One of the myths surrounding civil society, protest movements, and informal participation is that these non-organizational channels would open political processes for all social ranks. However, these forms of participation have an even stronger social bias than the old and often criticized formal organizations. This article shows on the one hand that members of the so-called underclass often do not have the necessary self-confidence and self-conception as citizens to readily participate in informal participation efforts and on the other hand that middle class-driven protest movements follow a logic of entitlement through work that excludes the underclass from their vision of political participation. Together this makes informal participation alone an especially ill-fitting instrument to fight social exclusion from political participation, often even strengthening pre-existing exclusion.

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