Activism: Influencing Law, Culture & Policy

• Activism aims to influence law and policy, alter social behavior, and promote awareness.
• Cultural change is central to this development, with activist motivations shifting from materialist concerns (jobs, wages) to postmaterialist values (globalization, environmentalism, gender equality).
• In developing societies, community groups pursue direct action on local livelihood issues like water, aid, and healthcare.
• Identity politics around ethnicity and sexuality blurs the lines between the "social" and the "political."
• Traditional citizenship activities focused on elections and government policy within the nation-state are now limited.

Targets of Activism

• Activities target parliament and government as well as diverse public, non-profit, and private sector actors.
• Activism case studies exist within international human rights groups, women's NGOs, environmental organizations, and anti-globalization movements.
• Targets include multinational corporations (Nike, McDonald's) and international organizations (WTO, World Economic Forum).
• Changes in participation targets reflect globalization and the declining autonomy of the nation-state.
• Power has shifted to intergovernmental organizations (UN, WTO) and regional/local assemblies.
• Privatization and deregulation have dispersed decision-making from government agencies to non-profit and private agencies.
• Citizens find it harder to challenge policies through national elections, increasing the need for alternative political expression.

Future Research

• Social psychology explains individual political participation through structural resources like education, occupation, and income which facilitate participation.
• Education provides skills for understanding political issues, while income enables political donations.
• Cultural attitudes, such as internal and external efficacy, civic knowledge, and political interest, are also important.
• Contextual factors within communities, states, or elections can trigger or depress propensities to participate.
• Mobilizing agencies like trade unions, churches, parties, and interest groups play a role in activating citizens.
• The mass media's role in encouraging or discouraging civic engagement is debated.
• Informal social networks of personal communication draw people into public affairs.
• Institutional context, legal rules, electoral systems, and party competition influence voting participation.

Shifting Emphases

• There's a growing emphasis on social processes by which organizations mobilize citizens and on the institutional rules governing participation forms.
• Institutional factors are studied for their impact on voter turnout, but institutions also shape other participation dimensions.
• Campaign finance laws and non-profit status influence voluntary organizations' structure and membership density.
• Much research remains single-nation focused.
• Systematic multinational surveys lag, especially outside Western Europe.
• New large-scale cross-national surveys (Globalbarometers) facilitate comparisons of mass political participation forms.
• Few cross-national surveys allow systematic analysis of more demanding participation forms.
• Pooling samples from surveys like Eurobarometers and the World Values Study can help, but limits cross-national variations analysis.
• Longitudinal multi-wave panel surveys are needed to establish causality.

Alternative Channels of Political Engagement

• Comparative research focuses on traditional activism, where citizens seek to influence officials within nation-states.
• Less research examines alternative channels of political engagement emerging, including demonstrations, consumer politics, and social movements.
• The contours and importance of these developments are debated, including if they are "new" or reflections of older traditions.
• The scope of organizational agencies and activities has expanded, but research hasn't captured this broader range.

Consequences of Participation

• The existing scholarship analyzes the causes more than the consequences of participation.
• This raises issues of what the impact of the developments are for social inequality.
• Newer participation forms require greater civic awareness.
• Changes imply impacts for individual capacities, communities, and mass participation quality.
• The shift from volunteering to financial donations is an example.
• Challenges remain in linking specific participatory acts to government decisions.
• There is a need for more research on if activism modes are supplementing or replacing older ones, and the consequences which follow for representative democracy.