Social Structure and Political Participation: Developmental Relationships, Part I

Abstract

Economic development has consequences for many aspects of social life. Some of these social consequences, in turn, have an impact on a nation's political life. Studies of social mobilization, for example, have demonstrated that economic development is associated with sharp increases in the general level of political participation. These studies report strong relationships between aggregate socio-economic measures such as per capita income, median level of education, and percentage of the population in urban areas, on one hand, and aggregate measures of political participation, such as voting turnout, on the other. Simultaneously, scholars conducting surveys of individual political participation consistently have reported that an individual's social status, education, and organizational memberships strongly affect the likelihood of his engaging in various types of political activities.In spite of the consistency of both sets of findings across many studies and although the findings appear frequently in analysis of political stability, democracy, and even strategies of political growth, we know little about the connections between social structure and political participation. With few exceptions the literature on individual participation is notable for low level generalizations (the better educated citizen talks about politics more regularly), and the absence of systematic and comprehensive theory. While the literature on the growth of national political participation has been more elaborate theoretically, the dependence on aggregate measures has made it difficult to determine empirically how these macro social changes structure individuals' life experiences in ways which alter their political behavior.

The causes and consequences of steel subsidization in Germany

“…However, in contrast to Riedel's results, the percentage of unskilled workers in the industry did not emerge significantly, indicating that perhaps unskilled workers in the U.S. are not as politically active relative to other groups in pursuing their interests, as in Germany. Nie, Powell and Prewitt (1969) corroborate this conjecture. They note that in general there is a tendency for people with higher education, income and occupational status to be more involved in political activity than people with less of these attributes.…”

Urban Chinese Support for the Chinese Dream: Empirical Findings from Seventeen Cities

“…It made Chinese common people worried about social unrest. 22 Therefore, for Chinese common people, the democratic political construction has a baseline, that is, it shall be carried out in a stable and orderly way.…”

Politicization in Associations: An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Membership in Associations and Participation in Political Discussions

“…Empirical results at micro-level are available for the US (c.f. for instance Verba et al 1995) and Canada (Zipp and Smith 1979;Erickson and Nosanchuck 1990), Central America (Booth and Bayer Richard 1998;Seligson 1999;Nie et al 1969a;b), South America (Klesner 2002), Japan (Ikeda 2002) and many European countries (c.f. for instance Gabriel et al 2002;Armingeon 2004).…”