Daily Dilemma: People have FOUGHT for their rights to vote and now almost ½ of the country doesn’t vote…
Why is that?

 Does having an anti-war rally make participants unpatriotic?

 Republican leaders welcomed the populist opposition to the Democratic healthcare plans but worried about containing the new activists’ anger, often directed at Republicans, too
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLs7Cybnqw

Democracy and Political
Participation
 How much and what kind of citizen participation is necessary for democratic government?

 Elections are a necessary part of democracy, but they don’t guarantee democratic government
 Political participation is activities of citizens that attempt to influence the structure of government, the selection of government officials or the policies of the government

Conventional
Participation
Unconventional
Participation
 Relatively routine behavior that uses the established institutions of representative government, especially campaigning for candidates and voting in elections
 Relatively uncommon behavior that challenges or defies established institutions or the dominant culture
(and thus is personally stressful to participants and their opponents)

 An extreme case of unconventional behavior
 Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets intended to influence an audience
 Political goals often influence terrorists but it does not qualify as a political act because terrorists don’t want to influence government, they want to destroy it

Unconventional Political
Participation
 Used by disadvantaged groups that resort to them in lieu of more conventional forms of participation
 Accepts government and try to influence it
 Stressful and sometimes violent, but can be worth the risk

Support for Unconventional
Participation
 The Boston Tea Party was one of the first acts of unconventional participation in our country
 Less is known about unconventional than conventional participation
 It’s easier to collect data on conventional practices
 Political scientists are biased toward conventional practices

The Effectiveness of
Unconventional Participation
 Does unconventional participation even work (even when it provokes violence)?

1.
Antiwar protesters helped convince Lyndon Johnson not to seek reelection
2.
Civil Rights Legislation – 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968
 Denied the usual opportunities for conventional participation, minorities used unconventional politics to pressure Congress to pass Civil Rights laws
3.
Civil Rights Movement
 Direct Action – Unconventional participation that involves assembling crowds to confront businesses and local governments to demand a hearing

Unconventional Participation around the world
 Americans are just as likely as citizens of other countries to vote, sign a petition, be interested in politics or boycott products, but are less likely to join in demonstrations

 A practical test of the democratic nature of any government is whether a citizens can affect policies by acting through institutions
 If people must operate outside of the system, the system is not fully democratic

 Actions that show support for government policies and those that try to change or influence policies
 Expresses allegiance to a country or government
 Flying an American flag, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
 Require little effort, knowledge or personal courage

 Behavior that seeks to modify or reverse government policy to serve political interests
 Can seek personal benefits from the government or more general broad policy objectives

1. Serving one’s self-interest through the voting process is consistent with democratic theory
2. Particularized contact might not be related to voting
3. This form of participation seems to be used more by people who advantaged by knowledge and/ or resources
Particularized participation might serve private interests to the detriment of the majority
 Those who quietly obtain particular benefits pose a challenge to democracy
 “Contacting behavior” is one large way people seek benefits
 Related to socioeconomic status
– people of higher status are more likely to contact public officials

1. Serving one’s self-interest through the voting process is consistent with democratic theory
2. Particularized contact might not be related to voting
3. This form of participation seems to be used more by people who advantaged by knowledge and/ or resources
Particularized participation might serve private interests to the detriment of the majority
 Those who quietly obtain particular benefits pose a challenge to democracy
 “Contacting behavior” is one large way people seek benefits
 Related to socioeconomic status
– people of higher status are more likely to contact public officials

 Some require little initiative (like voting) and other require high initiative (like attending political meetings or persuading others how to vote)
 Some of the behaviors that influence broad policy objectives are tied to elections and others are not
 Studies show that citizen contact in the U.S. is 2/3 for broad policy objectives and 1/3 for private gain
 Class action suit can be brought on behalf of people in similar circumstances

Conventional Participation in
America
 Relatively few people are willing to participate in high initiative behavior
 The most common form of participation is voting
 Voter turnout in the U.S. is at the bottom of all the countries measured on p. 231

 The heart of democratic government lies in the electoral process
 According to democratic theory, everyone should be able to vote…
 Should voting be limited because of
1.
Lack of Citizenship?
2.
Criminal record?

 When the Constitution was written, the idea of full adult suffrage was too radical to be considered seriously. Initially, white, male, taxpayers or property owners were the only people who could vote (wealth requirements also existed until about the 1850s).
THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF BLACKS
 The 15 th Amendment prohibited states from denying the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”
 Work arounds: poll tax, grandfather clause, private primary elections

THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN
 Women had to fight long and hard to win the right to vote
 Until 1869, women could not vote anywhere in the world
 Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote in 1869
 Women often took part in unconventional political behaviors
(marches, demonstrations) which occasionally resulted in violent attacks from men and even other women
 The 19 th Amendment granted women’s suffrage
 Of American women nonvoters in 1923, 11% cited “disbelief in women voting” and 2% cited “objection from husband”
Clips: Iron Jawed Angels and Bad Romance

Evaluating the Expansion of
Suffrage
 Though groups had to fight for their rights, compared to other countries, we look pretty democratic
 Kuwait granted full voting rights for women in 2005
 In South Africa where blacks outnumber whites 41, blacks didn’t get the right to vote until 1994
 Fewer than a dozen countries allow people under 18 to vote
Should we allow people under 18 to vote?

 Direct Primaries – preliminary election, run by the state governments, in which voters choose the party’s candidates for the general election

 Distrust for political institutions, denounces Progressivism and a large national government

 Referendum : Direct vote by the people on either a proposed law or an amendment to the state constitution. Most are placed on the ballot by legislators, not voters. Allows politicians to not take a side on a heated issue
 Initiative : Procedure where voters can propose a measure to be decided by the legislature or by the people in a referendum

 As of 2009, 31 states passed amendments that would define marriage between one man and one woman

 Citizens can much more easily become informed about issues, sign petitions and contact legislators. This makes initiatives easier because the Internet increases the ease of getting the thousands of petitions necessary for an initiative to be placed on the ballot

 This is the most visible form of political participation. It serves democratic government in multiple ways
1.
Citizens can choose the candidates they think will best serve their interests
2.
Voting allows the people to reelect the officials they guessed right about and to kick out those they guessed wrong about
 The U.S. holds A LOT of elections compared to other countries!

Explaining Political Participation
 Broken down into the following categories:
1.
Conventional or unconventional
2.
Little or much initiative
3.
Support government or influence decisions

Patterns of participation over time
 Voter turnout over the past 2 decades have decreased while other forms of participation have stayed about the same
 Researchers have found that socioeconomic status is a good indicator of most types of conventional political participation
 Those who protest tend to be better educated and younger
 Younger people are more likely to take part in unconventional means of participation than conventional means
 Education is the strongest single factor in explaining most types of conventional political participation

 In economic models of rational behavior, individuals avoid actions that have no payoff… Elections are rarely so close that an individual voter decides the outcome
 The voting age dropped to 18 in 1971… This actually had a negative affect on the overall percentage of people voting
 People believe the government no longer responds to citizen, that politicians are fake and that campaigns are too long
 ROCK THE VOTE: http://www.rockthevote.com/wewill/

U.S. Turnout Versus Other
Countries’ Turnout
 Differences in voting laws – “Why Tuesday?”
 Nearly every other democratic country places the burden of registration on the government rather than on individual voters
 Political parties don’t mobilize voters of particular social groups, especially low-income Americans
 Citizens are more likely to vote when elections are close

Participation and Freedom & Order
 Individuals should be free to participate in government and politics in the way they want and as much as they want
 Normative perspective says we shouldn’t worry about low voter turnout because citizens should have the freedom not to vote as well as to vote
 Each citizen should have equal ability to able to influence the government
 “Protest is the great equalizer”

 Some types of participation promote order
 To maintain order, the government has a stake in converting unconventional participation to conventional participation

Participation and the Models of
Democracy
1.
Elections socialize political activity
2.
Elections institutionalize access to political power
3.
Elections bolster the state’s power and authority

Participation and Majoritarianism
 Favors conventional, institutionalized behavior – primarily voting
 A decentralized system means that there are a lot of points of access for citizens to influence their government