Civil Society Mobilizing Action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Group Activity ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Politically Active

Social groups are often considered schools of democracy where people learn participatory norms and develop participatory skills. This chapter describes the levels of activity for five social groups: political parties, unions and business associations, religious groups, leisure groups, and other groups. The analyses then show the positive relationship between group activity and various modes of activity across the established democracies. There is also a social-status bias in these effects. Higher-status individuals are more active in social groups, which gives them an additional bonus in becoming politically active. Thus social groups generally widen the participation gap defined by social status alone.

The Political Leanings of the Choir

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Politically Active

Do unequal levels of participation across social groups correspond to unequal policy preferences in the political voices of the active citizenry? Across the established democracies, the politically active lean toward the Left at each level of social status. The end result is that the political biases of upper-social-status individuals are moderated by those who are politically active. However, this pattern varies. For traditional economic issues, there is a conservative bias among activists controlling for their social status. For cultural issues such as gay rights and protection of immigrants, political activists are more liberal than their social-status peers. This asymmetry in political voice across different issues is an under-recognized aspect of democratic participation.

Associations and Activism: Mobilization of Urban Informal Workers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua

1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles L. Davis ◽  
Edwin E. Aguilar ◽  
John G. Speer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Costa Rica ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Informal Sector ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
Politically Active ◽  
American Civil Society

Studies of Latin American civil society tend to assume that popular organizations promote “high-intensity” forms of political participation while political parties mainly encourage voting. This study compares the influence of these two forces in the urban informal sector. Association involvement, low in both samples, is related to “higher-intensity” participation, but the differential influence of associations and parties holds only for Costa Rica; Nicaragua’s revolutionary FSLN has fostered a more politically active citizenry.

scholarly journals Civil Society and Party Politics in Bulgaria after 2013: A Gramscian Look

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Stoyanova
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Cleavages ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Political Turn

In 2013, Bulgaria was shaken by two waves of mass protests, which seemed to mobilise distinct social groups and put different, and often conflicting, demands on the table. In the midst of the turbulence of the protests, new political formations emerged which aimed to capitalise on the mobilisations. The mushrooming of new political projects in the wake of the mass protests seems to mark an apparent re-politicisation following the post-political turn after 1989. Yet the language and identities of these new civic and party formations point to a more complicated dynamic between civic movements, political parties and the state. Drawing on Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, this article scrutinises the links between the newly emerged political projects and the civic mobilisations of 2013 to unravel the new social cleavages underpinning them and consider how these are played out in a context of a changed relationship between civil society and party politics 25 years after the fall of the socialist regime in Bulgaria.

“The Unsteady and Precarious Contribution of Individuals”: Edmund Burke's Defense of Civil Society

1999 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Liberal Tradition ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Liberal Thought

Contemporary critics have treated liberalism as synonymous with individualism. In light of this bias, too little attention has been focused on historical variations within the classical liberal tradition. The “associational” contributions of Burke, Tocqueville and other self-conscious liberals have been neglected largely because they do not conform to common assumptions about the contractarian and individualistic bases of liberal thought. This oversight has obscured perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Edmund Burke's political thought: namely, his attention to that domain known in contemporary terms as “civil society.” In his defense of intermediary institutions Burke demonstrates a prescient understanding of the requirements of modern constitutional arrangements. His thoughts on religious groups, political parties, and other intermediary attachments challenge the anti-associational bias of classical liberals such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Madison, and Bolingbroke. Burke's attention to these relationships marks a significant qualification of classical liberalism's early obsession with the perils of pluralism and its dawning sensitivity to the vices of individualism.

Doing Bodhisattva’s Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The State ◽  
Ho Chi Minh City ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
The Social

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.

Still Connecting with Society?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elin Haugsgjerd Allern ◽  
Tània Verge
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Sources Of Variation ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Formal Status ◽  
Formal Rules

How parties structure their interaction with social groups is a key determinant of their capacity to provide linkage between the institutions of government and the public at large. This chapter investigates the extent to which modern political parties use formal measures to connect to relevant societal interests and strengthen their anchorage in society. The analysis centres on parties’ use of formal rules governing affiliation and representation to link with externally organized interests and parties’ establishment of sub-organizations with representation rights within the party. The chapter authors develop and test several hypotheses concerning cross-country and within-country sources of variation in formal linkage and test them empirically. In addition, they examine whether formal status and representation rights shape parties’ ability to represent descriptively the associated latent social interests focusing on the case of women and ethnic minorities.

How and Why the Populist Radical Right Persuades Citizens

2019 ◽  
pp. 813-837
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Large Share ◽  
The Past ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Established Democracies

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.

scholarly journals When Does Income Inequality Cause Polarization?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jacob R. Gunderson
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Economic Elites ◽  
The Right ◽  
Issue Content

Scholars have long been concerned with the implications of income inequality for democracy. Conventional wisdom suggests that high income inequality is associated with political parties taking polarized positions as the left advocates for increased redistribution while the right aims to entrench the position of economic elites. This article argues that the connection between party positions and income inequality depends on how party bases are sorted by income and the issue content of national elections. It uses data from European national elections from 1996 to 2016 to show that income inequality has a positive relationship with party polarization on economic issues when partisans are sorted with respect to income and when economic issues are relatively salient in elections. When these factors are weak, however, the author finds no relationship between income inequality and polarization.

scholarly journals The People’s Champions? Populist Communication as a Contextually Dependent Political Strategy

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769902199864
Author(s):  
Iskander De Bruycker ◽  
Matthijs Rooduijn
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
News Stories

This article conceives of populist communication as a contextually dependent political strategy. We bridge actor- and communication-centered approaches by arguing that the context of issues conditions the extent to which parties employ populist communication. We draw from a content analysis of 2,085 news stories in eight news media outlets and Eurobarometer data connected to 41 EU policy issues and analyze statements from 85 political parties. Our findings show that populist parties are more prone to express populism on salient and polarized issues. Issues important to civil society groups, in contrast, make non-populist parties more inclined to express such communication.

Arnoldo Alemán Takes on the NGOs: Antifeminism and the New Populism in Nicaragua

2003 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Kampwirth
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Nongovernmental Organizations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Foreign Born

This article analyzes the campaign of Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán (1997–2002) against organized competitors, what has been called his war against the nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Alemán's attacks on the NGO sector are shown to be consistent with the logic of the new populism in Latin America. At the same time, his choice of targets—prominent NGO figures who were often foreign-born and always female—must be explained with reference to the specifics of Nicaraguan civil society and its evolving relationship with the political parties. This study argues that by choosing to respond to the challenges of international neoliberalism and local feminism through the anti-NGO campaign, Alemán helped to weaken democracy in Nicaragua.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document