Women's Resistance Strategies & Political Participation (PDF)

Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Women’s resistance strategies There is an internal resistance of women who advocate the adoption of party quotas which explains the differential performance of countries in terms of wo...

Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Women’s resistance strategies There is an internal resistance of women who advocate the adoption of party quotas which explains the differential performance of countries in terms of women’s representation in Parliament → Legislated and voluntary party quota → Voluntary party quotas and the o Have an “contagion effect” Ex: in 2006, 181 parties in 58 countries of adopted gender quotas to nominate candidates for parliamentary elections → mainly socialist, green, communist parties 2. Citizens: Political socialization and political participation The question of citizenship has been re-evaluated and focused on by political science over the past 20 years. → It's a general concept for the theoretical and empirical analysis of the links between individuals, institutions and the State. Introduction: citizenship from a political science perspective Origins and definition Citizens = “a member of a political community, endowed with the prerogatives and entrusted with the responsibilities which are attached to this belonging” (Michael Walzer) → rights and responsibilities: citizenship consists of individuals enjoying rights and accepting a number of duties in return Citizenship = the prerogatives and obligations of the members of a specific political community ( → ex : the right to participate directly or indirectly to the exercise of power) Citizenship is : → the enjoyment by one individual of rights and duties → a legal condition & a sociological and historical reality → linked to the emergence of democracy, emerged with the American and French revolutions in the 18th century T.H Marshal and the stage of citizenship In Citizenship and Social Class,1950, T.H. Marshall showed and underlined that citizenship was built in 3 main stages through history: [1st stage, 18th century: Citizen were granted the main civil rights : freedom of speech, thought, ownership, contract and right to equal justice. → Equality before the law is implemented, → constituting the embryo of citizenship → institutionalized into the rule of law [2nd stage, 19th century: Citizen were granted political rights :voting and eligibility rights → citizens were subjects of successive conquests → institutionalized into the parliament 37  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein [3rd stage, 20th century: Citizen were granted social rights : education, wealth, housing, … → institutionalized through the Welfare state This ideal type corresponds fairly well to the English and American cases, but not so much to Germany or France → In Germany, social rights were granted before political rights and → In France, civil and political rights appeared at the same moment, during the 1789 Revolution and political rights became effective after 1848 However, the model is important for it underlines that modern citizenship → is composed of 3 elements combined: civil, political, and social rights, → but also, that it is an historical and incremental construction (it evolved) Some remarks on citizenship Rights and duties The citizen is “endowed with prerogatives and in charge of responsibilities”: → it explains and justifies the principle of obligatory voting in Belgium → It also covers the payment of taxes → and for a very long period, the main duty was military mobilization (the blood tax) Moral dimension: within the concept of citizenship, there is the idea that citizenship is based on moral qualities → good citizenship, virtue, civism → ex : act of voting Citizenship and nationality Most of the time, there is an association between citizenship and nationality, but it's not systematic → on the one hand individuals who have the nationality but who do not possess the rights granted by citizenship, o such as minors of age or those who have lost the right to vote or to eligibility due to criminal condemnation → on the other hand, those who have citizenship rights and duties without the nationality and o EU citizenship = supranational citizenship Citizenship and the welfare state Marshall considers that with the implementation of the welfare state, there is a supreme/total stage of citizenship: → it becomes complete with the acquisition of social rights The Welfare State (= ways through which States grant social rights to the population) was a big step in extending citizenship → You could no longer reduce citizenship to civil and political rights Most social policies in the democracies of Europe have internalised/adopted the idea of a “formal” vs. “real” citizenship : → the idea that, under certain economic and social conditions, citizens do not possess the dignity necessary to the exercise of citizens’ rights. → It is not real citizenship if you are not able to benefit of all civil, political and social rights (ex : if you cannot vote because you are homeless, it is not real citizenship) 38  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Gender and citizenship If we take traditional political theory, citizenship is considered as a universal concept: → it applies equality to all citizens regardless of race, religion, gender etc. → Gender studies questioned this “universal” character of citizenship. Walby and her discussion of the theories of T.H. Marshall : Marshall considers that three types of citizenships have developed over time → The different types of citizenship have not followed the same historical development and pattern for women as for men (ex : until 1920’s, women had not acquired the basic civil rights, they acquired political rights before civil rights) → The design of a single process of citizenship development based on a so-called universal and abstract model, in fact masculine, introduces a bias. a. Citizens and politics: political socialization What is political socialization Socialization : the mechanism of internalization of the norms and values which are specific to a society: → it's clearly linked to society's ability to shape and to transform the individuals who make it up. Political socialization : “the process of formation and transformation of individual systems of political representations, opinions and attitudes” (Annick Percheron) → The idea is to understand how a specific individual conceive their own patterns of understanding the political universe: → how to intellectually understand the political universe, to construct your own toolbox to understand political life The determining role of the family - Does on inherit or not his/her The works on political socialization have showed the importance of the political opinions? role of the family in the construction of political identity: - Does the family determine the → family is the place where you receive information and political choices of individuals? exchange cultural values and models, and where the latter are - Do all families have the same transmitted between generations. weight? → The family is where the main elementary links to the political - Are family the only socializing world are established agents Notions of “political affiliation” (Anne Muxel) Political affiliation shows how you are related or not to your family as for your own political choices You take a sample of the population and you ask people where they situate themselves and their parents on the left/right axis Anne Muxel showed that most of the people are affiliates → Ex: right-wing affiliates (people who situate themselves on the right side of the political axis) have parents on the same wing → Family ties are extremely effective when it comes to the transmission of political choices → 66% of political heirs 39  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein The affiliates The disaffiliates intergenerational continuity intergenerational discontinuity Non-homogeneous affiliation (16%) Right-wing affiliation (21%) Divergence in the choices of the parents (one on the at least one of the parents situate themselves on the right right and one on the left) or one of the parents did not of the left-right axis, the other parent does not situate respond to the question or did not situate himself on himself on the left and the child votes for the right the left-right axis Left-wing affiliation (25%) Change (11%) at least one of the parents situate themselves on the left of Children have a radically different point of view than the left-right axis, the other parent does not situate the parents, situate themselves at the opposite of the himself on the right and the child votes for the left left-right axis Apolitical affiliation (20%) Drop out (7%) The parents and the child consider themselves not being The parents have a certain political affiliation, but the on either side of the left-right axis or did not respond the child did not situate himself on the left-right axis or the question of situating themselves left the question unanswered The acknowledgement of inheritance All young people recognized the influence of their parents in the shaping of their political choices. → They are aware of it → The family and more specifically of the parents have tremendous influence: o for 65% of students, the father is the reference figure (65%) o shortly followed by the mother (63%) Factors that promote inheritance Some factors increase this transmission of the political values and attitudes within society: → parent’s interest in politics → strength of political preferences of the parents: transmission will be higher with parents being on the extremes (left or right) → homogeneity of the parent’s political opinions and values → visibility of the parents choices: if children know what their parents vote, it will influence them even more Transmission is not automatic; it can be more or less strong ! An unequal legacy Transmission is important but it's not automatic, it can be ± strong → this legacy varies according to the social environment of the individual and the context. Depending on the social and cultural environment → role of the level of education: the absence of choice between left and right and its repetition over generations is much more frequent amongst working classes and individuals with low level of education → weight of religious socialization Family legacies are important, but they are not free. This can be desegregated into two main factors, depending on the context. 40  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein Depending on the context The political heritage was much more important at the end of the '90s than during the '70s. Two factors explain this: → the evolution of society: o Ex: higher degree of education, weakening of religious practices etc. o Many sociological factors explain a closer relation between parents and their children in the fields of morality, social conventions, and political opinions o the transmission of norms and values works better → the de-dramatization of politics within the family: o it leads to transparency and visibility of parental choices. o Compared to decades before, transparency has increased, and political preferences and choices ceased to be a taboo in families. Political legacy is uneven in time, it depends on the context but in order to be comprehensive on the issue, we shouldn't forget that a part of the population considers that they are not the heirs of their parents with respect to political opinions and values → Family is not the only place to learn about the political universe One inheritance among other; the role of other “socializing institutions” Family is not the only place of political learning, there are other socializing institutions, it’s only one among others: → role of school: content of the learning programs, place of apprenticeship, learning certain forms of social relations → the media : extremely important, it’s the main channel of information → the peers (friends, colleagues, …) : empirically difficult to access, but there is a big homogeneity within friend groups Political socizalisation has to be understood as a dynamic: → first within the family, then other influences come along. → It is the result of complex negotiations, multiple transactions, cross-fertilization of diversified experiences etc. → Our political identity is thus to be defined between inheritance and experimentation → Ex: what Muxel calls “ the political moratorium of the youth years” consists of experimentation, testing, adaptation, transition, construction, indecisions, withdraw, instability? … This is especially done when young people construct their political identity and negotiate their inheritance: → they challenge the experience of family socialization according to the circumstances, → and introduce adjustments to what they have learned, especially within the family. To put briefly, it's an operation of selected re-appropriation: you have influences, but you select among them 41  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein b. Citizens and politics: political participation The first works on political participation Political participation is a set of activities by which citizens try to appeal to public authorities, an active involvement within politics (Lester Milbrath) → There are many different forms of political participation: first thing we think about is voting in elections, donating time or money to political campaigns, running for office and even writing petitions (even though less intense) The activities that constitute political participation are interrelated and hierarchical and it is also a cumulative process (like step of a staircase) Milbrath proposes an arachis of political commitment that can be represented under this pyramid with 4 main categories This work put the basis of the thinking about political participating → The apathetic : population who do not perform any political activity → Spectator activities → Transitional activities : requires more time and energy → Gladiatorial activities : for the most committed of the citizens Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (1963) The author starts with a paradox: → It is the combination of minority activism and majority indifference that ensures the stability of democratic systems and allows elites to govern → Not everyone as politically active in all areas but citizens are confident in their ability to act and they will act If they have to = the “democratic myth” These first two studies on political participation highlight public apathy and political incompetence: they belong to the “minimalist paradigm” Sidney Verba and Joseph S. Nye, Participation in America (1972) – or the SES model (socio-economic status) Political participation is unevenly distributed among the population → The number of participation activities increases with socio-economic status → participation helps those who are already the most advantaged → The most advantaged are therefore over-represented among gladiators and are more likely to attract the attention of the elites Circle auto-reinforcing : the one that are the more interested in politics ae the one who are more active and are the one whose interest are most taken into account by the representative The first works on the subject underlined the fact that political activities are hierarchical: the main part of the population does not participate and the higher you are in social hierarchy, the more you participate. 42  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein A limited conception of political participation The first works of political socialization stat to be criticize in the 60s and 70s because : It’s a vision which does not take into account the political and social context → Contest can play an important role in the participation of the individuals → Ex : role of the Civic Rights Movement It’s a vision which does not take into account the multiple dimensions of political participation Necessary to consider: → long-term participation → local participation Political participation is multidimensional, and we can consider other type of models showed by Milbrath → According to Verba and Nye: the inactives, the voting specialists, the communalists, the campaigners, the parochials (those who vote and mobilize only for their own benefits), the activists (who do the full range of activities and very frequently) → Different possible models It’s a vision which does not take into account non-participation Why do people not participate? → Individuals cannot participate o lack of resources: time, money, civil skills, ability to speak in public → Individuals do not want to participate o Commitment: not motivated, interested in politic or do not feel competent → Individuals have not been asked to participate o Recruitment: not part of social, political network Grassroots citizens are not as apathetic or irrational as the early work on political participation suggests → It depends on the resources, the commitment and whether or not their participation is ask for or not It’s a vision which only takes into account legal and conventional participation Demonstrations do not appear in the first classification of political behaviour: → according to Milbrath, violent and protest actions are not part of the normal functioning of a democracy → this king of behaviour is only used by a small minority of people and not by society as a all Change with the 1970s and the diversification of modes of protest → new actors start to participate using these new means (young people, minorities) It was necessary to rethink political participation and the range of activities that can be defined as being political participation 43  Q1 - Political sciences | Anna Sonnenschein A broader approach to political participation Gradually, behaviours and activities that were previously considered unconventional or illegitimate will be incorporated into conventional political participation → They will be considered as normal political activities and be part of citizen ship Alan Marsh was the first political scientist to address these issues in Protest and Political consciousness (1977) by distinguishes 4 traits op political participation beyond the classic Milbrath pyramid → Legal participation but with a protest dimension (demonstrations, petitions). → On the edge of legality participation : boycott behaviors). → Non-official strikes → Illegal actions with violence against property or persons o ex.: uprooting of transgenic maize plans, kidnapping of company managers, terrorism, etc.). The main idea is the to open the perimeter of political participation and getting read of the idea of what is conventional and what isn’t → Helps to relativize citizens’ civil and political apathy Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase where the first to develop a study that takes into account all types of participation and they ad about 15 question about certain modes of collective actions → Such as petition, strike, boycott, streets demonstration → They really broaden the range of possible political activities We can witness a gradual legitimation of political participation/protest and the expansion of the range of what citizens do in a democracy → Protest behaviors are now wild accepted → This makes possible to move from a minimalist and restrictive conception of democracy to a more inclusive one 3. Electoral behaviors Voting is a central feature of political in democracies, even if political participation is not limited to voting Yet, “habit leads us to confuse voting and elections and to identify these with democracy” (René Remond) : they are closely linked but not similar, since → voting goes beyond politics o Ex: people vote for many different occurrences such as the Oscar, in court while sitting on a jury etc. o Also, democracy and representation are not always equal to voting, as seen in the frame of Athenian democracy, where representation was achieved through lots. → Voting goes beyond the establishment of the universal suffrage, o election is not the only possible mode of selection of representatives in democracy o ex : random lot, cooptation Why studying voting as a contemporary political activity ? → it is the founding act of the democratic pact, which allows the election and renewal of the rulers at regular intervals in a democracy → it is the most common political activity → it is by far the most studied political behavior and the models and methods to analyze it have evolved over the last twenty years. 44