Various studies suggest that while institutionalised and electoral forms of political participation are in decline in Western societies, non‐institutionalised forms of participation (like demonstrating, political consumerism or signing petitions) are on the rise. However, this expansion of the political action repertoire of citizens also entails the question of equal participation opportunities. It can be argued that contemporary ideals of democratic participation assume an equal representation of citizens' interests. In this article we analyse the equality of participation patterns using comparative data from the 2004 ISSP survey. Our results suggest that non‐institutionalised forms of participation increase patterns of inequality due to education but strongly reduce or even reverse gender and age inequalities. As such, both institutionalised and non‐institutionalised forms of participation have specific (dis)advantages from the perspective of preserving equal access to democratic decision‐making procedures.

Scholars have repeatedly expressed concern about the consequences low levels of political trust might have for the stability of democratic political systems. Empirical support and the identification of causal mechanisms for this concern, however, are often lacking. In this article, the relation between political trust and law‐abiding attitudes is investigated. It is expected that citizens with low levels of trust in the institutions of the political system will find it more acceptable to break the law. As a result, low levels of political trust might undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of government action and its ability to implement legislation. Based on survey data from 33 European countries using the 1999–2001 European Values Study (N = 41,125), the relation between political trust and legal permissiveness is examined using a multilevel ordered logistic regression analysis. The results show that respondents with low levels of political trust are significantly more likely to accept illegal behaviour such as tax fraud than respondents with high levels of political trust. Since it is known from earlier research that actors who are permissive towards law‐breaking behaviour are more likely to commit these acts themselves, the hypothesis that low levels of political trust will be associated with less law compliance within a society is supported.

In the literature, two competing claims can be found on the relationship between political trust and political participation. While some authors argue that trust is a prerequisite for any form of participation to occur, others claim that distrust can be a motivating factor for participation in non-institutionalised forms of participation. The social movement literature suggests that political trust will only have these behavioural consequences if it is associated with sufficiently high levels of political efficacy. In this article, we rely on the results of the 2006 European Social Survey for an in-depth analysis of the relationship between political trust and participation in 25 countries. The multi-level regression shows that while political trust is positively associated with institutionalised participation, it is negatively associated with noninstitutionalised participation. Moreover, the effect of political trust on institutionalised participation is dependent on self-confidence about one's capability to understand politics.

The increased availability of the Internet has led to the emergence of new forms of political participation. Opinions differ, however, on whether this has led to a reinforcement of stratification patterns or to the political mobilization of new groups in society. To address this question, the authors conducted a latent class analysis of a U.S. representative sample that indicates that online activism is indeed a distinctive type of political participation. Analysis of the sociodemographic stratification of the identified participation types confirms the mobilization thesis regarding age and gender but finds that traditional socioeconomic status inequalities are reinforced in online political participation.