Politisierung in Vereinen. Eine empirische Studie zum Zusammenhang zwischen der Vereinsmitgliedschaft und der Teilnahme an politischen Diskussionen

Abstract

ZusammenfassungEs ist empirisch gut belegt, dass Vereinsmitglieder nicht nur häufiger politisch partizipieren als Nichtmitglieder, sondern dass sie sich auch überdurchschnittlich für Politik interessieren und über Politik diskutieren. In diesem Artikel wird anhand von Analysen zum Zusammenhang zwischen der Vereinsmitgliedschaft und der Teilnahme an politischen Diskussionen gezeigt, dass dieser empirische Befund nur bedingt auf politische Sozialisationseffekte von Freiwilligenorganisationenzurückzuführen ist. Die Ergebnisse von multivariaten Analysen weisen darauf hin, dass nicht die Vereinsmitgliedschaft, sondern eher die politische Frühsozialisation und die Ausbildung zu einer vermehrten Teilnahme an politischen Diskussionen führen. Vereine entfalten primär dann eine politisierende Wirkung, wenn sie die Möglichkeit bieten, Organisations-und Kommunikationsfähigkeit en zu erlernen respektive zu kultivieren, oder wenn sie einen Beitrag zur Konfliktfähigkeit ihrer Mitglieder leisten.

The impact of organisational attributes on political participation: results of a multi‐level survey from Switzerland

“…Consequently, the authors saw this as evidence for de Tocqueville’s claim regarding the importance of civil society organisations for the development of democratic virtues. This is also supported in more recent studies (von Erlach, 2005; Howard and Gilbert, 2008).…”

“…To control for some of von Erlach's (2005) variables, we also tested variables measuring early socialisation at home, the avoidance of conflict and the amount of cross-pressures in the organisation, as well as engagement and integration. In our final model, however, we include only the variables that proved to be statistically significant in one of the models tested, namely ''early socialisation'' (an ordinal variable measuring different degrees of political discussion at home during adolescence) and ''engagement'' (an ordinal variable based on a self-assessment of the degree of engagement in the organisation), as well as an ordinal variable that measures the amount of time spent in the organisation during one month, as indicated by the individual him ⁄ herself.…”

“…Further, membership in an organisation most probably also has socialisation effects (Hooghe, 2003;Mutz, 2002), due to, for example, the interaction between members. 3 By employing the population data of the Swiss CID survey (see footnote 7), von Erlach (2005) attempted to simultaneously test many of these possible effects of organisational membership. While he exclusively focused on political discussion as a form of political participation, he was able to confirm that exercising particular tasks either at the workplace or in a voluntary organisation, and being exposed to ''cross-pressures'' as a member, increases the propensity for political deliberation.…”

Origins of Social Capital: Socialization and Institutionalization Approaches Compared

“…Several other studies have also emerged that cast doubt upon whether active, nonpolitical participation has any effects at all on social capital (Claibourn & Martin, 2000;Hyggen, 2006;Mayer, 2003;Ødegård, 2006;von Erlach, 2005). The reasons are manifold and discussed in more detail in the article included in the present work.…”

The Making of the Informed Voter: A Split‐Ballot Survey on the Use of Scientific Evidence in Direct‐Democratic Campaigns

“…Interest in politics was measured by asking participants to indicate their level of interest on a scale (Strömbäck and Shehata : 583). Following politics in the media and political discussion were measured using two questions assessing the frequency of application (Strömbäck and Shehata : 583; von Erlach : 50). Political knowledge was assessed with three questions on the features of Swiss direct democracy based on questions from the Swiss Electoral Studies (2011) (see also Lau and Redlawsk ).…”