membership and union politics, and membership of pressure groups (e.g. anti-racist, human rights or environmental organisations). This book generally uses the term citizen with this broader meaning.
The term political engagement is used in the book to denote the engagement of an individual with political institutions, processes and decision-making. By contrast, civic engagement is used to denote the engagement of an individual with the interests, goals, concerns and common good of a community. Here, community may be understood as denoting either the people who live within a particular geographical area (such as a neighbourhood, a town, a country or a transnational unit like Europe or Africa – or indeed the world in the case of the ‘global community’), a more geographically diffused social or cultural group (such as an ethnic group, a religious group, a recreational group, an occupational group, a sexual orientation group, etc.), or any other kind of social or cultural group which might be salient to an individual.
Engagement typically involves participatory behaviours which are directed towards either the polity (in the case of political engagement) or a community (in the case of civic engagement). However, not all engagement is behavioural. One can have an interest in, pay attention to and have knowledge, opinions or feelings about political or civic matters without necessarily participating in any overt actions towards either the polity or the community. In other words, individuals can be cognitively or affectively engaged without necessarily being behaviourally engaged. Psychological engagement can be indexed in many different ways, for example via levels of political or civic knowledge, the intensity of feelings about political or civic matters, levels of attention to media sources such as newspapers, television news or news on the Internet, and the extent to which an individual discusses politics or civic affairs with family or friends.
However, political and civic engagement more usually involves not only psychological states and processes but also active participatory behaviours. The term political participation is used in this book to denote those behaviours that have the intent or the effect of influencing political institutions, processes and decision-making at either the local, regional, national or supranational level. These behaviours may be aimed either directly at influencing the content or the implementation of specific public policies, or more indirectly at influencing the selection of the individuals who are responsible for making those policies (cf. Verba et al. 1995).
Political participation takes many forms. Some forms involve electoral processes. These so-called conventional forms of political participation include voting, election campaigning, donating money to a political party, standing for election, etc. Other forms of political participation take place outside the electoral arena. These non-conventional forms of political participation include signing petitions, participating in political demonstrations, protests and marches, writing political articles or blogs, daubing political graffiti on buildings, etc. Both conventional and non-conventional political participation can be undertaken either alone (e.g. voting, writing a political article) or collectively in cooperation with other people (e.g. election campaigning, marching for a cause).
By contrast, the term civic participation is used in this book to refer to activity which is focused either on helping others within a community, working on behalf of a community, solving a community problem or participating in the life of a community more generally (cf. Zukin et al. 2006). Once again, such activity can include work which is undertaken either alone (e.g. helping an elderly neighbour, boycotting a product on environmental grounds) or in cooperation with others (e.g. attending a community meeting about an issue of concern, helping to construct a children’s playground).
Thus, political and civic engagement and participation can take a wide variety of different forms (see Table 1.1, adapted from Barrett and Brunton-Smith, 2014).
TABLE 1.1 Some of the different forms of conventional political participation, non- conventional political participation, civic participation and psychological engagement | Forms of conventional political participation • • Voting • • Membership of a political party • • Running for political election • • Working on political election campaigns for candidates or parties • • Donating money to political parties • • Trying to persuade others to vote |
| Forms of non-conventional political participation • • Protests, demonstrations, marches • • Signing petitions • • Writing letters/emails to politicians or public officials • • Writing letters/emails/phone calls with a political content to the media (both old and new media) • • Writing articles/blogs with a political content for the media (both old and new media) • • Using social networking sites on the Internet to join or like groups which have a political focus • • Using social networking sites on the Internet to distribute or share links which have a political content to friends and contacts • • Wearing or displaying a symbol or sign representing support for a political cause • • Distributing leaflets which express support for a political cause • • Participating in fund-raising events for a political cause • • Writing graffiti on walls which expresses support for a political cause • • Participating in other illegal actions (e.g. burning a national flag, throwing stones, rioting, etc.) in support of a political cause • • Membership of political lobbying and campaigning organisations/attending meetings of these organisations/expressing one’s point of view at these meetings/participating in the activities of these organisations/holding an office in these organisations |
| Forms of civic participation • • Informally assisting the well-being of others in the community • • Community problem-solving through community organisations/membership of community organisations/attending meetings of these organisations/expressing one’s point of view at these meetings/participating in the activities of these organisations/holding an office in these organisations • • Membership of other non-political organisations (e.g. religious institutions, sports clubs, etc.)/attending meetings of these organisations/expressing one’s point of view at these meetings/participating in the activities of these organisations/holding an office in these organisations • • School-b... |
