Motivation and Mobilization
Efficacy and trust as determinants of political participation
Åsa Bengtsson & Lauri Karvonen
Department of Political Science
Åbo Akademi
FI-20500 Åbo, Finland
asa.bengtsson@abo.fi, lauri.karvonen@abo.fi
First draft – please do not quote
Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Session of Workshops, Nicosia, April 25-30, 2006.
Workshop 5: Studying Forms of Participation
Abstract
This paper examines the effects of efficacy and trust on the forms of political participation. A distinction between internal and external efficacy as well as between interpersonal trust and confidence in parliament is made. Participation is, on the one hand, divided into conventional and unconventional political activity. On the other hand, unconventional participation is considered as being of either protest or promotive character. The 2002 European Social Survey data (N= 42 000) are utilized. The twin forms of
efficacy turned out to have a consistent impact on all forms of participation. Interpersonal trust is primarily important for unconventional modes of participation.
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Introduction: aim and scope
Popular participation is at the core of democracy. For democratic rule to become a reality, it is not sufficient to govern in the name of the people or in the alleged interest of
the people. A considerable measure of participation on the part of the citizens must always be a central feature of a democratic system (Verba 1996; Barber 1984; Pateman
1970). Indeed, in Lincoln’s words, democracy must always mean government by the
people.
Since questions concerning citizen involvement are vital to a political system, it
is only natural that research hitherto has produced considerable evidence about the factors affecting the level and forms of political participation. Patterns of electoral participation are by far the best-researched area. Ample evidence suggests that such individual
factors as education, income, age and gender possess explanatory value (Tingsten 1937;
Verba & Nie 1972; Wolfinger & Rosenstone 1980; Verba, Schlozman & Brady 1995).
Structural factors, such as the level of economic development in a country also account
for considerable parts of the cross-national variation (Nie, Powell & Prewitt 1969;
Huntington & Nelson 1976). A further set of factors pertains to institutional conditions,
particularly electoral laws. Some institutional arrangements seem to be more conducive
to active political participation than others (Powell 1986; Franklin 2004).
These findings are so well-established that they can not be ignored in further
studies in this field; they must be part of the groundwork on which new research is
founded. The present paper will endeavor to take earlier results into account. Here,
however, attention is directed to a different set of potential explanatory factors. While
the explanations mentioned above basically focus on objective features of individuals
and societies – social characteristics, economic structures and institutional settings – the
present paper directs attention to the subjective side of things. It does not seek to explain
variation in political participation with reference to how certain conditions are, but to
how they are perceived to be by individuals. Naturally, there does not have to be any
contradiction between objective conditions and people’s perceptions of those conditions. By the same token, however, it would be equally simplifying to regard subjective
perceptions as mechanical translations of objective conditions. Perceptions produce
meaning, and individuals make choices on the basis of the sense they make of the world
around them.
In concrete terms, this study examines the effect of two subjective dimensions
on the level and forms of political participation among Europeans: efficacy and social
trust. Both of these dimensions have two aspects. Efficacy can be internal or external;
trust can be divided into interpersonal trust and confidence in institutions. The query
that this paper addresses is whether levels and forms of political participation are expli-
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cable in terms of varying levels and forms of efficacy and trust among individual citizens. Several previous studies point to connections between these phenomena and various forms of political participation. The present study adds to this research by looking
for any combined effects of efficacy and trust on political participation: the dynamic
interplay between these phenomena is at the core of our analysis.
Efficacy
When Campbell, Gurin and Miller in 1954 introduced the concept of efficacy they characterized it in the following manner:
Sense of political efficacy may be defined as the feeling that individual political action
does have, or can have, an impact upon the political process, i.e., that it is worth while
to perform one’s civic duties. It is the feeling that political and social change is possible, and that the individual citizen can play a part in bringing about this change (quoted
in Gabriel 1998, 359).
It is easy to see that efficacy may have a strong bearing on the propensity of an individual to participate in politics. Defined in the above manner, efficacy is more or less identical with a judgment whether or not participation makes any difference. Low efficacy
should bring about little or no participation.
Soon enough, however, researchers found that efficacy consists of two aspects,
which may be closely related but must be regarded as analytically separate. Internal efficacy denotes a sense of individual citizen competence: “I as a citizen possess the necessary personal qualifications to influence the political process by participating in it”.
Such citizens do not feel that politics is too complicated for them to understand. They
feel that they are reasonably well-informed and at least equally competent as the next
man to judge political matters; they may even feel that they would be personally qualified to hold public office if need be (Craig, Niemi & Silver 1990).
External efficacy pertains to the individual’s perception of the political system:
“The system is open to citizen influence and responds to the needs and opinions expressed by the citizens”. As emphasized by Gimpel, Lay & Schuknecht (2003, 17), the
sense of external efficacy “is not simply a reflection of what one thinks of incumbent
officeholders at a given moment; it reflects a more enduring attitude toward the system”.
Most studies have pointed to a clearly positive association between efficacy and
political participation (Harris 1999; Rosenstone & Hansen 1993; Brady, Verba &
Schlozman 1995). It is, however, not particularly common to look for combined effects
of internal and external efficacy (e.g., Gabriel 1998, 360). Depending on how individual
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citizens score on these twin aspects of efficacy one would, however, expect to find different patterns of political participation. A person with a strong sense of both internal
and external efficacy can be expected to be much more motivated and uninhibited to
participate in politics than someone who scores low on both dimensions. Those who feel
personally competent to participate but view the system as closed and unresponsive
would probably look for other forms of political participation than those who have a
sense of external efficacy. Citizens with low scores on both aspects are most likely to
view the barriers to political activity as particularly insurmountable.
Social trust
The concept of trust has been very much in the forefront of contemporary social science
mainly thanks to the burgeoning literature on social capital. In that literature, trust is
seen as a vital element in well-functioning social relations that ultimately determine the
success of both the democratic system and of economic performance (Putnam 1993).
When people trust each other they are more likely to engage in social cooperation. This
cooperation, in turn is likely to bring about further growth in trust as well as support the
functioning of society at large. In analyses of social capital, focus is on interpersonal
trust, i.e., the degree to which people trust other people. Now, it is of course entirely
imaginable that individuals have a high level of trust for some people (family, friends,
gang members, and the like) while strongly distrusting others. Therefore, it is important
that the focus be directed at generalized interpersonal trust, i.e., variations in the degree
to which individuals tend to have confidence in other people in general (Benson & Rochon 2004, 439).
In political science, a different aspect of trust has long been part of the theoretical literature. Analyses of political legitimacy have distinguished between various forms
of trust in government or confidence in political institutions. David Easton’s distinction
between diffuse and specific support for the political system is often mentioned as an
important theoretical contribution in this context (Easton 1965, 267-277). At the most
abstract level, a person can have confidence in the system as such – he may trust in democracy or parliamentarism as a principle. In a more concrete sense, citizens may have
different degrees of trust in political and social institutions such as government, parliament, courts or the administrative system. Finally, confidence in those individuals who
currently occupy central government positions represents a still more concrete form of
political trust. The present paper focuses on the mid-level, i.e. trust in various government institutions as explanatory factor behind varying levels and forms of political participation.
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Again, it is fairly easy to see how these factors might affect political participation. Social participation is always collective in nature, and people who trust other individuals should be more prone to collective action than those who distrust others. If political institutions are viewed as trustworthy the propensity to participate in politics
should be higher than if they are looked upon as something suspect.
The dependent variable: political participation
Political participation is far from a uniform phenomenon. In fact, political scientists
would probably find it hard to agree on exactly what types of citizen activity are to be
regarded as forms of political participation. Where exactly does the “political” end and
other forms of social activity begin? Voting in elections, writing letters to political representatives or participating in a demonstration against a regime are examples of clearly
political activity. What about, for instance, consumer behavior? Refusing to buy wine
from France because of French nuclear testing in the Pacific is an unambiguously political act directed against a country the government of which is pursuing unacceptable
policies. Favoring organically produced foodstuffs may be motivated by concerns for
personal health and does not have to be perceived as protests directed against a political
or even economic actor – but we cannot be sure. All of this goes to say that it is practically impossible to establish a definite line of demarcation once and for all between political and nonpolitical forms of behavior. To some extent, it always depends.
In early studies of political participation, participation was viewed as a cumulative and one-dimensional phenomenon. According to the hypothesis about the cumulative nature of participation citizens active in one area of social life were likely to be active in other fields as well. In the course of the 1970s, however, increasing attention began to be paid to diverging styles of political participation. Researchers started to distinguish between the concepts of conventional and unconventional participation (Barnes,
Kaase & Allerbeck 1979). Conventional political participation comprises voting in elections and direct and indirect activity in political parties (Marsh & Kaase 1979, 84). Unconventional political participation signifies those modes of action that are not institutionalized in nature. This kind of activity is not necessarily regular in occurrence or entirely predictable; often it is the result of external events. Typical examples of unconventional participation are various forms of direct action as well as of protest activity:
signing petitions, participating in demonstrations and boycotts, and so on.
This distinction is a necessary but far from unproblematic one. Whether a type
of political activity is to be viewed as conventional or unconventional is to some degree
culture-dependent. In some political systems, such as the U.S., writing letters to con-
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gressmen has long traditions and should perhaps be regarded as part of normal political
activity. In many parliamentary systems, where individual representatives do not play a
similar salient role, such forms of participation are much less common. Moreover, one
might be tempted to equate conventional with “old” and unconventional with “new”
forms of political participation. However, as Norris reminds us, “the use of mass demonstrations in radical movements is nothing new; indeed there have been periodic waves
of protest and vigorous political dissent by citizens throughout Western democracies”
(2002, 191). Similarly, technological change may introduce forms of participation that
rapidly gain an established status: the use of email and the internet are cases in point.
All this goes to say that using the conventional-unconventional distinction is not
an end in itself. While we think that the distinction is potentially enlightening, it is important not to lump together phenomena indiscriminately under these two headings. One
must allow for the internal variation in both categories to come to play; all types of conventional and unconventional participation are not dimensions of given phenomena. In
the analysis below, two distinctions will be applied to describe different forms of political participation. As for the difference between conventional and unconventional participation, the crucial question is whether a forum for participation can be characterized
as permanent, established and regular. If a forum is “always there”, if it is institutionalized in the form of rules, procedures and organizational structures, and if activity in it
occurs according to some predetermined schedule, then it constitutes an arena for conventional participation. If, by contrast, its temporal occurrence is less regular and its organizational structures are less clear, then it is a forum for unconventional participation.
Basically, these definitions mean that voting and activity in political parties are classified as conventional forms of political participation, while other types of political activity (such as demonstrations, petitions and boycotts) are considered to be “unconventional”.
While the notion of “conventional participation” is fairly clear-cut, considerable
internal variation remains in the second category. It seems analytically less than satisfactory to simply use “unconventional participation” as a residual category. One aspect
of this problem is that such a broad class of phenomena would include both types of behavior that express a political protest and forms of political behavior that aim at promoting or advancing a certain cause. While it is entirely imaginable that certain forms of
behavior contain elements of both kinds, we propose a distinction between protest behavior and promotive participation. The former type of participation means expressing
an opinion against something – typical forms of protest behavior are demonstrations and
boycotts. The latter includes such forms of political participation as wearing campaign
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badges, buying certain products for political reasons or donating money to a political
cause.
In the empirical analysis below, the impact of efficacy and social trust on conventional and unconventional participation will be examined first. After that, the two
forms of unconventional participation – protest and promotive participation – will be
examined in a similar manner.
Efficacy, trust and participation: some hypotheses
As argued above, varying forms and levels of efficacy and trust are expected to have
independent effects on the level and modes of political participation. Establishing such
causal links is the chief objective of this study. However, we are even more interested in
the interplay between efficacy and trust as a determinant of participation. In other
words: the primary aim is to find out whether different combinations of efficacy and
trust produce different levels and forms of participation.
If the four dimensions inherent in our two central concepts are dichotomized and
combined with each other, sixteen different combinations emerge as theoretically possible. While not all of them may exist empirically, most of them are fairly feasible and
should affect the level and mode of political participation to varying degrees. In the first
part of the empirical analysis, participation is viewed as either conventional or unconventional (Table 1).
TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
Four situations seem of particular theoretical interest, as they should represent
paradigmatic combinations of the explanatory factors:
1. Individuals with a strong sense of both internal and external institutions as well
as a high degree of both interpersonal and institutional trust are expected to
display high levels of both conventional and unconventional participation.
These individuals view the political system as responsive and trustworthy, which
is why they can be expected to find voting and other forms of conventional participation meaningful. At the same time, they feel that they possess the individual resources necessary for participation, and they also have confidence in other
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people. This latter combination should provide the means to express political
views and be active in politics in other forms as well.
2. Individuals with a strong sense of internal efficacy and a high degree of interpersonal trust, but low levels of external efficacy and institutional trust should
display high levels of unconventional participation but lower levels of conventional political activity. These are the active “system critics” who distrust the existing political institutions and seek to find alternative channels of political influence.
3. Individuals who think they lack the personal competence to influence politics
and are suspicious against other people but who take a positive view of the political system and its institutions are expected to confine their political participation to the conventional forms. These are citizens that respect authority and may
vote actively even if they tend to feel that politics is difficult to understand.
4. Individuals who have low scores of both dimensions of efficacy and trust are expected to be politically and socially passive. These are the outsiders who distrust
the system and its institutions as well as themselves and their fellow men.
The second part of the analysis focuses on the two forms of unconventional participation: protest and promotive activity. Table 2 depicts some expected effects of efficacy
and trust on these forms of participation.
TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
As concerns unconventional participation, the following hypotheses will be examined in
the empirical analysis:
1. High levels of unconventional participation require a strong sense of internal efficacy. Whether of protest or promotive nature, unconventional participation requires a degree of individual initiative. This should mean that citizens with high
levels of internal efficacy are more likely to engage in this type of activity.
2. Individuals with high scores on all four aspects may have high levels of unconventional participation, but this is primarily promotive in nature. These citizens
have both the individual characteristics that stimulate participation and attitudes
that enhance their belief in the rationality of participation. As their view of the
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political system is basically a positive one, they are not, however, very likely to
engage in protest behavior.
3. Individuals with a strong sense of internal efficacy and high levels of interpersonal trust, but low levels of external efficacy and trust in institutions are likely
to display high levels of protest participation. These are the “system critics” who
feel that it is important that citizens voice a protest against institutions and practices that they distrust.
4. Individuals who think they lack the personal competence to influence politics
and are suspicious against other people but who take a positive view of the political system and its institutions are not expected to engage in unconventional
participation to any major degree; to the extent that they do so, their participation is primarily promotive in nature. These citizens accept the political system
and seldom possess the means necessary for unconventional participation.
5. Individuals who have low scores of both dimensions of efficacy and trust are expected to be passive also as concerns unconventional participation; in the
unlikely event that they should engage in such activity, it is expected to be in the
nature of a protest. Political outsiders who distrust the system and its institutions
as well as themselves and their fellow men may, in a rare case, display an outburst of protest against the political system. More often than not, passivity is
their choice when it comes to politics.
These are the main hypotheses that will guide the empirical analysis below. However,
the analysis itself will allow for several other combinations of values of the theoretical
dimensions to be examined.
Data and measures
The analyses will be carried out with data from the European Social Survey (ESS), a
survey designed to map and explain beliefs and behavioral patterns in Europe. The first
wave of ESS survey will be used. The survey was conducted during 2002 and comprises
to date 22 countries, with a total of 42 000 respondents. The selection of respondents is
done with strict random probability sampling of all individuals aged 15 or over, with a
minimum response rate of 70 percent; interviews are carried out face-to-face. The countries included in the survey and in the present analysis are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. All analyses are carried out with one of the weights rec-
9
ommended by the ESS-distributors, the one correcting for unequal selection procedures.
The weight correcting for population size is, however, not applied since we are not interested in attaining a representative “all-European” result (www.europeansocialsurvey.org).
Political participation
The study operates with four different dependent variables including 2 to 9 different
measures. Apart from voting1 the other forms of participation are tapped by the following question:
There are different ways of trying to improve things in (country) or help prevent things
from going wrong. During the last 12 months, have you done any of the following …
Contacted politician, government or local government official; Worked in a political
party; Worn or displayed campaign badge/sticker; Signed a petition; Taken part in a
lawful public demonstration; Boycotted certain products; Bought product for political/ethical/environment reason; Donated money to political organisation or group;
Participated in illegal protest activities.
Scores on these questions are summed to create four different indexes of political participation; conventional, unconventional, protest and promotive that all vary between 0
and 1. The first distinction is based on the division introduced by Barnes and Kaase
(1979) where conventional participation is separated from unconventional modes. In
this case political activities in conjunction with political parties constitute conventional
participation (2 different modes: Voting and Worked in a political party) and other
modes, of a less institutionalised character constitute unconventional activity (9 different modes: Contacted politician, government or local government official; Worked in a
political party; Worn campaign badge/sticker; Signed a petition; Demonstrated; Boycotted product; Bought product; Donated money; Participated in illegal protest activities).
Since the modes that constitute unconventional participation show extensive
variation, this group of activities is further divided into a second distinction: protest and
promotive participation. The former includes modes where a person expresses an opinion against something and is formed in line with the index used by Benson and Rochon
(2004) (4 different modes: Signed a petition; Boycotted; Demonstrated; Participated in
illegal protest activities). The latter group of activities takes on the opposite perspective,
i.e. modes that are positive or promotive in nature, where a person aims at influencing in
a proactive way rather than expressing a negative reaction towards a specific matter (4
1
Voting is tapped by the question: Some people don’t vote nowadays for one reason or another. Did you
vote in the last (country) national election in (month/year)?
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different modes: Contacted politician; Worn campaign badge/sticker; Bought product;
Donated money). Obviously, the distinction between protest and promotive modes of
participation is not a straightforward one. Activities classified as promotive might in
some cases be used as means of protest as well. We do, however, consider this distinction analytically promising, not least in combination with our independent variables.
Mobilizing attitudes
When it comes to the independent variables of this study – trust and efficacy – four different measures are used. Interpersonal trust is tapped by three questions about people’s
confidence in their fellow citizens2, which combined form an overall index that varies
between 0 and 1. Trust in political institutions is a wide concept that can consist of various indicators. As was discussed previously an overall distinction in line with Easton’s
“diffuse and specific system support” is often used (1965, 267f). Later a more detailed
distinction with five levels has been more common; it includes support for the political
community, regime principles, regime performance, regime institutions and political
actors (Norris 1999, 10). In this study we are primarily interested in the second lowest
level, trust in institutions, or more precisely trust in the legislative body – the parliament. It appears as less relevant to include trust for institutions such as the legal system,
the police, the military, and so on – all standard indicators of institutional trust (Listhaug
& Wiberg 1995; Norris 1999). Generalized support for the parliament is measured by
one single question.3
Efficacy is citizens’ perception of their means of influence in the political realm.
Several scholars have noted that political efficacy appears to be made of two different
dimensions, a personal sense of efficacy, commonly known as “internal efficacy”, and a
system oriented sense of efficacy, known as “external efficacy” (Lane 1959; Neimi,
Craig & Mattei 1991) External efficacy has been referred to as “beliefs about the responsiveness of government authorities and institutions to citizen demands” (Niemi et al
1991, 1408). It is, thus, a measure of the belief that the authorities or regime are responsive to attempted influence (Craig 1979). This measure of governmental responsiveness
is tapped by two questions about the priorities of politicians.4 Internal efficacy concerns
the subjective political competence of voters. It is tapped by one question about how
respondents view their own ability to understand political matters.5
2
Most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful in dealing with people; Most people try to take
advantage of you if they got the chance, or would they try to be fair; Most of the time people try to be
helpful or that they are mostly looking out for themselves.
3
How much you personally trust (country)’s parliament (0-10).
4
Politicians in general care what people like me think (0-10). Politicians are interested in people’s votes
rather than their opinions (0-10).
5
How often does politics seem so complicated that you can’t really understand what is going on? (1-5).
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Control variables
The fact that political participation is dependent on socioeconomic factors is one of the
most well established findings in the literature on political behaviour. In order to control
for what is often labelled as recourses, socioeconomic and demographic factors will be
included in the model. These “usual suspects” include age, sex and education. In its
original form the “baseline model” (Verba & Nie 1972), later renamed the “resource
model”, included income, occupation and education. Due to a very large number of
missing values, variables tapping status of employment or socioeconomic status as well
as the income level of the respondent’s household have, however, not been included in
the model used here.
Analysis
The analyses of how our four independent variables of interest affect political activity
will be carried out in two steps. To begin with, four different analyses will be carried
out, testing how the attitudinal dimensions affect different modes of participation,
namely conventional unconventional, protest and promotive modes of political participation. These analyses are carried out with ordinal logistic regressions (plum logit). The
dependent variables consist of three to nine categories and are coded so that higher
scores are associated with a high level of activity. All of the variables are coded on a
scale from zero to one. The second section will entail a different, more descriptive strategy. In this section the independent variables of the study – the different mobilizing attitudes – will be held constant in order to study combined effects of the four attitudes.
The aim is here to take a closer look at the participatory patterns of the four attitudinal
groups that were discussed in the previous part of the paper.
Multivariate analyses
In table 1 efficacy and trust are linked to four different modes of political participation,
or rather, combinations of modes. The aim of this section is mainly to find out if different mobilizing patterns exist for the four different strategies for political engagement.
Even a quick look at table 3 reveals that this is the case. The most obvious and interesting results are found for the two aspects of trust. Beginning with institutional trust, it
appears clear that this aspect works in contradictory ways depending on what kind of
political participation we are interested in. Trust in parliament only appears to have a
positive mobilizing effect on conventional participation, i.e. voting and engagement in
political parties. For engagement in unconventional modes a weak negative effect can
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be found. Citizens with low levels of institutional trust, thus, are more prone to take part
in unconventional modes of participation as demonstrations and boycotts.6 It appears as
if the negative effect of institutional trust is highest for the unconventional modes that
have the character of protest, rather than more promotive modes.
TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE
Interpersonal trust, or trust in other people, does not appear to work similarly to institutional trust. For conventional modes of participation interpersonal trust show no significant effect. To trust other persons is obviously not of major importance for turning out
at the polls or for the choice to work in a political party. The latter observation (fortified
in the specific analyses of work in political parties, presented in the appendix) may appear as surprising in the light of the convincing results presented on the relation between
civic engagement and interpersonal trust (Putnam 1993, 1995; Brehm & Rahn 1997).
Political parties do, in this perspective, seem to belong to a different category of organizations. When it comes to unconventional modes, interpersonal trust appears as an important mobilizing attitude. Strict comparisons between models may be dubious; it does,
however, appear as if interpersonal trust is of greater importance for engagement in protest behavior than for participation with promotive intentions.
Variations in the mobilizing effect of efficacy are not as easy to distinguish as
they are for trust. Both internal and external efficacy displays a positive and significant
effect on all four dependent variables. In general, a positive view of the responsiveness
of the system is the most important mobilizing attitude, especially for unconventional
and promotive involvement.7 Belief in personal political competence is important for all
modes of participation, and no major variations in the effect of this variable can be
traced in the different analyses.
Looking at the effect of the control variables, some interesting but not unexpected variations appear. The effect of age is particularly noteworthy. Age proves to be
the most powerful determinant of conventional participation, showing a strong and
negative effect. Young people do not seem to vote or engage in party activity as much
the older generations do. When we turn to unconventional activity the pattern looks different. This time age displays a weaker but negative effect, indicating that these kinds of
6
For readers interested in the effects on single modes of participation we refer to the appendix where effect-tables are presented for each of the nine modes (table 6).
7
As is revealed in table 6 in the appendix the only mode that does not appear to be determined by external efficacy is participation in illegal protest activities.
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activities primarily attract those of younger age. Moving on to the more detailed division of unconventional participation it becomes obvious that the pattern deviates from
one unconventional mode to the next. The negative effect remains for protest modes but
does not exist for modes used for a promotive purpose.8 Among other interesting results
is the fact that the importance of education is higher for unconventional than conventional participation. Moreover, there is no major difference between promotive or protest modes of participation. Women are slightly more active than men when it comes to
unconventional political participation and vice versa. The effect of being married or living together is positive for all kinds of political participation except for protest modes
where marital status is of no significance.
An overall interpretation of the results is that efficacy appears to be a generally
more important mobilizing attitude than trust. To have a positive view of system responsiveness is, thus, of great importance, and so is a positive perception of one’s personal capability to understand political matters. This may appear rather straightforward.
If people have a negative view of the fruitfulness of expressing an opinion, it is of
course logical not to engage in political matters. The same argument goes for a negative
subjective view of the personal competence. In this case it would seem rational to leave
political matters to other, more qualified citizens.
Combined effects
In this next section we will change strategy and take a closer look at the combined effects of the mobilizing effects of trust and efficacy. This will be done with descriptive
analyses of the mean activity in each group of interest presented in cross tables. To test
for statistically significant differences Scheffe’s post hoc test will be applied. The four
mobilizing attitudes together constitute 16 possible attitudinal combinations. We will,
however, focus strictly on four theoretically interesting attitudinal combinations; ranging from high levels in all respects to the opposite with low levels on all the attitudes of
interest. The groups representing high and low levels of trust and efficacy are created
through a selection of all cases deviating more than (approximately) one standard deviation from the mean. Cases close to the mean of each attitudinal aspect are excluded. The
remaining cases form two groups, representing high and low (or described as yes and no
in the tables) values on each of the aspects that form the groups of specific interest. This
procedure means excluding a large share of the respondents. It is, however, crucial from
8
As is shown in table 6 in the appendix the absence of a significant effect for age on promotive participation is due to contradictory results. While contacting politicians and donating money are modes that are
positively correlated with age, buying products and wearing campaign badges or stickers displays a negative correlation.
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a theoretical point of view that the groups in focus can be considered as clear cases representing nothing but distinct views on the subject.
Two of the attitudinal categories created and described in the theoretical part of
the paper are straightforward. Individuals with consistently high levels on all of the mobilizing attitudes (N = 2360) are expected to be the most politically active, irrespective
of the form of participation. A similarly clear assumption can be made of individuals
displaying low levels on all attitudes (N = 2840); here we expect generally low activity
levels. The other two groups of interest are more diverse and consist of radically fewer
respondents. First we have the system critics that display high levels of interpersonal
trust and high belief in their personal political competence but low levels of systemic
trust and a pessimistic view of the responsiveness of the system (N = 733). This group
might be expected to be primarily interested in unconventional modes and particularly
modes that involve a protest. This group of individuals is small. Here we have respondents that combine a low self-esteem when it comes to their personal political competence and low levels of interpersonal trust with a high trust in the system and a strong
belief that the system is responsive (N = 279).
The first step is to compare mean activity levels when it comes to conventional
and unconventional political engagement. Results are presented in table 4. Two means
are thus presented for each group, mean conventional participation above and mean
score for each group on the index of unconventional participation below. Both indexes
vary between 0 and 1. Starting with levels of conventional participation, it becomes obvious that our hypotheses about the two “extremes” are confirmed. The highest level of
participation, 0.53, is found in the group of highly trusting individuals with a positive
view of both internal and external efficacy. Corresponding value for the group with low
levels of trust and efficacy is significantly lower, 0.37. The two groups with less clear
attitudinal characteristics display mean participatory values in-between and do not deviate significantly from each other. The differences in means for the other groups are,
however, statistically significant at the 0.01 level (Scheffe’s post hoc test).
TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE
Participation in unconventional modes proves to work in line with the hypothesis presented earlier. As expected, the most active group is the one with high scores on both
efficacy and trust (0.24) and the least active is the group with low levels on both accounts as well (0.07). For the group of individuals that trust their fellow citizens and
15
have a positive view of their own political capacity but have a rather gloomy view of the
political system, unconventional modes appear as attractive (mean = 0.19). This value
lies relatively close to the most active group and significantly higher than for those who
have strong beliefs in the system but low trust in other persons and low confidence in
their own political competence (0.10). The hypothesis that this small group of individuals prefers conventional modes of participation appears to be confirmed. As expected,
the least active group is the one with low trust on all aspects and a low sense of both
internal and external efficacy (0.07). All differences are statistically significant at the
level of 0.01 (Scheffe’s post hoc test) except for the two mentioned last.
Our hypotheses were more or less confirmed as concerns the distinction between
conventional and unconventional forms of participation. The next step is to look at the
distinction between protest and promotive forms of unconventional participation. According to the hypothesis presented earlier we have different expectations both concerning the level of activity and the preferred modes. Levels are generally expected to show
the same signs as in the previous part. This means that the most active group should be
the one with high levels of trust and efficacy, whereas the lowest level of activity should
be found in the group with low trust and low efficacy. Promotive modes are expected to
have high priority among the high-trust and high-efficacy group, while the group with
low scores on all of the attitudes of interest can be expected to prefer protest modes. A
second group that we expect to prefer protest activities are individuals with a negative
view of the system (trust and responsiveness) but a high belief in other individuals and
their own political competence, while we expect individuals with strong confidence in
the system but low trust in other persons and their own capacity to be more prone to engage in promotive activities.
TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE
In line with our hypothesis the highest levels of activity are found in the group
of individuals that display high levels of trust and efficacy. The difference in protest activity between this group and individuals that have high individual beliefs (in their own
capacity and interpersonal trust) but low belief in the system is, however, not very large
(0.02) and statistically insignificant. This might be vaguely interpreted in favor of the
hypothesis that this group of individuals has a stronger tendency to use protest modes
than others. Comparing the same two groups’ use of promotive modes it becomes obvi-
16
ous that the difference is larger in favor of the group with high values on each of the
mobilizing attitudes (0.08, significant at the level of 0.01).
The two other groups of special interest – individuals that score low on all accounts and the group with low individual trust and belief in their personal competence
but great belief in the responsiveness of the system and high systemic trust, no statistically significant differences in participatory behavior can be traced. They do show noticeably lower mean values than the previously discussed groups on both protesting and
promoting modes of participation, but do not differ from each other in any interesting
respect. The expectations about a more promotive participatory pattern for the group
with high belief in the system (trust and efficacy) therefore failed to gain support. The
hypothesis that the group with generally low scores should display low activity was,
however, corroborated.
Conclusions
The analysis above has demonstrated that subjective factors ha an effect of political participation independently of such objective circumstances as social and economic characteristics. Of the two dimensions examined in this paper, the twin aspects of political efficacy appear to have systematic and nearly uniform effects on the forms of participation. By contrast, trust, which is here divided into interpersonal trust and confidence in
parliament, displays varying significance. Interpersonal trust is primarily important for
unconventional modes of participation, both when it is in the form of a protest and when
it entails promotive activity. For conventional participation, interpersonal trust seems to
lack importance. As could be expected, trust in parliament displayed a positive association with conventional participation. For unconventional participation, a weak negative
correlation was found.
As concerns the combined effects of efficacy and trust, the hypotheses concerning conventional and unconventional participation were largely confirmed. For the two
forms of unconventional participation - promotive and protest behavior - the main conclusion must be that they are primarily determined by attitudes that are of private or personal character rather than by views about the political system. The main dividing line
in our data lies between those individuals that have high trust in other individuals and in
their personal political competence. If you perceive the system as responsive (external
efficacy) or have trust in the parliament appears, in this perspective, to be of less importance.
Overall, the study seems to support the view that efficacy and trust are of importance for understanding why and how people engage in political activity. Moreover, it
17
lends support to the idea of conventional and unconventional modes of participation as a
useful tool of analysis. Finally, it seems important to distinguish between different
forms of unconventional participation. Here, however, further conceptual work is certainly in order.
18
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20
Tables
Table 1. Combination of efficacy and trust: expected effects on conventional and unconventional participation
Internal efficacy
Yes
Trust in institutions?
Trust persons?
Yes
Yes
No
External efficacy
No
Yes
No
High levels
Yes
of participation
Unconventional
No
participation
Conventional
Yes
participation
Low levels of
No
No
participation
Table 2. Combination of efficacy and trust: expected effects on protest and promotive
participation
Internal efficacy
Yes
Yes
No
Trust in institutions?
Trust persons?
Yes
No
External efficacy
No
Yes
No
Predominantly
Yes
promotive
Protest
No
participation
Low levels
Yes
pred. promotive
Low levels
No
pred. protest
21
Table 3. Determinants of different modes of political participation. Logistic ordinal regression (plum).
Conventional
Unconventional
Protest
Promotive
B
Wald
p
B
Wald
p
B
Wald
p
B
Wald
p
External efficacy
0.89
173.53
***
1.11
496.65
***
0.77
197.51
***
1.22
531.43
***
Internal efficacy
0.71
208.85
***
0.66
314.15
***
0.55
176.61
***
0.72
329.47
***
Interpersonal trust
0.02
0.05
1.15
415.79
***
1.13
320.51
***
0.98
266.52
***
Trust in parliament
0.72
135.81
***
-0.20
16.95
***
-0.29
29.66
***
-0.07
1.85
Age/100
2.89
1193.28
***
-0.49
65.03
***
-0.94
192.81
***
-0.03
0.27
Man
0.07
6.52
*
-0.09
21.21
***
-0.10
22.34
***
-0.09
19.20
***
***
1.76
1381.26
***
0.14
34.84
***
Education
1.24
394.77
***
1.86
1686.97
***
1.60
1067.01
Marital status
0.53
344.59
***
0.10
22.95
***
0.02
0.57
N
Missing cases %
34496
36847
37069
37127
22.8
14.9
14.3
14.1
Model chi-square
3490
-2 Log Likelihood
41900
***
102992
5031
***
68523
3095
***
74458
4468
Nagelkerke R sq
0.13
0.13
0.09
0.13
***
Legend: All variables are coded into a scale from 0 to 1. External efficacy (nine values), Internal efficacy (five values), Interpersonal trust (thirty values), Trust in parliament (eleven values) and education (seven values) are ordinal. Age is in years, divided by 100. Martial status (married or living together =1) and sex (man =1) are dummy
variables.
22
Table 4. Combination of efficacy and trust: observed effects on conventional and unconventional participation
Internal efficacy
Yes
External efficacy
No
Yes
Trust in institutions?
Trust persons?
Yes
Yes
No
No
0.53 (2210)
Yes
0.24 (2310)
0.45 (690)
No
0.19 (716)
0.44 (236)
Yes
0.10 (277)
0.37 (2661)
No
No
0.07 (2784)
Legend: Upper figure = mean level of conventional participation, lower figure = mean level of unconventional
participation
Table 5. Combination of efficacy and trust: observed effects on protest and promotive
participation
Internal efficacy
Yes
Yes
No
Trust in institutions?
Trust persons?
Yes
No
External efficacy
No
Yes
No
0.20 (2327)
Yes
0.28 (2330)
0.18 (720)
No
0.20 (722)
0.09 (277)
Yes
0.11 (277)
0.07 (2800)
No
0.08 (2800)
Legend: Upper figure = mean level of protest participation, lower figure = mean level of promotive participation
23
Appendix
Index of political participation
Index of conventional participation
%
N
0
19.3
7473
0.5
75.9
29341
1
4.7
1819
Totalt
100.0
38633
Index of unconventional participation
%
N
0.00
49.8
20670
0.13
21.1
8761
0.25
13.1
5416
0.38
8.3
3424
0.50
4.5
1884
0.63
2.0
827
0.75
0.8
344
0.88
0.3
113
1.00
0.1
38
Total
100.0
41477
Index of protest political activity
%
N
0
66.1
27602
0.25
21.5
8978
0.5
9.6
3999
0.75
2.4
1008
1
0.4
155
Total
100.0
41742
Index of promotive political activity
%
N
0
59.4
24851
0.25
26.8
11203
0.5
9.9
4127
0.75
3.2
1319
1
0.7
304
Total
100.0
41804
24
Table 6: The determinants of different modes of political participation. Logistic regression.
External efficacy
Internal efficacy
Interpersonal trust
Trust in parliament
Age/100
Gender
Education
Voted
+
+
+
+
+
Worked in pol.
party/ action
group
+
+
Contacted
pol.or gov.
official
+
+
Worn campaign badge /
sticker
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Signed
petition
+
+
+
+
Demonstrated
+
+
+
+
+
Boycotted
products
+
+
+
+
Bought
product
+
+
+
Donated
money
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Illegal protest activities
+
+
+
Legend: Statistical significant effects are marked in the table. If the effect is positive it is marked by +. A negative effect is marked by -. The dependent variables are dummies (participated = 1, or not
=0)
25