political involvement essay

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8.1 What Is Political Participation?

Learning objectives.

After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What are the ways in which Americans participate in politics?
• What factors influence voter turnout in elections?
• How do Americans participate in groups?

Americans have many options for taking part in politics, including voting, contacting public officials, campaigning, running for and holding office, protesting, and volunteering. Voting is the most prominent form of political participation. Voter registration and turnout is influenced by legal and structural factors, voter qualifications, the type of election, and voters’ enthusiasm about a particular campaign.

Types of Political Participation

Political participation is action that influences the distribution of social goods and values (Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993). People can vote for representatives, who make policies that will determine how much they have to pay in taxes and who will benefit from social programs. They can take part in organizations that work to directly influence policies made by government officials. They can communicate their interests, preferences, and needs to government by engaging in public debate (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). Such political activities can support government officials, institutions, and policies, or aim to change them.

Far more people participate in politics by voting than by any other means. Yet there are many other ways to take part in politics that involve varying amounts of skill, time, and resources. People can work in an election campaign, contact public officials, circulate a petition, join a political organization, and donate money to a candidate or a cause. Serving on a local governing or school board, volunteering in the community, and running for office are forms of participation that require significant time and energy. Organizing a demonstration, protesting, and even rioting are other forms of participation (Milbrath & Goel, 1977).

People also can take part in support activities , more passive forms of political involvement. They may attend concerts or participate in sporting events associated with causes, such as the “Race for the Cure” for breast cancer. These events are designed to raise money and awareness of societal problems, such as poverty and health care. However, most participants are not activists for these causes. Support activities can lead to active participation, as people learn about issues through these events and decide to become involved.

People take part in support activities on behalf of a cause, which can lead to greater involvement.

Midwestnerd – Jingle Bell 5K run – CC BY 2.0.

People also can engage in symbolic participation , routine or habitual acts that show support for the political system. People salute the flag and recite the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of a school day, and they sing the national anthem at sporting events. Symbolic acts are not always supportive of the political system. Some people may refuse to say the pledge of allegiance to express their dissatisfaction with government. Citizens can show their unhappiness with leadership choices by the symbolic act of not voting.

For many people, voting is the primary means of taking part in politics. A unique and special political act, voting allows for the views of more people to be represented than any other activity. Every citizen gets one vote that counts equally. Over 90 percent of Americans agree with the principle that citizens have a duty to vote (Flanigan & Zingale, 1999). Still, many people do not vote regularly.

Voter Qualifications

Registered voters meet eligibility requirements and have filed the necessary paperwork that permits them to vote in a given locality. In addition to the requirement that voters must be eighteen years of age, states can enforce residency requirements that mandate the number of years a person must live in a place before being eligible to vote. A large majority of people who have registered to vote participate in presidential elections.

The composition of the electorate has changed radically throughout American history. The pool of eligible voters has expanded from primarily white, male property owners at the founding to include black men after the Civil War, women after 1920, and eighteen- to twenty-year-olds after 1971. The eligible electorate in the 1800s, when voter turnout consistently exceeded 70 percent, was far different than the diverse pool of eligible voters today.

Barriers to Voting

Social, cultural, and economic factors can keep people from voting. Some barriers to voting are informal. The United States holds a large number of elections, and each is governed by specific rules and schedules. With so many elections, people can become overwhelmed, confused, or just plain tired of voting.

Other barriers are structural. Voter registration laws were implemented in the 1860s by states and big cities to ensure that only citizens who met legal requirements could vote. Residency requirements limited access to registration offices. Closing voting rosters weeks or months in advance of elections effectively disenfranchised voters. Over time, residency requirements were relaxed. Beginning in the 1980s, some states, including Maine, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, made it possible for people to register on Election Day. Turnout in states that have Election Day registration averages ten points higher than in the rest of the country (Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980).

The United States is one of the few democracies that requires citizens to register themselves rather than having the government take responsibility for automatically registering them. Significant steps have been taken to make registration easier. In 1993, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act , also known as the “motor voter” law, allowing citizens to register at motor vehicle and social service offices. “Motor voter’s” success in increasing the ranks of registered voters differs by state depending on how well the program is publicized and executed.

Organizations conducting voter registration drives register as many voters as government voter registration sites.

Rakka – ”twin peaks” and voter registration – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Voter registration also has been assisted by online registration. In most cases, individuals must download the form, sign it, and mail it in. Rock the Vote (RTV), a nonpartisan youth mobilization organization, established the first online voter registration initiative in 1992 with official backing from the Congressional Internet Caucus. RTV registered over 2 million new voters in 1992, 80 percent of whom cast a ballot, and signed up over 2.5 million voters in 2008. [1] Following the 2008 election, RTV lobbied the Obama administration to institute fully automated online voter registration nationally.

Disenfranchisement of Felons

In all states except Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts, inmates serving time for committing felonies lose their right to vote. At least ten states prohibit former felons from voting even after they have served their time. States argue that their legal authority to deny convicted felons voting rights derives from the Fourteenth Amendment, which stipulates that voting rights of individuals guilty of “participation in rebellion, or other crime” can be denied. This practice excludes almost 4 million people from the voting rolls (Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project, 2000).

Opinions are divided on this issue. Some people believe that individuals who have committed a serious crime should be deprived of the privileges enjoyed by law-abiding people. Others contend that the integrity of the democratic process is at stake and that individuals should not be denied a fundamental right once they have served their time.

Voter turnout depends on the type of election. A large number of elections are held in the United States every year, including local elections, elections for county and statewide offices, primaries, and general elections. Only a small number of people, generally under one-quarter of those eligible, participate in local, county, and state elections. Midterm elections, in which members of Congress run for office in nonpresidential-election years, normally draw about one-third of eligible voters (Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993). Voter turnout in presidential elections is generally higher than for lower-level contests; usually more than half the eligible voters cast a ballot.

Much is made about low levels of voter turnout for presidential elections in the current era. However, there have not been great fluctuations in turnout since the institution of universal suffrage in 1920. Forty-nine percent of the voting-age public cast a ballot in the 1924 presidential contest, the same percentage as in 1996. Turnout in presidential elections in the 1960s was over 60 percent. More voters were mobilized during this period of political upheaval in which people focused on issues of race relations, social welfare, and the Vietnam War (Piven & Cloward, 2000). Turnout was lower in the 1980s and 1990s, when the political climate was less tumultuous. There has been a steady increase in turnout since the 2000 presidential election, in which 51 percent of the voting-age public cast a ballot. Turnout was 55 percent in 2004 and 57 percent in 2008, when 132,618,580 people went to the polls (McDonald).

Turnout varies significantly across localities. Some regions have an established culture of political participation. Local elections in small towns in New England draw up to 80 percent of qualified voters. Over 70 percent of Minnesota voters cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election compared with 51 percent in Hawaii and West Virginia (McDonald).

Turnout figures can be skewed by undercounting the vote. This problem gained attention during the 2000 election. The contested vote in the Florida presidential race resulted in a recount in several counties. Ballots can be invalidated if they are not properly marked by voters or are not read by antiquated voting machines. Political scientists have determined that presidential election turnout is underestimated on average by 4 percent, which translates into hundreds of thousands of votes (Flanigan & Zingale, 1999).

Voters in midterm elections choose all the members of the US House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, along with office holders at the state and local levels. Voter turnout levels have hovered around 40 percent in the past three midterm elections. Turnout for the 2010 midterm election was 41.6 percent, compared with 41.4 percent in 2006 and 40.5 percent in 2002 (McDonald). Young voters are less likely to turn out in midterm elections than older citizens. In 2010, only about 23 percent of eligible eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds cast a ballot (Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement). The United States Election Project provides information about voter turnout in presidential campaigns.

Democratic Participation

People have many options for engaging in politics. People can act alone by writing letters to members of Congress or staging acts of civil disobedience . Some political activities, such as boycotts and protest movements, involve many people working together to attract the attention of public officials. Increasingly people are participating in politics via the media, especially the Internet.

Contacting Public Officials

Expressing opinions about leaders, issues, and policies has become one of the most prominent forms of political participation. The number of people contacting public officials at all levels of government has risen markedly over the past three decades. Seventeen percent of Americans contacted a public official in 1976. By 2008, 44 percent of the public had contacted their member of Congress about an issue or concern (Congressional Management Foundation, 2008). E-mail has made contacting public officials cheaper and easier than the traditional method of mailing a letter.

The directive to “write your member of Congress” is taken seriously by increasing numbers of citizens: legislators’ e-mail boxes are filled daily, and millions of letters are processed by the Capitol Hill post offices.

www.house.gov – public domain.

Students interning for public officials soon learn that answering constituent mail is one of the most time-consuming staff jobs. Every day, millions of people voice their opinions to members of Congress. The Senate alone receives an average of over four million e-mail messages per week and more than two hundred million e-mail messages per year (Congressional Management Foundation, 2008). Still, e-mail may not be the most effective way of getting a message across because office holders believe that an e-mail message takes less time, effort, and thought than a traditional letter. Leaders frequently are “spammed” with mass e-mails that are not from their constituents. Letters and phone calls almost always receive some kind of a response from members of Congress.

Contributing Money

Direct mail appeals by single-issue groups for contributions aimed especially at more affluent Americans are targeted methods of mobilizing people.

Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0.

The number of people who give money to a candidate, party, or political organization has increased substantially since the 1960s. Over 25 percent of the public gave money to a cause and 17 percent contributed to a presidential candidate in 2008 (Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 2008). Direct mail and e-mail solicitations make fundraising easier, especially when donors can contribute through candidate and political-party websites. A positive side effect of fundraising campaigns is that people are made aware of candidates and issues through appeals for money (Jacobson, 1997).

Americans are more likely to make a financial contribution to a cause or a candidate than to donate their time. As one would expect, those with higher levels of education and income are the most likely to contribute. Those who give money are more likely to gain access to candidates when they are in office.

Campaign Activity

In addition to voting, people engage in a range of activities during campaigns. They work for political parties or candidates, organize campaign events, and discuss issues with family and friends. Generally, about 15 percent of Americans participate in these types of campaign activities in an election year (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995).

New media offer additional opportunities for people to engage in campaigns. People can blog or participate in discussion groups related to an election. They can create and post videos on behalf of or opposed to candidates. They can use social networking sites, like Facebook, to recruit supporters, enlist volunteers for campaign events, or encourage friends to donate money to a candidate.

Participation in the 2008 presidential election was greater than usual, as people were motivated by the open race and the candidate choices.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

The 2008 presidential election sparked high levels of public interest and engagement. The race was open, as there was no incumbent candidate, and voters felt they had an opportunity to make a difference. Democrat Barack Obama, the first African American to be nominated by a major party, generated enthusiasm, especially among young people. In addition to traditional forms of campaign activity, like attending campaign rallies and displaying yard signs, the Internet provided a gateway to involvement for 55 percent of Americans (Owen, 2009). Young people, in particular, used social media, like Facebook, to organize online on behalf of candidates. Students advertised campus election events on social media sites, such as candidate rallies and voter registration drives, which drew large crowds.

Running for and Holding Public Office

Being a public official requires a great deal of dedication, time, energy, and money. About 3 percent of the adult population holds an elected or appointed public office (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995). Although the percentage of people running for and holding public office appears small, there are many opportunities to serve in government.

Potential candidates for public office must gather signatures on a petition before their names can appear on the ballot. Some people may be discouraged from running because the signature requirement seems daunting. For example, running for mayor of New York City requires 7,500 signatures and addresses on a petition. Once a candidate gets on the ballot, she must organize a campaign, solicit volunteers, raise funds, and garner press coverage.

Protest Activity

Protests involve unconventional, and sometimes unlawful, political actions that are undertaken in order to gain rewards from the political and economic system. Protest behavior can take many forms. People can engage in nonviolent acts of civil disobedience where they deliberately break a law that they consider to be unjust (Lipsky, 1968). This tactic was used effectively during the 1960s civil rights movement when African Americans sat in whites-only sections of public busses. Other forms of protest behavior include marking public spaces with graffiti, demonstrating, and boycotting. Extreme forms of protest behavior include acts that cause harm, such as when environmental activists place spikes in trees that can seriously injure loggers, terrorist acts, like bombing a building, and civil war.

Figure 8.6 The Watts Riots

The Watts riots in 1965 were the first of a number of civil disturbances in American cities. Although its participants thought of them as political protests, the news media presentation rarely gave that point of view.

Extreme discontent with a particular societal condition can lead to rioting. Riots are frequently spontaneous and are sparked by an incident that brings to a head deep-seated frustrations and emotions. Members of social movements may resort to rioting when they perceive that there are no conventional alternatives for getting their message across. Riots can result in destruction of property, looting, physical harm, and even death. Racial tensions sparked by a video of police beating Rodney King in 1991 and the subsequent acquittal of the officers at trial resulted in the worst riots ever experienced in Los Angeles.

Comparing Coverage

The Rodney King Video

In March 1991, KTLA News at Ten in Los Angeles interrupted programming to broadcast an eighty-one-second amateur videotape of several police officers savagely beating black motorist Rodney King as he stood next to his vehicle. A nineteen-second edit of the tape depicted the most brutal police actions and became one of the most heavily broadcast images in television news history. The original and the edited tape tell two different stories of the same event.

Viewing the entire tape, one would have seen a belligerent and violent Rodney King who was difficult for police to constrain. Not filmed at all was an intoxicated King driving erratically, leading police on an eight-mile, high-speed chase through crowded streets.

The edited video showing the beating of King told a different story of police brutality and was the basis of much controversy. Race relations in Los Angeles in 1991 were strained. The tape enraged blacks in Los Angeles who saw the police actions as being widespread within the Los Angeles Police Department and not an isolated incident.

Four white officers were tried in criminal court for the use of excessive force, and they were acquitted of all but one charge. Jurors were shown the entire tape, not just the famous nineteen-second clip. Soon after the verdict was announced, riots broke out. Demonstrators burned buildings and assaulted bystanders. Fifty-four people were killed and two thousand were wounded. Property damage was in the millions of dollars.

The video of the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991 sparked riots.

ATOMIC Hot Links – Los Angele’s three day shoot – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

CBS News Report on the Rodney King Incident

The CBS News report on the Rodney King incident included the following controversial video.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1344797n .

LA Riots of 1992: Rodney King Speaks

(click to see video)

The following video is the CNN News Report on the Los Angeles Riots, including Rodney King’s appeal to stop the violence.

College students in the 1960s used demonstrations to voice their opposition to the Vietnam War. Today, students demonstrate to draw attention to causes. They make use of new communications technologies to organize protests by forming groups on the Internet. Online strategies have been used to organize demonstrations against the globalization policies of the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. Over two hundred websites were established to rally support for protests in Seattle, Washington; Washington, DC; Quebec City, Canada; and other locations. Protest participants received online instructions at the protest site about travel and housing, where to assemble, and how to behave if arrested. Extensive e-mail listservs keep protestors and sympathizers in contact between demonstrations. Twitter, a social messaging platform that allows people to provide short updates in real time, has been used to convey eyewitness reports of protests worldwide. Americans followed the riots surrounding the contested presidential election in Iran in 2009 on Twitter, as observers posted unfiltered, graphic details as the violent event unfolded.

Participation in Groups

About half the population takes part in national and community political affairs by joining an interest group, issue-based organization, civic organization, or political party. Organizations with the goal of promoting civic action on behalf of particular causes, or single-issue groups , have proliferated. These groups are as diverse as the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which supports animal rights, the Concord Coalition, which seeks to protect Social Security benefits, and the Aryan Nation, which promotes white supremacy.

There are many ways to advocate for a cause. Members may engage in lobbying efforts and take part in demonstrations to publicize their concerns. They can post their views on blogs and energize their supporters using Facebook groups that provide information about how to get involved. Up to 70 percent of members of single-issue groups show their support solely by making monetary contributions (Putnam, 2000).

Volunteering

Even activities that on the surface do not seem to have much to do with politics can be a form of political participation. Many people take part in neighborhood, school, and religious associations. They act to benefit their communities without monetary compensation.

Maybe you coach a little league team, visit seniors at a nursing home, or work at a homeless shelter. If so, you are taking part in civil society , the community of individuals who volunteer and work cooperatively outside of formal governmental institutions (Eberly, 1998). Civil society depends on social networks , based on trust and goodwill, that form between friends and associates and allow them to work together to achieve common goals. Community activism is thriving among young people who realize the importance of service that directly assists others. Almost 70 percent of high school students and young adults aged eighteen to thirty report that they have been involved in community activities (Peter D. Hart Research Associates, 1998).

Key Takeaways

There are many different ways that Americans can participate in politics, including voting, joining political parties, volunteering, contacting public officials, contributing money, working in campaigns, holding public office, protesting, and rioting. Voting is the most prevalent form of political participation, although many eligible voters do not turn out in elections. People can take part in social movements in which large groups of individuals with shared goals work together to influence government policies. New media provide novel opportunities for political participation, such as using Facebook to campaign for a candidate and Twitter to keep people abreast of a protest movement.

• What are some of the ways you have participated in politics? What motivated you to get involved?
• What political causes do you care the most about? What do you think is the best way for you to advance those causes?
• Do you think people who have committed serious crimes should be allowed to vote? How do you think not letting them vote might affect what kind of policy is made?

Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), “Young Voters in the 2010 Elections,” http://www.civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/2010-Exit-Poll-FS-Nov-17-Update.pdf .

Congressional Management Foundation, Communicating with Congress: How the Internet Has Changed Citizen Engagement (Washington, DC: Congressional Management Foundation, 2008).

Eberly, D. E., America’s Promise: Civil Society and the Renewal of American Culture (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).

Flanigan, W. H. and Nancy H. Zingale, Political Behavior of the American Electorate , 9th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1999).

Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project, Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2000).

Jacobson, G. C., The Politics of Congressional Elections (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).

Lipsky, M., “Protest as a Political Resource,” American Political Science Review , December 1968, 1145.

McDonald, M., “Voter Turnout,” United States Election Project , http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm .

Milbrath, L. W. and M. L. Goel, Political Participation , 2nd ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1977).

Owen, D., “The Campaign and the Media,” in The American Elections of 2008 , ed. Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier and Steven E. Schier (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 9–32.

Peter D. Hart Research Associates, New Leadership for a New Century (Washington, DC: Public Allies, August 28, 1998).

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Re-Interview Poll, Nov, 2008,” Poll Database , http://people-press.org/questions/?qid=1720790&pid=51&ccid=51#top .

Piven, F. F. and Richard A. Cloward, Why Americans Still Don’t Vote (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).

Putnam, R. D., Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

Rosenstone, S. J. and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 4.

Verba, S., Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady, Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).

Wolfinger, R. E. and Steven J. Rosenstone, Who Votes? (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980).

• “The Campaign: Rockers and Rappers,” The Economist , June 20, 1993, 25. ↵

American Government and Politics in the Information Age Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Oxford Handbook of Political Participation

Marco Giugni is a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations and director of the Institute of Citizenship Studies (InCite) at the University of Geneva. His research focuses on social movements and political participation. He recently co-edited, together with Maria Grasso, The Oxford Handbook of Political Participation (Oxford University Press 2022).

Maria Grasso, Queen Mary University of London

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The Oxford Handbook of Political Participation provides the first comprehensive, up-to-date treatment of political participation in all of its varied expressions. It covers a wide range of topics relating to the study of political participation from different disciplinary and methodological angles, such as the modes of participation, the role of the context as well as the determinants, processes, and outcomes of participation. The volume brings together the political science and political sociology tradition, on the one hand, and the social movement sociological tradition, on the other, is sensitive to theoretical and methodological pluralism as well as the most recent developments in the field, and includes discussions combining perspectives that have traditionally been treated separately in the literature as well as discussions of current trends and future directions for research in this field.

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Political Participation: Inclusion of Citizens in Democratic Opinion-Forming and Decision-Making Processes

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• Sylke Nissen 7  

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

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Nissen, S. (2021). Political Participation: Inclusion of Citizens in Democratic Opinion-Forming and Decision-Making Processes. In: Leal Filho, W., Marisa Azul, A., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Özuyar, P.G., Wall, T. (eds) Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95960-3_42

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STUDYING POLITICAL PARTICIPATION: TOWARDS A THEORY OF EVERYTHING?

Related Papers

Mateusz Wajzer

This paper identifies the major problems associated with the process of conceptualizing political participation. Two of them are discussed in detail. The first problem is that researchers ascribe political characteristics to any social behaviour, which is unsupported by proper arguments that would relate the proposed concepts to the subject matter of political science. The second one points to the strong presence of normative and crypto-normative elements, especially in studies of democratic societies.

Jake Bowers

Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies

Sharon Campbell

This conceptual paper tends to abridge all the theories on political participation in voting system as well as contributing to the government. Political participation is a mandatory choice needs to be analyzed as it is a choice that the state had imposed on its citizens though it centres round very significant factors. Political participation is a necessary ingredient of every political system. By involving many in the matters of the state, political participation fosters stability and order by reinforcing the legitimacy of political authority. This review article defines the political participation, participants, the necessity of participation, the social, political, economic as well as psychological state of affairs that influence citizens to participate. It also highlights the apathy behind not participating and the types and causes of political participation. Thus the paper tries to present a thorough picture of the issues behind the process of political participation.

Political Participation in the Middle East

Holger Albrecht

Thamy Pogrebinschi

hrss hamburg review of social sciences

Markus Pausch

Political participation is an often claimed value in the political and scientific discourse, but it is not always clearly defined. This article tries to concretise the qualities of political participation by the introduction of a four-fold classification inspired by, and based on Ruut Veenhoven's model of the "four qualities of life". In this classification it is argued that political participation contributes on the one hand to the quality of democracy (outer qualities) and on the other hand to the individuals' feeling of self-determination and political freedom (inner qualities). Furthermore, different forms of participation are discussed in respect to their impact on these inner and outer qualities. Finally, indicators for each of the qualities are identified, described and critically discussed.

Human Affairs

Mariano Torcal , Jan Teorell

Iasonas Lamprianou

Although������ years of excellent scholarship has taught us much about the cross-sectional side of political participation, scholars do not know much about the dynamics of political participation, and thus they do not know much about how to study it, let alone think about it. This paper presents a way to understand what stimulates or inhibits episodes of political activity in the lives of ordinary Americans. It introduces the idea that a causal story of political participation must include two kinds of factors: those that affect the potential of a person to ...

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Social Media and the Political Engagement of Young Adults: Between Mobilization and Distraction

Scholars have expressed great hopes that social media use can foster the democratic engagement of young adults. However, this research has largely ignored non-political, entertainment-oriented uses of social media. In this essay, I theorize that social media use can significantly dampen political engagement because, by and large, young adults use social media primarily for non-political purposes, which distracts rather than mobilizes.

Design/methodology/approach

I illustrate this argument using aggregate level data from the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, and Japan by comparing relative voter turnout and social media use data of young adults.

Data suggest a so called Social Media Political Participation paradox in those countries: The gap in voter turnout between young adults and older generations has not significantly decreased, despite a skyrocketing rise of social media use on the side of young adults, and the overwhelming research evidence that social media use fosters offline political participation.

Implications

When trying to understand the implications of social media for democracy across the globe, entertainment-oriented content needs to be brought back in.

Originality/value

This essay challenges the dominant research paradigm on social media use and political participation. It urges future research to theoretically develop, describe, and empirically test a comprehensive model of how social media use has the potential to mobilize and to distract.

1 Introduction

Around the globe, social media have become a centerpiece in young adults’ lives. Particularly with their smartphones, young adults can literally be on social media 24/7, permanently connected to the world and their peers ( Vorderer and Kohring 2013 ). In fact, when comparing the current young generation to their older counterparts, there is a fundamental difference in media use behaviors: While young adults, aged 16–25, rely on digital platforms or messenger services, such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, or WeChat, to get the news, the older generation is much more likely to be exposed to traditional news sources such as television or newspapers. At the same time, there are dozens of studies around the globe demonstrating that, traditionally, young adults are less interested in traditional politics compared to older generations ( Delli Carpini 2017 ), less likely to vote, and generally less politically sophisticated ( Binder et al. 2021 ). In short, political parties had been, before the emergence of digital media, struggling to reach out to the younger generation. Especially when it comes to traditional institutions, you adults are often described as detached and apathetic (e.g., Binder et al. 2021 ; Loader et al. 2014 ).

Yet with social media, scholars have expressed great hopes regarding young adults’ democratic engagement (see Binder et al. 2021 ; Oser and Boulianne 2020 ): It has been argued that particularly social media can build new relationships between political actors and young adults, enable social interaction about political topics, connect people, enhance political opinion expression, equalize engagement and generally foster participation as well as boost voter turnout or contribute to social cohesion (e.g., Boulianne 2011 , 2015 , 2020 ; Goh et al. 2019 ; Loader et al. 2014 ). So, with digital media, there are grounds to believe that the generational engagement gap may be reduced, and that young citizens could be reengaged into the political world. In fact, scholars working on digital media and political engagement have been fascinated by this idea, largely pointing to democratically welcomed outcomes of social media use, such as learning or participation. For instance, researchers observed a positive relationship between the frequency of social media use and protest participation among the youth ( Valenzuala et al. 2014 ), and more generally, it has been found that political social media use is positively related to various forms of political participation (e.g., Ekström et al. 2014 ; Skoric and Zhu 2016 ). With recent meta-analyses on the topic, the evidence for the democratically positive outcomes of social media use is simply overwhelming, particularly in cross-sectional survey research ( Boulianne 2011 ; Chae et al. 2019 ; Skoric et al. 2016 ) and also with respect to young adults ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ).

However, scholarship on the democratic outcomes of social media frequently seem to overlook the fact that social media are primarily used for entertainment and relational purposes, especially when it comes to young adults ( Dimitrova and Matthes 2018 ; but see Skoric and Zhu 2016 ; Theocharis and Quintelier 2016 ). That is, the social media use of young people is clearly dominated by non-political content ( Binder et al. 2021 ). Yet the vast majority of studies do not take these forms of exposure into account, eventually ignoring a large share of the diversity in content on social media. As a consequence, scholars have turned a blind eye on potentially distractive effects of social media use on political engagement, leading to a skewed overall picture of this research field. In this conceptual paper, I take a different approach by theorizing that social media use can significantly dampen political engagement. The main reason is that social media are primarily used for entertainment and social networking purposes, which has the potential to distract rather than mobilize ( Heiss and Matthes 2021 ).

In what follows, I will briefly summarize the literature on digital media and young adults’ political engagement. Then, using illustrative, aggregate level data from the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, I will then describe the so called Social Media Political Participation Paradox , that is, the gap in voter turnout between young adults and older generations has not significantly decreased, despite a skyrocketing rise of social media use, on the side of young adults, and the huge amount of studies suggesting a significant relation between social media use and political participation. Then, I will develop a theoretical argument for why social media use is also likely to disengage, challenging the prevailing academic reading of the literature as well as the existing empirical evidence.

2 Digital Media and Young Adults’ Political Engagement

Political engagement, often also referred to as political participation, is understood as “actions or activities by ordinary citizens that in some way are directed toward influencing political outcomes in society” ( Ekman and Amnå 2012 , p. 287). This entails a diverse repertoire ranging from traditional (e.g., voting) and non-traditional (e.g., political online discussion; see Hopmann et al. 2015 ) forms of engagement to political consumerism ( Skoric et al. 2016 ). Political engagement can be conceptualized along the lines of individual and collective actions ( Adler and Goggin 2005 ). In addition, formal political participation, such as voting or party membership, and activism, which allows for influence in the political decision making process though protests represent distinct dimensions of political engagement ( Ekman and Amnå 2012 ).

Social media has given rise to entirely new forms of action and interaction that can only happen in a digitally networked space, such as online petitions or commenting on politicians’ posts ( Sloam 2014 ). Social networks allow for non-institutionalized and horizontal modes of engagement, which are often favored by young adults ( Sloam 2014 ). Since such forms of political engagement only exist and can be exercised within social media, they also have to be treated as a separate subdimension of political engagement. Overall, the various forms of engagement can be described as either institutionalized (e.g., voting) or non-institutionalized (e.g., protest behavior). This distinction is relevant because “young adults are disproportionately more likely to participate through non-institutionalized means.” ( Weiss 2020 , p. 3), particularly in the online world. This is by no means a new insight. Since decades, scholars have bemoaned a participation gap between younger and older individuals ( Quintelier 2007 ), as “in almost every election young people are the least likely to vote, and these participation rates are continuously declining” ( Quintelier 2007 , p. 165). For instance, in Austria, young people are allowed to vote at the age of 16, but nevertheless, their turnout rates are comparably low ( Binder et al. 2021 ). Findings from other countries also suggest that young people have comparatively negative attitudes toward politics and low trust in the political system ( Quintelier 2007 ; see Binder et al. 2021 ).

But there is also hope. In this research area, “[y]outh’s digital media use is often seen as a partial remedy to the decline of youth participation in political and civic life” ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 , p. 112). The argument is that digital media is an important source of information for those not primarily interested in institutional politics. More specifically, it is generally assumed that social media fosters young adults’ political engagement because the networking function of social media helps young citizens to develop skills and psychological dispositions that promote offline participation ( Kahne and Boyer 2018 ). Also, a seminal, cross-sectional study by Gil de Zuniga et al. (2012) suggests that social media indirectly promote participation by fostering opinion expression, which is a key driver of political participation. As another indirect effect of social media on political participation, it has been argued that some forms of social media use, such as news sharing, can strengthen social relationships and increase social cohesion, which in turn, may be the driver for collective action and group engagement (e.g., Goh et al. 2019 ; Hwang and Kim 2015 ). Similarly, social media shapes civic attitudes, and such “civic identity is a central factor that fosters civic engagement because it helps individuals to see society as a construction of human actors with political and moral goals” ( Chen et al. 2015 , p. 445).

In addition, it has been theorized that social media fosters incidental exposure to political information, which leads to learning effects, and ultimately, an increase in traditional forms of political participation ( Matthes et al. 2020 ). Furthermore, as explained by Boukes (2019) , social media increase the opportunities for citizens to learn because “never before has so much information, mostly without extra financial costs, been so close at hand for citizens” (p. 39). In line with this argument, the timeline structure of social networking platforms can lead to a “by-product” learning mechanism through which knowledge gaps are reduced ( Chadwick 2012 ), ultimately leading to political participation. And, more germane to young adults, the Impressionable Years Hypothesis ( Sears and Levy 2003 ) suggests that young people are more susceptible to social media effects compared to adults, as political efficacy and engagement are not fully consolidated during adolescence (e.g., Eckstein et al. 2012 ). That is, when exposed to social media, the notion of efficacy can be strengthened in young adults, leading to participation.

So overall, the dominant argument is that social media use can foster soft—that is, non-institutionalized—forms of engagement in a first step, such as online political expression or low-effort forms of political participation. This, in turn, will then shape classical, institutionalized types of political engagement in a second step. As Bode et al. (2014) have put it, “When adolescents use social networking sites – something many of them do in their daily lives – in a new, politically oriented way, it may actually increase their likelihood of participating in politics in other ways.” (pp. 424–425). In addition, social media can also directly lead to a rise in offline participation among young adults ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ). This theory, in line with the available meta-analyses, leads to the clear prediction that social media use should increase not only non-institutionalized forms of participation, but also—indirectly or directly—traditional forms such as voting. The available “findings offer a strong, conclusive statement that online and offline forms of engagement are highly correlated; youth engage in both environments” ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 , p. 123). But how is this observable at the aggregate level when it comes to the institutionalized forms of participation, such as voting in national parliamentary elections?

3 The Generational Political Participation Gap

To reiterate, the previously available literature unequivocally suggests that social media use, particularly political forms of use, can foster online and offline political engagement (e.g., Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ). With these insights at hand, the traditional generational gap between the young and older generations in terms of institutionalized participation needs to be revisited. One could argue that, over the past decades, social media use of young adults, unlike older generations, increased from basically zero to very high levels. That is, assuming there is a significant small to medium effect size for the relationship between political social media use on online participation, and a medium to large effect size for the relationship between online and offline participation ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ), we would expect that, in the past decades, the generational gap should have decreased.

3.1 The Social Media Political Participation Paradox

To test this idea, I draw on official voter data (i.e., not self-report survey data) from the National Parliamentary Elections in Germany. As can be seen in Figure 1 , as can be expected, social media use of young individuals has increased from zero in the early 2000s to more than 80% at the time of the last election in 2017. So, in terms of the meta-analyses reported above and although such aggregate level analyses do not allow causal conclusions, one of the theorized drivers of engagement has witnessed a skyrocketing increase. But paradoxically, as visible in Figure 1 , there were no significant increases in voter turnout for individuals aged 18–24 over the years. By contrast, in 1983, young individuals showed a turnout of 84.30 (18–20 year old) and 81.50 (21–24 year old)% in the national election. In 2017, these numbers were significantly and substantially lower (69.90% and 67.00% respectively). That is, if anything changed, the numbers are more suggestive of an increase in the generational gap, rather than a decrease. Although these are only aggregate level data, they do not suggest that social media use—emerging in the last two decades—has completely changed the picture.

Voter Turnout in National Elections and Young Adults Social Media Use over Time, Germany.

Source for social media data: Koch and Frees (2007) , source for election data: Bundeswahlleiter (2017) .

Data from the United States suggest a similar, albeit not identical picture. As can be seen in Figure 2 , the generational gap in voter turnout is clearly visible over time, although young individuals slightly increased in turnout (e.g., from 44.30% in 2008 to 48% in 2020), whereas turnout for older generations remained largely at the same level. However, a fundamental shift in turnout when it comes to young adults is clearly not visible in the data, the generational gap is still evident. In Switzerland ( Selects 2019 ), 28% of young adults aged 18–24 participated in the national parliamentary election in 1999 (35% in 2003), 33% did so in the last election in 2019. By contrast, 57% of adults aged 65–74 participated in the election in 1999 (54% in 2003), and 62% did so in the last election in 2019. Again, a clear generational gap that has been consistent over time. Finally, looking at data from Japan, the turnout of people aged 20–24 was 35.3% in 2012 and 30.69% in 2017. These numbers, however, were significantly higher for individuals aged 65–69 (77.15% in 2012 and 73.35% in 2017), 70–74 (76.47% in 2012 and 74.13% in 2017), and 75–79 (71.02% in 2012 and 70.26% in 2017). This suggests a huge generational gap when it comes to participation in national elections in those countries, and there is no clear indication the gap has decreased over the years.

Voter Turnout in National Elections and Young Adults Social Media Use over Time, USA.

Source for voting: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Source for social media use: Pew Research Center, 2021.

So overall, these aggregate data deliver a clear message for these four countries, none of which has witnessed huge protest movements outside traditional party politics. Young adults are significantly less likely to vote in national elections compared to older generations, and it seems this gap has not decreased over the past decades, as one would expect from the enthusiastic voices in research on social media use and political participation.

In fact, the findings appear somewhat paradox: The social media use has increased from zero to almost 100% in the last two decades, which should, considering the effect sizes observed in previous research, also become visible at the aggregate level. So, on the one hand, we learn from previous research that social media significantly fosters political participation, online and offline (e.g., Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ), on the other hand, we don’t see a higher turnout compared to older generations, who are much less likely to use social media compared to their younger counterparts. And even if they did, we would expect an increase in turnout for this group as well, which has not been the case. This phenomenon can be called the Social Media Political Participation Paradox . In short, at the aggregate level, it appears as if social media has not changed a thing, although social science research suggests quite the opposite.

3.2 Explaining the Paradox

Of course, on the methodological the most obvious explanation is ecological fallacy. We can’t derive any assumptions on individual level effects when looking at aggregate level data. Ultimately, no causal claims can be made, nor can we say anything about intraindividual change or processes. There may also be simultaneous, competing processes, and third variables cannot be controlled at all. Yet what we learn is that there is a generational gap in participation at the aggregate level which is, by and large, rather substantial. So at best, the data reported above can be understood as anecdotal evidence . Yet on theoretical grounds, the findings could inspire us to elaborate on why social media use may not automatically lead to strong shifts in institutionalized forms of political participation.

Several reasons can be found for this in the literature. On the theoretical side, the recent Social Media Political Participation model ( Knoll et al. 2020 ) holds that social media can foster participation only when a chain of subsequent conditions are met. According to this model, young adults have to be (intentionally or incidentally) exposed to political content on social media, they need to appraise political content on social media as relevant (as compared to other content that is simultaneously present), there needs to be a discrepancy between a current state and a future, desired state, they need to believe that a participation goal is attainable, and this goal must then be dominant in a real behavioral situation, in which other behavioral goals may be present as well (see Knoll et al. 2020 ). If one of the conditions is not met, social media use may not increase offline forms of political participation, according to the model. This model can explain why participation efforts of young adults are often short-lived, they can rise to substantial amounts during times of protest, but remain low in times of national elections. It would suffice if one of the appraisals is negative, as for instance, when other goals appear to be more important in an behavioral situation. Obviously, typical self-report survey studies cannot fully grasp the process described in the model because the behavioral situation is hardly taken into account in the typical research designs and the processes can hardly be measured in retrospect.

Second, it has been argued that social media is more likely to impact non-institutionalized forms of participation, rather than institutionalized ones ( Sloam 2014 ). That is, social media may engage young people politically, but that doesn’t necessarily make them more likely to participate in elections. In other words, social media can have the potential to engage, but such engagement may be short-lived, conditional, and bound to specific topics such as environmental engagement, animal rights, or social protest.

Third, and more importantly, when looking at the democratically relevant effects of social media use, scholars rarely consider (or control) non-political, entertainment-oriented content ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ). Non-political, entertainment-oriented content can be information on lifestyles, products, leisure, sports, or social relationships on social media (see Hanitzsch and Vos 2018 ). Yet when we estimate the effects of political social media use without at least controlling non-political forms, we may end up with erroneous conclusions about the mobilizing potential of social media. Political contents and entertainment-oriented contents are simultaneously present on social media. A typical newsfeed completely mixes both.

As expressed by Boulianne and Theocharis (2020) , “purely social-, entertainment-, and leisure-oriented activities carried out on digital media do not necessarily mobilize individuals for civic or political action.” (p. 114) Entertainment-oriented use of social media may serve the purpose to create an “emotional relief generated by temporarily recreating or recessing from daily routines” ( Buzeta et al. 2020 , p. 81). When compared to political social media use, entertainment-oriented use accounts for a large proportion of everyday Internet use, especially among adolescents ( Büchi et al. 2016 ). For instance, in a recent over time experiment using behavioral browsing data, Wojcieszak et al. (2021) found that news websites comprised only 3.54% of the browsing behavior. The authors conclude that “news content is nearly unnoticeable in the context of overall information and communication ecology of most individuals” (p. 8).

Despite the relevance of non-political content on social media, scholars have hardly looked at the relationship of entertainment-oriented use of social media and political participation ( Skoric et al. 2016 ). As one rare exception, Kahne and Bowyer (2018) , observed that non-political content can serve as a gateway to various forms of civic and political participation. Yet other studies found no such gateway effects. In a cross-sectional study conducted in the Netherlands, Bakker and de Vreese (2011) observed non-political social media use had negative consequences for political participation. Additionally, data collected by Chan et al. (2012) suggest that the effect of Weibo use on the willingness to express one’s political views was weakened when entertainment motives prevailed. An experiment by Theocharis and Lowe (2016) even suggests negative consequences of Facebook use for participation because it can distract from politics. So taken together, only a few studies looked into the effects of non-political social media use on participation, some suggest that entertainment activities on social media may serve as a gateway to participation ( Kahne and Bowyer 2018 ), others speak of distraction from politics ( Bakker and de Vreese 2011 ; Boukes 2019 ; Chan et al. 2012 ; Theocharis and Lowe 2016 ).

Besides adding entertainment-oriented exposure as a predictor, it is also important to understand how entertainment-oriented and political uses of social media interact. If we accept both types of uses as separate dimensions, we arrive at four different types of audience members: “the Avoiders” (political use: low and entertainment-oriented use: high), “the Inactive” (political use: low and entertainment-oriented use: low), “the Distracted” (political use: high and entertainment-oriented use: high), and “the Focused” (political use: high and entertainment-oriented use: low). This typology of ideal groups is depicted in Figure 3 (see Matthes et al. 2021 ).

A typology of users based on the two dimensions entertainment-oriented use and political use of social media.

For the purposes of the present paper, the theoretically most relevant group are “the Distracted”. I use this term because I theorize that high loads of entertainment content may potentially distract the processing of political content. There are several theoretical reasons for that. As suggested by the priming literature ( Higgins 1996 ), the accessibility of concepts can drive cognitions and behaviors. Thus, when young adults evaluate the importance of concepts, they do not use all of the information they have available in memory. Instead, they often rely highly accessible information ( Iyengar and Kinder 1987 ). Here, accessibility refers to the ease or speed with which available information can be retrieved from memory. Information that is recently and frequency activated, is more likely to be temporary accessible ( Arendt and Matthes 2014 ). At the same time, of course, individuals’ cognitions are also driven by their basic political and social orientations which are be chronically accessible. But the influence of chronically accessible concepts can be weakened when individuals are frequently and recently exposed to other considerations. When, for instance, people are exposed to entertainment-oriented content, these non-political considerations become cognitively accessible. That is, when young adults are permanently confronted with non-political content, as for instance, about friends, family, movies, or sports, this content gets situated at the top of the head, making it more cognitively accessible when making judgments about political matters, including engagement.

That means, non-political content on social media competes with (and may even impede) the accessibility of political content. The Social Media Political Participation model ( Knoll et al. 2020 ) holds that political content on social media can only affect offline political participation when the content is appraised as relevant. However, when young adults are primarily exposed to non-political content, this may shift the perceived relevance of political considerations. In other words, when there is an abundance of entertaining, non-political news, the current political issues may appear less severe, and therefore, also less personally relevant. As a consequence, young adults may engage less with political content, which is a prerequisite to political participation. By the same token, the model holds that the goal to vote needs to be dominant in a real behavioral situation. When other goals are present as well, such as visiting friends or going shopping, then young adults will only cast their vote when this goal is dominant, that is, more important than other goals. So again, the argument is that non-political content on social media can shift the appraisal of goals.

What is more, we know from entertainment research that particularly hedonic entertainment content has a high absorption potential, and based on that, it can interfere with the cognitive elaboration of political content, “because it absorbs attentional resources to a degree that interferes with further elaboration” ( Bartsch and Schneider 2014 , p. 376). Also, on a perceptual level, non-political content is often perceived as more eye-catching as compared to political content. The reason is that the former typically relates to close ties such as friends and family and it is often associated with immediate positive gratifications.

Moreover, not all individuals may be exposed to political and non-political content on social media simultaneously. “The Avoiders”, albeit high in general social media use, may try to bypass exposure to political content, as for instance when an “individual exposes him- or herself to a limited amount of news because other content has more appeal to him or her, many algorithms will make future content decisions in favor of other content, e.g., entertainment, and give news stories a lower priority” ( Skovsgaard and Andersen 2020 , p. 466). Young adults interested in non-political contents may curate their newsfeed on SNS platforms in ways which exposes them to high degrees of entertainment-oriented content with low likelihood of exposure to political contents. This may lead to low-effort, feel-good types of engagement at best, making high-effort, offline political participation less likely.

But still, but even for news avoiders, scholars have argued that social media has the potential to foster participation because people can be accidentally exposed to political information in their newsfeeds. So even though young adults may not want to see political information, they may see it based on their social environments and networks ( Matthes et al. 2020 ). This exposure to political information may then lead to learning, and ultimately, participation. While scholars agree on the importance of incidental exposure for participatory outcomes, they have, at the same time, entirely ignored the opposite logic: Social media also exposed individuals accidentally to non-political information. Such incidental exposure to non-political content “can have important effects on political outcomes such as learning or participation. The more people are confronted with non-political content (without actively looking for it), the more they are potentially distracted from their primary political processing goal” ( Matthes et al. 2020 , pp. 1137–1038). So as much as incidental exposure to political content can engage, so can incidental exposure to non-political content distract and disengage. Unfortunately, while there are dozens of studies on the former phenomenon, we lack studies on the latter.

3.3 Testing the Paradox

The paradox described here is situated at the aggregate level. However, additional evidence is needed to explain why this paradox occurs. For this, it is therefore important to look at the outcomes of entertainment-oriented content at the individual level. That is, we should not only model political media use as a predictor of participatory outcomes, but simultaneously access (or at least control) exposure to non-political content. These two dimensions can then not only be used as focal predictors, they may also interact in a regression model (see Figure 3 ). High levels of entertainment-oriented non-political content on social media may have a “vampire” effect, when young adults are simultaneously exposed to political content on social media as well. Some young adults, those with high levels of political interest and sophistication, may primarily be exposed to political content on social media, which in fact, can be theorized to increase levels of online and offline political participation ( Knoll et al. 2020 ). These conjectures suggest that social media use, as a generic category, is of limited use in global research on digital media.

A similar argument can be made for the measurement of political participation. Oftentimes, scholars create participation indices by averaging several, distinct acts, such as wearing buttons of a party, sharing personal political experiences on social media, signing a petition, or voting in an election (see for a discussion, Theocharis and van Deth 2018 ). These measures blur the differences between institutionalized and non-institutionalized forms of participation. Differentiating between these forms beyond the classic online versus offline notion, however, is crucial to understand the political consequences of social media use.

In addition to that, it is important to note that the typical survey approach used in political communication scholarship has its limitations as well. The reason is that self-report measures of social media use are largely biased ( Scharkow 2019 ). Also, typical experiments use forced-exposure settings, which cannot be compared to news reception situations in the real world ( Wojcieszak et al. 2021 ) Thus, to empirically examine the paradox, future studies need to rely on more naturalistic settings, such as web-tracking data or mobile experience sampling. With such measures, we can more precisely estimate the amount of exposure to political and non-political content.

4 Conclusion

With the emergence of social media, great hopes have been expressed across the globe that young adults may reengage into traditional politics, directly due to the various activities happening on social media, and indirectly by shaping low-effort forms of online-engagement in the first place, which is then assumed to shape offline participation in a second step. In fact, the available evidence clearly suggests that social media use, particularly political one, has an impact on offline forms of participation ( Boulianne and Theocharis 2020 ). However, aggregate level data from Germany, the U.S., Switzerland, and Japan indicate that generational gaps between younger and older adults have not or only marginally decreased. Although there was an unprecedented up rise of social media use over the past decades (including an increase in political uses), voter turnout did not change significantly, and was substantially lower as compared to the older generation. At the same time, the entire body of research on social media and political participation would suggest an increase in participatory activities of young adults. In explaining this paradox, this paper pointed to the potentially distracting functions of social media, mainly due to non-political, entertainment-oriented content. Such content can make non-political information more accessible, ultimately impeding the processing and salience of political considerations, dampening the activation and execution of participatory goals. In order to test these conjectures, future research needs to carefully distinguish several types of content on social media, on several platforms and channels, and access motivations, gratifications of usage as well as contents. This may lead to a more nuanced picture about the social media based political engagement of young adults, particularly when it comes to the democratically most relevant outcome: voting in an election.

Article Note: This article underwent single-blind peer review.

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Young People's Civic and Political Engagement and Global Citizenship

About the author, martyn barrett.

January 2018, No. 4 Vol. LIV 2017, Global Citizenship

O ver the past 20 years, many commentators have argued that there is a crisis in young people’s civic and political engagement. This is because youth who are eligible to vote in national elections tend to do so less frequently than older generations. In addition, over the past few decades, there has been a decline in many countries in the percentage of young people who vote in national elections. These trends have been used to argue that the future of democracy is in jeopardy, because political engagement in later life is rooted in the habits developed in youth, and the youth of today will eventually become the adults of tomorrow.

I have argued elsewhere for a different reading of these trends. 1 First, very clearly, these trends have not occurred in all countries—they tend to be specific to Western democracies. In addition, there are many ways in which people can be civically and politically active. Some ways involve engaging with electoral processes such as voting, trying to persuade others to vote for a particular candidate, and working for a political party. These are conventional forms of political participation. There are also non-conventional forms of action, however, such as participation in political demonstrations, protests and marches, signing petitions, writing political articles or blogs, and liking and sharing them on social media. Other forms of engagement may be focused more directly on providing help to people in need, solving community problems or raising money for charitable causes. These forms of engagement are perhaps better termed ‘civic’ rather than ‘political’ actions because they sidestep the political arena.

While young people’s commitment to conventional political participation does indeed appear to be in decline in many democracies today, research clearly demonstrates that large numbers of young people are nevertheless strongly committed to non-conventional and civic action in their respective countries. Whereas, in the past, issues of concern might have mobilized them into voting for particular candidates or writing to their elected representatives, these same issues today might be tackled instead through consumer activism, protests and demonstrations, activity on social media, charitable fundraising or voluntary work in the community.

A further feature of youth political and civic engagement today concerns the specific topics on which youth activism tends to be focused. Because of their sense of frustration and cynicism about politicians and conventional political processes, many youth instead choose to focus their energies on single issues or causes about which they have strong feelings. Issues that commonly attract their attention include global warming, pollution, global poverty, the use of low-wage labour in the developing world, the greed of multinational corporations, and human rights (at the global level), as well as graffiti, unsafe streets, transport and recycling facilities, and youth amenities (at the local level).

This twin focus on global and local issues emerged clearly from a European Commission-funded large-scale research project called Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) that I led from 2009 to 2012. 2 We collected data from 16- to 26-year-olds drawn from 27 national and ethnic groups living across Europe. We found that these young people often chose not to engage with conventional politics because they felt they had no voice, were ignored by politicians, and did not have the resources or the competences needed to engage politically. They also tended to think that conventional political engagement was ineffective in bringing about genuine change.

At the same time, these young people’s interest in and enthusiasm for global issues were often very pronounced. These issues were usually experienced as having considerable personal meaning and relevance for their own lives. For this reason, I would dispute the claim that there is a crisis in young people’s civic and political engagement due to their apathy and alienation. Instead, youth today are more likely to focus on specific issues that are of personal concern, using alternative modes of action that differ from those that were used by their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

That said, it is important not to make overly simplistic generalizations based on studies that have been conducted in Western democracies, which is where the bulk of the research in this field has taken place. The lives, concerns and range of political and civic activities that young people undertake are often very different from one country to another. They also vary considerably within countries.

Differences between countries stem from the specific historical, economic and cultural characteristics with which young people are living, and also from the design of political institutions within those countries. For example, the importance which youth attribute to conventional political participation tends to be lower in countries in which there are long-standing democratic traditions, and higher in countries in which conventional democratic institutions and forms of participation have been strengthened over the last 30 years. Political knowledge and engagement of youth also tend to be higher in countries which are more economically developed. In addition, political institutional structures can be designed in such a way that they either provide plentiful and diverse opportunities for youth to participate and contribute, or they can be designed to inhibit, restrict or even prevent such possibilities. Finally, all countries have their own specific internal cultural and political concerns and preoccupations, which also influence patterns of youth engagement.

Young people’s political and civic engagement also varies considerably within countries. For example, those individuals who are of a higher socioeconomic status usually display higher levels of participation; males are more likely to vote and to engage in illegal actions, such as spraying political graffiti, whereas females are more likely to be interested in social and environmental issues; while ethnic minority and majority individuals participate in different kinds of volunteer activities, with the former participating much more in activities relating to their own ethnic communities.

Variations within countries are also linked to social factors. Parental behaviours are extremely important. For example, parents who engage in protests are more likely to have offspring who also engage in protests, and adolescents whose parents are interested in political and social issues also have higher levels of such interest. Other relevant social factors include peer group relationships, since young people are more likely to commit to civic and political goals and values when they feel a sense of solidarity with their peers at school. Membership in youth organizations and involvement in organizations that provide a context for activities such as public speaking, debate and community service, are also linked to political participation for years to come.

The education that young people receive at school is also critical. If schools enable students to raise ethical, social, civic and political issues in the classroom, allow them to discuss controversial topics, encourage them to express their own opinions and to listen to one another in order to explore a variety of different perspectives, students will tend to acquire higher levels of political interest, trust and knowledge, which in turn will boost the likelihood of them voting in the future. It is also beneficial for students’ engagement if schools themselves operate on democratic principles and provide opportunities for students to contribute to formal decision-making, for example, through class representatives, student councils and student representation in working groups. 3

Educational effects are further amplified if schools adopt a competence-based curriculum in which the competences required for civic and political engagement are targeted. Such a curriculum aims to enhance not only students’ knowledge and skills, but also their values, attitudes and critical thinking, so that they are empowered to act as autonomous agents capable of pursuing civic and political action effectively. The competences that need to be targeted in order to achieve this outcome include, among others, knowledge and understanding of politics, analytical and critical thinking, civic-mindedness, responsibility, empathy, communication and cooperation skills, and the valuing of democracy. 4 A large range of pedagogical methods, such as cooperative, project-based and service learning, can be used for promoting precisely these sorts of competences.

These same competences are also required if young people are to take effective action on the global issues that are of concern to them, such as global warming, pollution, global poverty and human rights. 5 However, in this case, civic-mindedness—i.e. concern for other people within one’s community and a sense of civic duty—needs to take the form of global-mindedness—i.e. concern for the whole of humanity and the planet. 6 A very positive feature of many young people’s civic and political engagement today is precisely their concern for the global community, and not just for their own local community.

Research into global citizenship is still in its infancy. However, studies have revealed that young people who have a high level of global-mindedness are more likely to be:

• Engaged in intercultural contact, cooperation, interaction and dialogue.
• Tolerant of cultural differences and appreciative of cultural diversity.
• Supportive of global human rights and humanitarian needs, and willing to contribute to international humanitarian relief.
• Concerned for the environment and engaged in pro-environmental activities.

Likewise, these studies have revealed that a range of actions can be taken by schools to enhance young people’s global-mindedness and global citizenship activities.

These include:

• Building on students’ existing motivations by providing opportunities for them to explore, learn about and critically understand the global issues with which they are already engaged.
• Using the curriculum to target the competences required for engaging in effective and appropriate action on global issues, and using the pedagogies  that are the most suitable for fostering the development of these competences.
• Providing opportunities for students to practise their competences (i.e. to use their values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and critical understanding) on global issues.
• Providing opportunities for students to engage with different cultures in the classroom, in their neighbourhood and, through the Internet, to enable them to experience meaningful intercultural contact and respectful communication with others.

The civic and political engagement of young people is certainly in tremendous flux today. But my reading of the research literature is that we have a great deal to be optimistic about in relationship to their engagement, although national education systems could be employed far more effectively in supporting and promoting their global competence and global engagement.    

• Martyn Barrett and Dimitra Pachi, Youth Civic and Political Engagement (London, Routledge, forthcoming).
• Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP), European Commission, 7th Framework Programme. Available from http://www.pidop.surrey.ac.uk/ .
• These findings come from CIVED and ICCS, which are large-scale comparative international projects conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Available from http://www.terpconnect.umd.edu/~jtpurta/and http://www.iea.nl/iccs .
• Council of Europe, Competences for Democratic Culture: Living Together as Equals in Culturally Diverse Democratic Societies (Strasbourg, Council of Europe Publishing, 2016). Available from http://www.coe.int/en/web/education/competences-for-democratic-culture .
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Global Competency for an Inclusive World (Paris, 2016). Available from https://www.oecd.org/education/Global-competency-for-an-inclusive-world.pdf .
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Global Citizenship Education: Topics and Learning Objectives (Paris, 2015). Available from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002329/232993e.pdf .

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Youth in Politics: Challenges, Importance, Role (Essay and Debate)

Political participation: overview and faced challenges

“Where few take part in decisions there is little democracy; the more participation there is in decisions, the more democracy there is” (Verba & Nie, 1972). The present statement proves that the political presence of different individuals has a huge impact on democracy and policy. Hence, the present article will attempt to tackle the political participation of youth in the field of politics.

• Table of contents
• Introduction

What is youth political participation?

Must the youth participate in politics.

• Obstacles to youth participation

Meaningful political participation

So, what is the role of youth in politics after all.

Political participation refers to “those voluntary activities by which members of a society share in the selection of rulers and, directly or indirectly, in the formation of public policy” (McClosky, 1968). In other words, it encompasses citizens’ activities that affect politics in general. These participatory activities include voting, demonstrating, contacting public officials, boycotting, attending party rallies, guerrilla gardening, posting blogs, volunteering, joining flash mobs, signing petitions, buying fair-trade products, and even suicide protests (Jan W. van, 2021). According to Weiss (2020), even though “existing definitions of political participation are adequate to capture youth participation; the current literature is inconsistent in the inclusion of new modes of participation that are increasingly common among young adults.” In the same vein, Dan Maxon believes that in the youth field, political participation is used loosely to indicate activities, phenomena, and practices. He also points out that some forms of participation have a limited impact on policy-making such as youth activism and youth social action; the alternative use of public spaces; and political memes and online political debates. The latter forms of participation can take place away from political institutions, which makes political participation a challenging term to define.  Apparently, almost every activity by some citizens somehow can be understood sometimes as a form of political participation (van Deth, 2001).

Youth constitute a large portion of the population in every community. Consequently, it is imperative to give them a voice and include them in political decision-making. Not only is inclusiveness “a fundamental political and democratic right” but it is also “crucial to building stable and peaceful societies and developing policies that respond to the specific needs of younger generations.”(Goudie et al, 2018).

According to the OECD’s guide, many benefits can come from “putting youth at the heart of the government’s strategies and initiatives”:

• Taking advantage of the demographic transition : the youth represent a large portion of the population, which means that their participation can have a great impact on the balance of power. As a result, empowering the youth to take action socially, economically, and politically is of great importance.
• Encouraging innovation and economic development : youth is a great source of innovative and original ideas. Hence, engaging them and encouraging their active participation can boost the development of societies.
• Building active citizenship : only through taking on the duty to make important decisions will the youth understand how crucial their role is. When policymakers address their needs and demands, civic behaviour is strengthened and trust and transparency are promoted between the government and the citizens.
• Encouraging an online debate: living in a digital age, and understanding how technology works are useful to improve youth interaction and engagement.

Bárta (2021) points out that there are four main aims of youth political participation:

• Right-based aims: youth actually have access to mechanisms that enable them to participate effectively.
• Empowerment aims : youth speak their minds and express themselves freely regarding decision-making and political processes.
• Efficiency aims : allow the youth to develop informed processes and regulations.
• Developmental aims : enable the youth to acquire the necessary skills and competencies to become efficient actors.

It is safe to conclude that supporting the acquisition of commitment and participation from an early age through the reinforcement of civic education and citizenship as well as community involvement is very important.

Obstacles to youth in politics

According to The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network website, youth political engagement occurs at several levels and in various contexts, namely on structural, individual, and organizational levels:

On the structural level, the following elements are included: age requirements to vote or run for office, age restriction in campaigning in some countries, lack of political finance, Social and cultural traditions, and women’s discrimination based on their age and gender.

On the individual level, there exists Distrust in political institutions, a sack of confidence and trust in EMBs, lack of access to/knowledge about political processes, and social and economic exclusion/marginalization.

On the organizational level, there is limited data on youth political participation and a lack of an exclusive EMB youth policy and sustainable funding.

Also referred to as ‘effective practice or participation’, meaningful political participation is a concept with many definitions across the literature. However, the following aspects are common in most definitions according to Bárta et al (2021):

Information and communication : in order to achieve favourable results, young people should have access to the latest information at all times. This fosters their knowledge and hones their awareness about different matters. The implementation of youth-focused conferences, workshops and other capacity-building formats can also facilitate a great deal achieve meaningful political participation.

Authority and voice: giving young people the authority to express their ideas and thoughts publicly is not enough. Other stakeholders in political involvement procedures must also hear and respect their voices.

Power sharing : young people should also have the opportunity where they can actively participate in decision-making processes alongside stakeholders. This obviously should be executed in a transparent environment to attain efficiency.

Transparency and accountability: these elements are imperative to achieve meaningful participation. Young people should be fully briefed on the procedures and mechanisms that are taking place and affecting them. They should be aware of the roles they play, as well as the other players that are engaged and in what capacity.

Material and non-material support : no matter what their background, status, gender, or identity, young people should be able to participate freely and safely. They should also feel welcomed and appreciated during their political activities. Stakeholders should also recognise their efforts and engage them.

According to the Palestinian News and Info Agency ( Wafa ), conforming to democratic standards, young people are to fulfil their role in politics as follows:

• Strengthening the collective spirit between the youth to value the teamwork experience.
• Selecting experienced youth with qualified competencies, such as modern management methods.
• Enhancing a sense of belonging in young people to render them conscious of regulations and laws.
• Encouraging initiatives among young people by unleashing their energies to get creative and innovative results. Awarding them can be a great incentive too.
• Pushing young people to open up to other cultures through meetings with youth organizations in different countries, will promote relations of solidarity and cooperation between nations as an alternative to war and aggression tendencies.
• Enhancing the role of youth in public service through volunteering in different sectors to have a better understanding of their communities. 
• Discovering and adopting the different talents and potentials of young people by giving them opportunities to give, innovate and develop in various practical, scientific, artistic and other fields. Investing in their capacities would have many benefits in the future
• Promoting the values of tolerance, goodwill, and acceptance of the “other” from a position of difference and acknowledging their existence.
• Supporting the plurality of ideas and convictions in society as part of the values and principles of democracy creates a safety valve for the promotion of the general community and the official political environment.

To conclude, creating a legitimate, accountable, democratic system requires parity of the political presence of its members. The more all parties in society are involved in the political aspects, the more the country will strive. Young people, who make up an important party usually in countries, play a huge role in the future of politics. Not only do they come up with innovative solutions, but also one can notice a number of positive outcomes such as enhanced social skills, better conduct, higher academic performance, higher self-esteem, and higher self-efficacy. As a result, it is time for decision-makers to act in order to involve the youth in policy-making, enabling them to participate meaningfully.

Bárta, O. et al (2021). Meaningful Youth Political Participation In Europe: Concepts, Patterns And Policy Implications. Council of Europe and European Commission.

Faire Participer Les Jeunes Au Gouvernement Ouvert. Guide de communication. OCDE.

• Jan W. van Deth. (2021). What is political participation?
• Weiss, J. (2020). What Is Youth Political Participation? Literature Review on Youth Political Participation and Political Attitudes
• Young people’s role in the process of societal change. Link: https://info.wafa.ps/ar_page.aspx?id=3202
• Youth, Political Participation and Decision-Making. The United Nations.

Kawthar Marchli

Kawthar Marchli is a freelance translator translating from and into Arabic, English, and French. She got her Master thesis from King Fahd School of Translation in 2020. Since her graduation, she had the opportunity to translate a number of lengthy works (reports, guides, drafts, documents research, advertisements, surveys, manuals...) in the three languages, related to the political field administration, banking, etc. In her free time, she loves to read books, listen to podcasts, watch movies or take pictures.

Political Development Essay

Looking for political development essay? This sample paper focuses on the role of politics and political involvement impact to community development.

Introduction

Political development criteria.

• Political Development Structure

The Role of Politics in Development

Political development capabilities.

• Impact of Political Involvement

Reference List

Political Development involves the use of a number of criteria to enhance political experience. Precisely, the criteria are used to improve the living standards of ordinary people in developing countries. The essay focuses on the criteria used in political development and their associated influence to the living standards of people in Third World Countries. A number of case studies demonstrating the significance of the criteria in fostering political development are also analyzed.

Generally, Political Development can be viewed as the constant effective increase in the potential of a system in response to social transitions and other institutions, thus providing an effective communication channel between the population and the government.

The development process can be undertaken in three different criteria. These include structural differentiation, system capabilities and equality tendency. The essay focuses on each of the criteria and their associated significance to the development experience and the lives of people in developing countries.

Structural Differentiation

It entails complicating societal relations with regard to the law concerning the increase in the diversity of peoples’ activities within the society and emergence of new interests among the diverse groups of individuals within the society. The reaction of political systems should be immediate so as to be effective. An effective political system is therefore characterised by highly specialised political institutes functionality and strong differentiation of its structures (Vasilik 2006).

Consequently, the specialisation and functional differentiation level of structures yields the difference between developed and traditional political systems. The idea is based on the similar role played by both complex and simple political systems. Thus structural composition aspect forms the basis of the difference between the political systems since developed systems are more structurally differentiated (Vasilik 2006).

The standardised model for socio-economics is used in measuring the relationship between economic development and structural differentiation aspect of political development. According to the model, political involvement is determined by the availability of distinct social resources in a society that bears economic significance.

Participation of individuals that are highly educated and earning higher levels of income in political development far much exceeds the participation noted from the opposite group of individuals that are deemed poor and earning lower salaries. It has also been observed that rich persons having a higher reputation in the society participate in politics far much more than poor people that occupy low status in the society (Yamada, Kohno & Ikeda 2003).

Consequently, adequacy of such structural resources is dependent on their economic development level. Economic development of a nation consequently transforms the social differentiation structure of its individuals. Therefore, effective political development should be aimed towards ensuring an expansion of opportunities to guarantee mobility of labour, an expansion of training centres to escalate the number of trained labourers and an expansion of the education system that is formal.

A government that implements such initiatives transforms the societal social structure. An increase in the number of learned individuals would in return increase their participation in politics, thus fostering political development. Highly learned individuals consequently form part of informed personnel that can occupy higher employment levels hence earn high salaries.

Furthermore, structural political development can aim at transforming psychological perspective of members of a society to foster economic development. Structural circumstances define political actions. Internal processes and preferences of an actor fuel political actions. Political participation of members of a society is, therefore, dependent on their attitudes and beliefs.

Consequently, Political Development should be aimed at integrating such cultures and attitudes into the political system so as to enhance political participation. Adequate access to education, media and wealth foster political participation, thus enhances political development.

Democracy is also fostered by modernisation. Structural differentiation, therefore, aims at increasing individual involvement in politics. An increase in individual participation in politics fosters political development (D’Souza 1994).

The study encompassed a number of societies that is Mainland China, the colonial territory of Hong Kong and Taiwan that exhibited democracy. The type of the regime played a significant role in the modification of individual behaviour of members of the societies. It was observed that the rate of economic development within the entire country was unequal since the development rate in some regions surpassed that of other regions within the same country.

Disparity was noted in the distribution of psychological and socioeconomic resources in the country. The difference was attributed to the variations in economic development levels in the regions. From the study, it was evident that the level of government activities in the regions was determined by the available resources. The difference, therefore, enabled an assessment of the relationship between economic development and political participation.

The study revealed that China’s development declined as one moved from the coastal region to the mainland provinces and finally to the provinces occupying the northwest region. The per capita Gross Domestic Product range of individual counties from 1993 statistics was 1,036-48,035 Yuan. Results indicated a positive correlation between economic development in mainland provinces and the level of involvement in politics among citizens.

89.4% of individuals in developed areas confirmed participation in politics whereas 80.5% of individuals in less developed regions affirmed motive-based participation in politics. However, the results were different in Hong Kong since there was a negative correlation between the level of participation in politics and economic development. This was attributed to Hong Kong’s poorly developed electoral system.

Political development is enhanced by an increase in the capabilities of the political system. The capabilities include survival acts, innovation and mobilisation. Innovation capability encompasses the ability of a political system to adjust and solve emerging problems and its reaction flexibility to emerging and unpredicted issues.

Mobilisation capability entails resource mobility that is both material and human. Resource mobility assumptions include: transforming unclear weights expectations into policies and solid programs, distribution and development of joint action projects, existence of political insights that can offset or adjust weights to fit into certain situations, accumulation of all the required resources and authority on the part of the leaders (Vasilik 2006).

Survival capability entails the ability of the political system to implement appropriate specialised socialisation structures that will enable offsetting of the actions of revolutionists and counterculture development. System capability should conform to both the social and technological aspects. Social capability entails the abilities of private and public organisations and the support obtained from cultural and social factors.

Significant elements of social capability include expert competence, management and organisation expertise in macro businesses, ability of markets and other financial institutions to mobilise capital, stakeholders trust and honesty in the development process and the government’s effectiveness and stability in rules enforcement and fostering economic growth (Fagerberg & Srholec 2008).

Technological capability entails the organisational, economic and social capability required to finance big company investments in the country in a bid to foster economic development. Countries that intend to undergo positive economic development, therefore, have to possess the abilities (Chandler 1990). However, technological capability can also be achieved through technology exploitation and exploration, like in the case of Japan.

Japan’s success was attributed to its ability to link technological innovations with appropriate organisational requirements. Chandler’s perspective used by countries from the West was changed by Japan from “knowledge and creation” to “scale and scope”. Absorptive capacity is the other paradigm that can be used in enhancing technological capability of a political system.

This refers to the ability of the system to recognise emerging foreign information, integrating it into its system and using the information for productive purposes aimed at fostering economic development (Cohen & Levinthal 1990).

Further study on the applications of the various technological capability paradigms depicts technological advancements of newly industrialising countries. Technological capability in developing nations was linked to the implementation of suitable technological activities in the 1970s and 1980s. For instance, technological capability transformed Korea from being an impoverished nation to a global technological hub within 30 years.

Three elements were considered under technological capability. They include innovation, production and investment capabilities. Absorptive capacity was used by the country in achieving technological capability. The paradigm, therefore, focuses on technology exploitation capability besides research and development (Fagerberg & Godinho 2004).

Resource mobilisation entails the use of a number of means. These include: manipulation of trade terms, inflation tax, forced savings, among others. Tax is a significant factor in state capability and formation. The political dimensions of a political system and state capacity and power parameters are measured by tax as one of the key measuring instruments.

Consequently, developing countries should devise appropriate tax systems that foster growth through incentives, meet demands of distribution and collect adequate revenue. According to Toye (2000), state effectiveness and viability are guaranteed by increased revenue.

Tax revenue can be used by the government in infrastructure development and effective delivery of key services that are paramount to economic development. The political system should, therefore, aim at developing a suitable tax system that will finance its operations, thus improve the living standards of citizens.

Political Involvement Impact to Community Development

This involves individual participation in political activities. The traditional submission culture should be transformed into participation culture. The submission culture aimed at ensuring the realisation of administrative responsibilities. On the contrary, the culture of participation entails active engagement into politics regardless of the associated attitudes from distinct institutions. The transition can be realised democratically. Mandatory mobilisation can also be used to effect the transformation.

Equality tendency can be achieved through enactment of universal laws that are applicable to all members of a society without discrimination and privileges. The recruitment process of various holders of different state positions should be based on the applicant’s competence rather than being hereditary or limited to a specific group of members of a given class only (Vasilik 2006).

However, equality tendency can decrease the capability of a political system. Consequently, in a bid to maintain the capability of the system, the level of political representation and the expression of interests of various groups are limited. The criterion thus focuses on functional differentiation of the institutes of the political system.

Political development is thus enhanced when the system integrates the social interests of different groups through deliberate consolidations, aggregating interests using political parties and enhancing political social relations by permitting the acquisition of political information by the media. There are four groups that makeup performance possibilities of political systems.

They include: development of institutes of the political system that is responsible for logical bureaucracy and unity of the country, global possibility that permits the integration of international standards into the system, involvement possibility that entails the creation of a civil and democratic culture and structure and distribution possibility that provides the network for welfare standards’ circulation and effective coordination among social, economic and political structures.

Economic development should correspond to the following dimensions: growth should be noted in the productive capability of the society, individual living standards should be improved significantly and continuously, income and assets distribution should be broadened, health and safety conditions should also be improved, improvement in resource utility and environmental management and improvement in gender equality (Vasilik 2006).

The tenets of the democratic theory used to achieve equality tendency include the principles of universal citizenship, equality, popular sovereignty, weight and legality. The political system should aim at transforming authoritarian regimes into democratic ones.

This entails extending political rights to individuals of a country, establishing electoral procedures that are limited, permitting self-organisation of independent political parties and extending press freedom to enable the acquisition and transmission of certain sensitive political information.

Democratic regimes are effective in producing a wide range of benefits, thus foster economic development. Furthermore, corruption incidences are not prevalent in democratic regimes. This makes them suitable for economic development (D’Souza, 1994).

After the Second World War, many developing nations have undergone a series of economic and political developments. The study on the correlation between the development processes of these countries and the associated democracy is vital to convey the causal relationship between the two variables. Findings of the study indicate that democratic political institutions significantly fostered the process of economic development in the countries.

As a matter of fact, the poor are numerous in developing nations. Consequently, successful politics in such regions is dependent on the ability of a political party to address economic development issues of such poor people. Therefore, election of such politicians into the parliament and government will guarantee enactment of laws that will enhance economic development of poor people since politicians have the propensity of gaining support and favour (De Haan & Siermann 1996).

Therefore, continuous economic development in developing countries coincides with the rate of democratisation. Poverty eradication programs will be implemented by regimes that rely on poor people for their survival. However, the implementation of such programs in developed nations faces multiple challenges since it involves a lengthy process.

It is also evident that democracy emerges with economic development. It is, therefore, effectively sustained in developed nations rather than developing ones. Basing on another study that was conducted on 135 countries for the study period that is 1950 and 1999, 44 countries remained under dictatorship. 34 countries were observed to have sustained democracy throughout the entire study period. There were transitions in the regimes from dictatorship to democratic and vice versa.

Single regime change was noted in 29 countries with 2 countries changing their political regime from democracy to dictatorship and 27 changing from dictatorship to democracy. Double regime transition was noted in 12 countries. The countries that experienced 3, 4, 5 and 6 regime transitions were 5, 5, 3 and 2 respectively. One country that is Argentina experienced 8 regime transitions within the study period (Brass 1986).

Results indicated that dictatorship regimes faded under a number of circumstances. For instance, some dictatorship regimes collapsed during economic crises, whereas others fall as a result of economic development of a country. International forces were also responsible for the crumbling of some dictatorship regimes.

However, empirical results indicate that democracy survived in countries that exhibited an increase in economic development and failed in the case where a country’s prosperity either stagnated or declined. With regard to income distribution, a decrease in the income ratio of top-to-bottom individuals of a country enhanced survival of democracy. In summary, democracy fosters economic development since it guarantees effective allocation of resources to all parts of a country (Patti & Navarra 2009).

Democracy also exhibits effective utility of the allocated resources. This fosters economic development in the country. Political Development should be centred towards establishing democracy regimes to guarantee appropriate resource allocation, especially to the disadvantaged regions of a country.

Transparency and accountability are also enhanced under democracy regimes rather than dictatorships. Consequently, there is a high chance that a country that adopts democracy as a tool for attaining equality tendency improves the living standards of its citizens (Bardhan 1999; Bardhan 2005).

Bardhan, P. 1999, ‘Democracy and Development: A Complex Relationship’, in I Shapiro & C Hacker-Cordon (eds), Democracy’s Value, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 93-111.

Bardhan, P. 2005, ‘Institutions matter, but which ones?’, Economics of Transition , vol. 13, no.3, pp. 499-532.

Brass, P. R. 1986, ‘The Political Uses of Crisis: The Bihar Famine of 1966-1967’, The Journal of Asian Studies , vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 245-267.

Chandler, A. D. 1990, Scale and Scope: The Dimension of Industrial Capitalism, Harvard University Press , Cambridge (MA).

Cohen, W. M. & Levinthal, D. A. 1990, ‘Absorptive Capacity: A New Perspective on Learning and Innovation’, Learning and Science Quarterly , vol. 35, no.1, pp. 128-152.

De Haan, J. & Siermann, C. 1996, ‘New Evidence on the Relationship between Democracy and Economic Growth’, Public Choice, vol. 86, no. (1-2), pp. 175-198.

D’Souza, F. 1994, ‘Democracy as a cure for famine’, Journal of Peace Research , vol. 31, no.4, pp.369-373.

Fagerberg, J. & Godinho, M. M. 2004, ‘Innovation and Catching Up’, in J Fagerberg, D Mowery & R Nelson (eds), The Oxford Handbook on Innovation , Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 514-544.

Fagerberg, J. & Srholec, M. 2008, ‘National innovation systems, capabilities and economic development’, Research policy , vol. 37, no.9, pp. 1417-1435.

Patti, D. M. A. & Navarra, P. 2009, ‘Globalization, democratization and economic growth’, Applied economics letters , vol. 16, no.7, p. 731-734.

Toye, J. 2000, ‘Fiscal Crisis and Reform in Developing Countries’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 24, no.1, pp. 21-44.

Vasilik, M. A. 2006, ‘Political Development: Concept and Criteria’, Political Science. Web.

Yamada, Y., Kohno, M. & Ikeda, K. 2003, Influence of Social Capital on Political Participation in Asian Cultural Context , Asian Barometer, Taipei.

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Khasnabis C, Heinicke Motsch K, Achu K, et al., editors. Community-Based Rehabilitation: CBR Guidelines. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2010.

Community-Based Rehabilitation: CBR Guidelines.

Political participation.

• Introduction

A narrow definition of politics refers to the activities of governments, politicians, or political parties. A broader definition includes the interrelationships between people – between men and women, parents and children, people with and without disabilities – and the operation of power at every level of human interaction.

Political participation includes a broad range of activities through which people develop and express their opinions on the world and how it is governed, and try to take part in and shape the decisions that affect their lives. These activities range from developing thinking about disability or other social issues at the individual or family level, joining disabled people's organizations or other groups and organizations, and campaigning at the local, regional or national level, to the process of formal politics, such as voting, joining a political party, or standing for elections.

Ordinary people can participate in politics, and every individual has the right to participate, including people with disabilities. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 29 on participation in political and public life, mandates that “States Parties shall guarantee to persons with disabilities political rights and the opportunity to enjoy them on an equal basis with others” ( 5 ).

People with disabilities face many barriers to political participation, and many choose not to participate in politics because the issues that concern them are often ignored and/or they feel they have limited power to influence change and decision-making. Promoting political participation for people with disabilities is an important part of the empowerment process. Until more people with disabilities participate, their voices will not be heard and their right to equity and access to the health, education, livelihood, and social sectors will be restricted.

BOX 11 Uganda

The gulu experience.

The National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU) was formed in 1987 to advocate for the equalization of opportunities for people with disabilities, and for their involvement and participation in the policy, planning and implementation of disability programmes in close partnership with the government, civil society and the general public. After many years of political lobbying by NUDIPU, people with disabilities are now represented by five parliamentarians, and also by many councillors in local governments at district and subcounty levels.

Like many countries, Uganda has laws which relate to people with disabilities including the: Council for Disability Act 2003, Policy on Disability 2003, Persons with Disabilities Act 2006, and Equal Opportunities Act 2007. The Act of 2006 outlines provisions for accessibility and penalties for those who do not adhere to the law.

Similar laws exist in many countries, but often implementation is poor and the public unaware of the existence and implications of the laws. NUDIPU believes that “If users don't come out to claim/demand their rights, then the related acts may remain on paper and the intended users may never benefit”.

The Centenary Rural Development Bank Ltd in Gulu, Uganda, was not accessible for people with disabilities. The building had several steps which made it difficult for people with mobility impairments, particularly wheelchair users, to enter. NUDIPU discussed this issue with the bank, but the bank refused to modify the building entrance to make it accessible.

The Persons with Disabilities Act 2006 states that “It shall be the responsibility of all organs in public and private institutions to provide suitable access for persons with disabilities and universal standard designs for toilets”. NUDIPU took the matter to court and, after a series of hearings, the judge ruled in favour of NUDIPU, directing the Bank to make their building accessible and cover all the court expenses incurred by NUDIPU. As a result of the court case, Centenary Bank management directed all branches throughout the country to ensure their premises were accessible for people with disabilities.

The Gulu experience sets a good example for the disability movement. People with disabilities and their family members need to have political awareness to achieve their rights. It has also proved that people must be mobilized and organized in order to advocate for their rights and bring about change in their communities.

People with disabilities participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others.

• The role of CBR

The role of CBR is to ensure that:

• people with disabilities and their families have the information, skills and knowledge to enable them to participate in politics, and have access to opportunities to participate;
• disability issues are visible so that they are integrated into political decision-making and are at the centre of development policies and programmes.
• Desirable outcomes
• CBR personnel have increased awareness of the political system.
• People with disabilities and their family members have increased political awareness.
• Governments and civil society are aware of disability issues and the rights of persons with disabilities and their families to participate in political processes.
• Barriers which prevent the participation of people with disabilities and their families in political processes are reduced or removed.
• Key concepts

Power and decision-making

Power is the ability to make informed choices and the freedom to take action. Decisions are made by people with power, and in all societies there are some people who are more powerful than others because of factors, such as age, gender role, ethnicity, political affiliation, economic situation ( 13 ). Power is present at every level of society, from the family through to government level – understanding who has the power to make decisions and why they have this power is an important first step in political participation.

Barriers to political participation

The barriers to political participation that people may face are similar to the barriers mentioned in other components of the CBR guidelines. In summary they include the following.

• Poverty – poor people are mostly focused on survival activities; their basic needs often need to be met first before they can participate, so they may have limited time or interest.
• Education – without information and knowledge, meaningful participation in politics can be difficult.
• Social isolation – there is a limited network to support and encourage political participation.
• Personal factors – people may have limited confidence or motivation to participate.
• Stigma and discrimination – majority groups may have prejudices, fears and discomfort towards people with disabilities and therefore may not support their participation.
• Lack of disability-friendly processes – access barriers can make it difficult for people with disabilities to participate, e.g. inaccessible voting booths.
• Lack of role models – in many countries or communities there are few examples of people with disabilities in high profile political positions.
• Legal barriers – in many countries people with disabilities are not permitted to vote, e.g. people with mental health problems.

It is essential that CBR programmes are realistic about the level of participation that is practically possible for people with disabilities living in poor communities, and that activities are designed taking potential barriers into account.

Disability as a political issue

Many of the disadvantages that people with disabilities and their family members face are because governments and policy-makers do not address some of the main problems of disability, e.g. the social barriers and discrimination. The needs of people with disabilities are rarely at the top of the policy agenda, especially in places where resources are limited. As a result, there are very few inclusive mainstream programmes and disability-specific services. Where disability is addressed in policies, implementation is often poor and as a result there are still many barriers in society for people with disabilities.

A practical understanding of how the government works, e.g. knowledge about political structures and processes, knowing how power flows through them, and an understanding of how to influence them can be useful for advocacy to build alliances and influence change. There are generally three branches to government: the legislative branch (i.e. parliament/assembly), the executive branch (i.e. government and civil service), and the judicial branch (i.e. the courts). Countries are divided into administrative areas and there are different levels of government, e.g. at local, district, regional and national levels. At each level these branches may have democratically elected legislative bodies who pass laws. The legislative branch is elected by local people. At the most local level, this may be the village council, then the district or regional assembly, and then the national assembly/parliament.

Political quotas

To ensure political representation, many countries have reserved a percentage of seats on elected bodies at the local, regional and national levels and/or a percentage of government jobs for marginalized groups, e.g. women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities. These are referred to as “quotas”, “affirmative action” or “positive discrimination”.

• Suggested activities

Ensure CBR personnel develop awareness of the political system

CBR programmes need to have a practical understanding of how the government works to enable them to build partnerships and influence change. They could develop this awareness by:

• identifying key legislation and policies that are related to disability and the development sectors;
• researching the role of the government and the responsibilities of each department – which department is responsible for what and who has the power to make decisions;
• finding out about the political structure at the local level, how government decisions filter down to this level and if there is local power for decision-making;
• meeting with political representatives regularly, including representatives of the opposition, regardless of personal affiliations; CBR programmes need to be nonpartisan, i.e not subscribe to, or be thought to subscribe to a particular party or power-base.

Facilitate development of political awareness

Many people, including people with disabilities, and especially the poor, may have low levels of political awareness, e.g. they may not know how to vote or may be unaware of the existence of national laws regarding disability rights or international conventions, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. To encourage political participation, CBR programmes can:

• encourage adults with disabilities to join literacy programmes (see Education component );
• ensure people with disabilities have access to advocacy and rights-based training;
• link people with disabilities to self-help groups and disabled people's organizations, where they can learn useful skills for political participation, e.g. public speaking, problem-solving, campaigning;
• ensure children and adolescents are included in activities where they have the opportunity to express their opinions, think and make decisions, and understand the consequences of their actions.

Raise disability awareness within the political system

Quite often discrimination and exclusion of people with disabilities is due to ignorance and lack of knowledge at government level. Therefore another part of the strategy towards enabling people with disabilities to participate in politics is to develop disability awareness within political systems. Suggested activities include:

• making local political representatives and bureaucrats aware that legislation related to disability exists;
• conducting disability-awareness training with local councils – it is important that people with disabilities take leadership roles in this training;
• involving political leaders and representatives in activities carried out by CBR programmes and people with disabilities, e.g. invite them to attend the inauguration of a new CBR programme or events celebrating the International Day of Persons with Disabilities – political leaders and representatives will want to be seen as contributors to the well-being of their constituents, and CBR programmes need to take advantage of this.

Facilitate access to political processes

CBR practitioners need to understand the numerous barriers to political participation, and in partnership with self-help groups, disabled people's organizations and others, can work to ensure that these barriers are reduced and/or removed. Suggested activities include:

• providing recommendations to local authorities about making voting sites and procedures accessible to people with disabilities when elections are being planned – this includes ensuring buildings are physically accessible and voting materials are easy to understand and use by people with a range of impairments;
• encouraging national electoral commissions and advocacy organizations to inform voters with disabilities about their voting rights and what assistance is available to enable them to participate;
• encouraging political leaders and parties to develop accessible propaganda material and to depict voters with disabilities on these materials;
• investigating transport options for people with disabilities, particularly those with mobility impairments, to enable them to reach voting venues;
• identifying the political seats/government jobs that are reserved for marginalized groups and encourage people with disabilities to take advantage of these positions.

BOX 12 Ghana

Enabling the blind to vote.

The International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) was awarded a grant from the Finland Ministry for Foreign Affairs to design and pilot-test a ballot in Ghana that would enable blind voters to vote secretly and independently. As in most low-income nations, Ghanaian voters who are blind rely on assistants to help them vote. The ballot that was pilot-tested did not use Braille, but instead relied on tactile cues, as less than 1% of blind adults in Ghana are literate. The ballot was tested in elections in 2002, and was designed in collaboration with the Ghana Electoral Commission, the Ghana Federation of the Disability Associations, and Action on Disability and Development of Ghana ( 14 ).

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Digital Democracy: Social Media and Political Participation Essay

I. introduction.

Digital democracy refers to the use of digital technologies and platforms to enhance democratic participation and representation. It contains various practices such as online voting , e-petitions , and political deliberation on social media. Social media has become an integral part of political participation in recent years. It has revolutionized the way citizens access information, engage in political discussion and mobilize for social and political causes. The purpose of this essay is to examine the impact of social media on political participation. It will highlight both the benefits and challenges of digital democracy. It will also explore the role of social media in shaping public opinion and the need for further research and regulation in this area.

II. The Impact of Social Media on Political Participation

A. increased access to information and political discussion:.

Social media has greatly increased access to information and political discussion for citizens. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook provide a space for individuals to share news, express their views, and participate in political discussions. This allows citizens to stay informed about current events and access different perspectives on political issues.

For example , during the 2016 US Presidential elections , Twitter became a major platform for political discussion. Both candidates used it to communicate with their supporters and the general public.

Also Read: Political Instability Leads to Economic Downfall Essay

B. Increased Citizen Engagement and Mobilization:

Social media has also been used as a tool for mobilization during political campaigns and social movements. The Arab Spring , which began in 2010 , saw widespread protests organized and coordinated through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Similarly, the Black Lives Matter movement , which began in 2013 , saw widespread mobilization through social media. It saw individuals using platforms such as Instagram and Twitter to share information, organize protests, and raise awareness about racial inequality. This demonstrates the potential of social media to mobilize citizens and bring about political change.

C. Increased Political Polarization and Echo Chambers:

However, social media can also contribute to increased political polarization. The formation of “ echo chambers ” are also created by it. Echo chambers are where individuals are only exposed to information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs. This can lead to a lack of diversity in opinions and a lack of exposure to differing perspectives. Social media algorithms, which are designed to personalize content, can contribute to this phenomenon by only showing users information that aligns with their beliefs and interests.

For example , in India’s recent general elections in 2019 , social media platforms played a significant role in shaping public opinion and political participation. The ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ), effectively used social media platforms to mobilize support, spread their message, and influence public opinion. They used platforms like WhatsApp to spread false and misleading information. This helped them to secure a landslide victory.

D. Facilitation of Direct Democracy:

Social media platforms have also enabled direct democracy by allowing citizens to participate in online voting, e-petitions, and other forms of direct engagement with government and political representatives.

For example , some countries have implemented online voting systems for elections. This allowed citizens to cast their ballots from their computers or mobile devices. Estonia is one of those countries. Here, online voting has been implemented for all national and local elections since 2005 . E-petitions also have become a popular way for citizens to express their views and demand change on specific issues.

Similarly, in Canada , online voting has been introduced in some municipalities, including the City of Markham in Ontario. It used online voting in the 2018 municipal elections. Additionally, the government of Canada provides the MyVoice platform . Here, citizens can voice their opinions on issues, join online discussions and participate in online polls.

E. Influencing Public Opinion:

Social media also plays a significant role in shaping public opinion. Through social media, individuals and organizations can disseminate information. They also can express their views and shape public discourse. This has the potential to influence political decision-making and public policy. Additionally, social media platforms can be used to target specific audiences and demographics, which can impact public opinion and the outcome of elections.

Its examples were seen during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, the 2016 US general elections, and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

F. Amplification of Marginalized Voices:

Social media platforms can also amplify the voices of marginalized communities and individuals, giving them a platform to share their perspectives and experiences. This can contribute to increased diversity in political discourse and representation. However, it also highlights the need for further research and regulation in this area to ensure that social media is inclusive, transparent, and fair for all voices.

The #MeToo movement is a specific example of how social media platforms can amplify the voices of marginalized communities and individuals. It gave them a platform to share their perspectives and experiences. The movement, which began in 2017 , aimed to raise awareness about sexual harassment and assault and to support survivors. The hashtag #MeToo was used extensively on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. Many women shared stories and experiences of sexual harassment and assault.

Also read: The Debate Over Renewable Energy: Is it the Solution to Climate Change?

III. The Challenges of Digital Democracy and Social Media

While social media and digital platforms have the potential to enable greater political participation and amplify marginalized voices, there are also several challenges that need to be addressed. Some of these challenges include:

• Misinformation and fake news : Social media platforms have been used to spread misinformation and fake news, which can undermine the democratic process and manipulate public opinion.
• Privacy and security : Social media platforms collect and store vast amounts of personal data, which can be vulnerable to breaches and misuse. This can compromise the privacy and security of individuals and threaten the integrity of the democratic process.
• Digital divide : Not all citizens have access to digital technologies and platforms, which can lead to a digital divide and exclude certain groups from participating in the democratic process.
• Lack of regulation : Social media platforms are currently not subject to the same regulations as traditional media, leading to a lack of accountability and oversight.
• Lack of diversity : Social media platforms can be dominated by certain groups or individuals, which can limit the diversity of voices and perspectives in political discourse.
• Cyberbullying and hate speech : Social media platforms have been used to spread hate speech and cyberbullying, which can undermine the democratic process and harm marginalized communities.

IV. Conclusion

In conclusion, social media and digital platforms have the potential to enable greater political participation and amplify marginalized voices. However, there are also several challenges that need to be addressed, including misinformation and fake news, privacy and security, digital divide, polarization and echo chambers, lack of regulation, lack of diversity, and cyberbullying and hate speech.

Addressing these challenges will require further research and regulation of social media and digital platforms, as well as efforts to increase access to digital technologies and platforms for all citizens. It’s also important to note that addressing these challenges will require the collaboration of government, the private sector, civil society, and citizens. Ultimately, a healthy digital democracy requires a balance between the benefits and challenges of social media and digital platforms, and the need to ensure that they are inclusive, transparent, and fair for all voices.

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Political typology quiz.

Notice: Beginning April 18th community groups will be temporarily unavailable for extended maintenance. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Where do you fit in the political typology?

Are you a faith and flag conservative progressive left or somewhere in between.

Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match, compared with a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults by Pew Research Center. You may find some of these questions are difficult to answer. That’s OK. In those cases, pick the answer that comes closest to your view, even if it isn’t exactly right.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Trump on Trial

Finally, a case goes to trial.

Jury selection begins Monday in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial.

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By Jesse McKinley

Welcome back to Trump on Trial. I’ll be filling in for Maggie Haberman and Alan Feuer today.

Starting on Monday, I’ll be part of the Times team of reporters covering the first criminal trial of a former American president. It will unfold in a dingy courthouse just blocks from New York’s City Hall, and we’ll be there for every twist and turn.

It should be a doozy, complete with hush money, a porn star and a fuming defendant. And oh, yes, it could test the resilience of our legal institutions and the concept that no individual is above the law.

Donald Trump’s trial is the culmination of a case that has been hotly contested since it was unveiled last spring. After months of legal machinations, including three long-shot appeal attempts this week, it seems to be on track to actually begin: Jury selection is scheduled to start on Monday. Testimony is expected to last weeks, amid a level of media scrutiny that some have likened to the O.J. Simpson trial nearly three decades ago.

This is no murder trial, but it still has sensational elements: Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to try to hide a sexual encounter he is alleged to have had with Stormy Daniels, a porn star he met in 2006. The former president denies the charges and having had sex with her.

Prosecutors could call Daniels and a former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Trump, as well as Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, who made the payment to Daniels just before the 2016 election.

These witnesses and testimony are likely to produce days of popcorn-worthy coverage — though, as with many trials dealing with financial matters, there may be a few sleepy sessions, too.

What to expect

Here’s how the trial is likely to unfold:

Day 1: Several hundred jurors are expected to be called in on Monday to potentially serve, a critical vetting period known as voir dire. Both prosecution and defense teams will be trying to sniff out hidden biases, with the help of a detailed juror questionnaire. It could be a grueling multiday, or even multiweek, process.

Trump, who claims to be displeased by a trial that he feels is profoundly unfair, could be in court four days a week — Wednesdays are off days. The judge, Justice Juan Merchan, has issued a gag order barring the former president from attacking prosecutors, witnesses, court staff and the judge’s own family members, after a series of angry posts on Trump’s Truth Social account and elsewhere.

The trial won’t be televised, but reporters will be able to post updates directly from the courtroom and a nearby overflow room. Expect a lot of focus on Trump’s demeanor and the interaction between his legal team and Merchan, who has kept the defense on a short leash so far.

The 34 counts are all Class E felonies , the lowest category of felonies in New York state. Trump’s lawyers will be hoping for an acquittal or for a holdout juror, which could lead to a mistrial. If the former president is found guilty, each count carries a maximum prison sentence of four years.

The Manhattan proceeding may be Trump’s only trial before the election. Two federal cases, as well as another state case in Georgia, could all be pushed back until after voters decide whether to once again elect Trump — or re-elect President Biden — in November.

Follow our coverage of the trial. During the proceedings, we’ll be sending you updates more frequently, including breaking news alerts and our regular weekly analysis on Thursdays. Jesse will be back on Monday to give you a full account of the first day.

Your questions

We’re asking readers what they’d like to know about the Trump cases: the charges, the procedure, the important players or anything else. You can send us your question by filling out this form.

Will there be a video or audio recording of the hush-money trial? Or at least a transcript at the end of each day? — Fiona Webster, Maryland

Alan Feuer: There will not be any video or audio recording available of Trump’s 2016 campaign sex scandal trial, and any transcript of daily proceedings would have to be purchased — at great expense — from the stenographers covering the case. At this point, the only one of Trump’s trials that will be broadcast live is his state election interference case in Georgia.

What else to watch

A hearing in Trump’s classified documents case will be held tomorrow to consider motions to dismiss the charges facing Trump’s two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday about the scope and soundness of an obstruction law that sits at the heart of Trump’s case in Washington on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. The law has also been used against hundreds of Trump supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Where does each criminal case stand?

Trump is at the center of at least four separate criminal investigations, at both the state and federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers. Here is where each case stands .

Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More about Jesse McKinley

NPR Editor's Critical Op-Ed Ignites Debate Over Political Bias in Journalism: 'This Essay Has It Backwards'

A scathing op-ed from NPR veteran and current senior business editor Uri Berliner published in The Free Press on Tuesday has intensified debates over whether the publicly funded news organization has adopted a partisan lean in recent years. 

In the piece , Berliner details a culture shift at the organization, in which "An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America."

Berliner argued that NPR is plagued with an "absence of viewpoint diversity," which he considers to be a result of leadership's emphasis on promoting diversity and inclusion on the basis of race and sexual orientation. He also claims that he found "87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

NPR editor-in-chief Edith Chapin defended the organization in response to the piece, saying she the leadership team "strongly disagree with Uri's assessment of the quality of our journalism."

While Chapin backed the "exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she added that "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

According to NPR media reporter David Folkenflik , several journalists inside the organization question how they can proceed with Berliner as a colleague, with concerns about whether he can be a trusted member of NPR in the aftermath of the op-ed. Additionally, Berliner did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he seek comment from the organization ahead of time; though he does say in his piece that he sought to raise his concerns with leadership on several occasions.

Meanwhile, outside of the organization, debates regarding the content of Berliner's piece have sprouted up across social media, with many coming to the defense of the storied NPR institution. 

Some argued that the shift that occurred in political coverage across the media industry was forced on institutions due to the changing nature of the Republican Party since the election of Donald Trump in 2016. 

Some came to Berliner's defense, including former NPR vice president for news Jeffrey Dvorkin who vouched for the changes to the organization. 

The post NPR Editor's Critical Op-Ed Ignites Debate Over Political Bias in Journalism: 'This Essay Has It Backwards' appeared first on TheWrap .

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I Served on the Florida Supreme Court. What the New Majority Just Did Is Indefensible.

On April 1, the Florida Supreme Court, in a 6–1 ruling, overturned decades of decisions beginning in 1989 that recognized a woman’s right to choose—that is, whether to have an abortion—up to the time of viability.

Anchored in Florida’s own constitutional right to privacy, this critical individual right to abortion had been repeatedly affirmed by the state Supreme Court, which consistently struck down conflicting laws passed by the Legislature.

As explained first in 1989:

Florida’s privacy provision is clearly implicated in a woman’s decision of whether or not to continue her pregnancy. We can conceive of few more personal or private decisions concerning one’s body in the course of a lifetime.

Tellingly, the justices at the time acknowledged that their decision was based not only on U.S. Supreme Court precedent but also on Florida’s own privacy amendment.

I served on the Supreme Court of Florida beginning in 1998 and retired, based on our mandatory retirement requirement, a little more than two decades later. Whether Florida’s Constitution provided a right to privacy that encompassed abortion was never questioned, even by those who would have been deemed the most conservative justices—almost all white men back in 1989!

And strikingly, one of the conservative justices at that time stated: “If the United States Supreme Court were to subsequently recede from Roe v. Wade , this would not diminish the abortion rights now provided by the privacy amendment of the Florida Constitution.” Wow!

In 2017 I authored an opinion holding unconstitutional an additional 24-hour waiting period after a woman chooses to terminate her pregnancy. Pointing out that other medical procedures did not have such requirements, the majority opinion noted, “Women may take as long as they need to make this deeply personal decision,” adding that the additional 24 hours stipulated that the patient make a second, medically unnecessary trip, incurring additional costs and delays. The court applied what is known in constitutional law as a “strict scrutiny” test for fundamental rights.

Interestingly, Justice Charles Canady, who is still on the Florida Supreme Court and who participated in the evisceration of Florida’s privacy amendment last week, did not challenge the central point that abortion is included in an individual’s right to privacy. He dissented, not on substantive grounds but on technical grounds.

So what can explain this 180-degree turn by the current Florida Supreme Court? If I said “politics,” that answer would be insufficient, overly simplistic. Unfortunately, with this court, precedent is precedent until it is not. Perhaps each of the six justices is individually, morally or religiously, opposed to abortion.

Yet, all the same, by a 4–3 majority, the justices—three of whom participated in overturning precedent—voted to allow the proposed constitutional amendment on abortion to be placed on the November ballot. (The dissenters: the three female members of the Supreme Court.) That proposed constitutional amendment:

Amendment to Limit Government Interference With Abortion: No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion. 

For the proposed amendment to pass and become enshrined in the state constitution, 60 percent of Florida voters must vote yes.

In approving the amendment to be placed on the ballot at the same time that it upheld Florida’s abortion bans, the court angered those who support a woman’s right to choose as well as those who are opposed to abortion. Most likely the latter groups embrace the notion that fetuses are human beings and have rights that deserve to be protected. Indeed, Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, during oral argument on the abortion amendment case, queried the state attorney general on precisely that issue, asking if the constitutional language that defends the rights of all natural persons extends to an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy.

In fact, and most troubling, it was the three recently elevated Gov. Ron DeSantis appointees—all women—who expressed their views that the voters should not be allowed to vote on the amendment because it could affect the rights of the unborn child. Justice Jamie Grosshans, joined by Justice Meredith Sasso, expressed that the amendment was defective because it failed to disclose the potential effect on the rights of the unborn child. Justice Renatha Francis was even more direct, writing in her dissent:

The exercise of a “right” to an abortion literally results in a devastating infringement on the right of another person: the right to live. And our Florida Constitution recognizes that “life” is a “basic right” for “[a]ll natural persons.” One must recognize the unborn’s competing right to life and the State’s moral duty to protect that life.

In other words, the three dissenting justices would recognize that fetuses are included in who is a “natural person” under Florida’s Constitution.

What should be top of mind days after the dueling decisions? Grave concern for the women of our state who will be in limbo because, following the court’s ruling, a six-week abortion ban—at a time before many women even know they are pregnant—will be allowed to go into effect. We know that these restrictions will disproportionately affect low-income women and those who live in rural communities.

But interestingly, there is a provision in the six-week abortion ban statute that allows for an abortion before viability in cases of medical necessity: if two physicians certify that the pregnant patient is at risk of death or that the “fetus has a fatal fetal abnormality.”

The challenge will be finding physicians willing to put their professional reputations on the line in a state bent on cruelly impeding access to needed medical care when it comes to abortion.

Yet, this is the time that individuals and organizations dedicated to women’s health, as well as like-minded politicians, will be crucial in coordinating efforts to ensure that abortions, when needed, are performed safely and without delay. This is the time to celebrate and support organizations, such as Planned Parenthood and Emergency Medical Assistance , as well as our own RBG Fund , which provides patients necessary resources and information. Floridians should also take full advantage of the Repro Legal Helpline .

We all have a role in this—women and men alike. Let’s get out, speak out, shout out, coordinate our efforts, and, most importantly, vote . Working together, we can make a difference.