Predictors of political participation in new democracies : a comparative study

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Comparative studies investigating predictors of political participation in new democracies arerare. This study addresses an identified gap in the literature on predictors of politicalparticipation in new democracies in order to build on the rich body of literature concerned withpolitical participation and democratic consolidation which already exists, but also to contributetowards understanding the role of citizens and their decisions pertaining to political participationin new democracies.In order to address the identified gap, this cross-national comparative study uses World ValuesSurvey (2006) data for Chile, Poland, South Africa, and South Korea as part of a cross-sectionalsecondary analysis aimed at ascertaining what predictors of political participation can beidentified for these new democracies.Drawing primarily from studies by Shin (1999) and Dalton (2008) which used the CivicVoluntarism Model by Verba, Schlozman and Brady (1995) as theoretical framework, predictorsof political participation considered in this study include: personal resources (level of educationand self-reported social class), political engagement and motivation (political interest and leftrightpolitical ideology), group membership and networks, as well as demographic attributes(age, gender and size of town). Forms of political participation investigated include: voting asconventional form of participation; and boycotts, petitions and demonstrations as forms ofpolitical protest behaviour. The relationships between the possible predictors of participation andforms of political participation were determined by multiple regression analysis.The main findings by this study are that political interest is an important predictor of voting andpolitical protest behaviour; age is a strong predictor of voting; and group membership has agreater impact on political protest behaviour than on voting.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University