Most adult education programs are wedded to human capital theory, a theory which ignores structural barriers to social equality such as sexism, racism, and classism. Proposed is an alternative, which, in addition to dispensing human capital (marketable skills), seeks to provide opportunities for students to hone the tools needed to overcome the impediments to social equality. I call this type of education: education as political participation.
This thesis examines the relationship between access to local sources of local mass communication (television, radio, daily and weekly newspapers) and levels of political participation in municipal elections in Ontario using macro and micro level data. Aggregate level data was generated by combining a dataset containing information from all the 1985 municipal elections in Ontario with information about each municipality's local media. This lets us examine elections which take place simultaneously and within the same general political and cultural context but with widely varying configurations of local media present. The aggregate level measures of political participation used are: whether the head of council is elected or acclaimed, the turnout rate, the percentage of incumbents on council and the percentage of council positions contested. Micro level data was gathered from surveys done in the city of Windsor, Ontario before and after the city lost its only televised source of local news. This allows us to examine political participation at the individual level with access to media physically varied. At the survey level two measures of political participation and two levels of community involvement are used: interest in local politics, voting in local politics, attending local government meeting and awareness of local issues. Aggregate findings indicate that the presence of local media affects levels of political participation. In rural areas of the province local media is generally limited to weekly newspapers which usually have positive effects on participation. Urban centres have many different combinations of local media present. The same medium may have different effects on municipalities of different sizes and on different types of political participation, suggesting that the underlying process may be different. There is no clear support for the hypothesis that the number of different types of media present has an effect, although findings suggest different combinations of media may have different effects.Dept. of Communication Studies. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1993 .Y685. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 32-02, page: 0382. Adviser: Kai Hildebrandt. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1993.
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Faculty of Humanities, University of Luton ; The past decade has seen an upsurge ofacademic and popular interest in the political activity undertaken by citizens. This thesis presents a predominantly qualitative analysis ofthe nature of voluntary political participation, and subsequently addresses a number of key concerns about the current state of democracy in Britain. It is argued that existing analysis of political participation tends to focus on quantitative questions such as the levels and socio-demographic composition of political activity, with little attention being given to the experiences of those citizens who engage with political organisations. The analysis utilises the theoretical work of JUrgen Habermas in order to consider the potential role of both state mechanisms of participation and structures of civil society within the development of rational and deliberative democracy. The primary research draws upon sixty interviews conducted within the British Labour Party, the British section of Amnesty International, two Tenants' Associations, one Residents' Association and an alternative lifestyle collective known as Exodus. Three main themes are addressed in the form of a comparative study. Firstly, the thesis considers the nature of the various organisations and their membership policies. Secondly, a typology ofpolitical participation and activism is presented. Finally, analysis is provided of the experiences ofthe respondents of the actual process ofparticipation. Addressing these themes enables the thesis to explore the nature of the discourse that occurs within spheres ofvoluntary political participation, and to provide some insight into the dialectical relationship that exists between structures of participation and the activity that develops within such contexts. It is concluded that a range of conflicting tensions currently inform voluntary political participation. These factors raise a number of serious questions about the role of civil society within processes of democratisation.
This article presents an application of Prezeworski and Teune's so-called "identity-equivalence method" to a large set of indicators of political participation. By relaxing commonly held assumptions about necessary distinctions among types of participation, it is found that the distinction between "conventional" and "unconventional" modes of participation is unnecessary, while the distinction between "government" and "nongovernment" has some merit. The findings also lend further support to the claims of Prezeworski and Teune that the identity-equivalence method is preferable to the identical indicator method.
When we set out to examine the various forms and patterns of indigenous political participation in the three polities they are connected to—tribal, state, and federal—we are stepping into a most complicated subject matter. It is complicated in large part because Indians are citizens of separate extra-constitutional nations whose members have only gradually been incorporated in various ways by various federal policies and day to day interactions with non-Indians. Tribal nations, of course, have never been constitutionally incorporated and still retain their standing as separate political bodies not beholden to either federal or state constitutions for their existence.
Latinos are a large and growing portion of the US population but are less numerous among participants in politics than their numbers would suggest. Predictions of the future rates of participation among Latinos depend heavily upon understanding the causes of current rates. A substantial proportion of the disparity in participation rates between Latinos and non-Latinos can be accounted for by the numbers of noncitizens and by other factors related to a large pool of immigrants, differences in socioeconomic resources, and the young age distribution of Latinos. However, these summary statements obscure differences across types of participation. They also obscure differences across Latinos of different national origins. Much of the analysis done to date of the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS) has made clear that Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans, and Cuban-Americans can differ as much from each other as members of each group differ from non-Latinos. This paper uses the LNPS data to examine the factors related to different types of political participation among US Latinos of different national origins. Borrowing from the standard participation literature, we consider the impact of resources, engagement, and recruitment. The Latino population provides an especially useful case for testing hypotheses about the impact of mobilization upon activity. Political leaders have actively appealed to Latino ethnicity both in structuring political competition and in seeking support. I have proposed elsewhere that the success of such appeals in increasing participation will hinge in large part upon whether or not the targeted public believes itself well-represented by the leaders. The LNPS contains several items relevant to perceived representation. This paper will use the LNPS data to test the effect of perceived representation upon political participation, while taking account of the other factors that affect levels of activity.
The paper compares the present social, economic, and political rights labor immigrants enjoy within the European Community. Its focus is the current debate about the municipal suffrage of permanent residents. The dual relevance of the topic is obvious: EC-bodies like commission, Council of Ministers, Political Council, and European Parliament withdraw competences of their national counterparts; EC-inhabitants, citizens of one of twelve democraticly ruled member states, acqire the right to move, to resettle, and to work everywhere within the Community. But when doing so the citizens of the Community loose their basic democratic rights to vote or to become elected at least on the subnational levels like those longterm residents who had immigrated from third countries without acquiring the citizenship. Currently, 12-15 million or 4-5% of the inhabitants of the community are without democratic rights. Thus, ironically the overcoming of the nation state and the transnational extension of socio-economic freedoms is accompanied by a regress of democratic rights and liberties. Therefore, the general (at least municipal) suffrage of all permanent residents and a common, citizenship and "ius soli" baded naturalization legislation are on the political agenda of the community.
Women are a small minority of political office-holders in Ireland as elsewhere. The authors first provide details of women's representation in different political arenas, before proceeding to identify the principal determinants of women's willingness to seek office - socialisation, domestic constraints and access to appropriate educational and professional qualifications - and the institutional barriers they encounter. Two features of particular relevance in Ireland are the impact of Roman Catholicism on political culture and the role of localism in party politics. So long as these retain their hold there is little prospect of a drama lie increase in women's political representation.
Using a Japanese national-sample panel survey in 2000 that includes snowball-sampled data, this paper attempts to examine the extended hypotheses on social capital. One focus of the extension is on the role of social networks, a low-cost device for obtaining political information that also operates as a portal to the society. The other focus includes the role of tolerance, which is as important as political participation in an open democracy. By positing a hypothesis that the reverse logic of social capital is applicable to the problem of intolerance, an attempt is made to elucidate the dark side of social capital. The result of multivariate analyses clearly indicates a positive correlation between social capital and political participation, both of voluntary organization and social networks, on the individual and the dyadic levels. On the other hand, political tolerance is not clearly related with social capital at any level.
Al hablar de la democracia como sistema político, se está referenciando a la participación ciudadana como elemento esencial de ella; participación que es multidimensional, ya que no solo comprende el aspecto ideológico o político de la actividad humana, sino también el económico y social. Significa lo anterior, que en el sistema democrático la participación popular no debe concretarse a influir o involucrarse en el proceso de toma de decisiones políticas dentro del Estado, sino también, en condiciones de equilibrio a disfrutar de los bienes y servicios de naturaleza socioeconómica y otros valores cuyo reparto terminante es autoritativo para toda la sociedad, y su respeto y acatamiento corresponde a todos. En consonancia con lo mencionado, mientras mayores y mejores sean las posibilidades y canales de participación popular, tanto más democrático es un Estado y, al contrario, en tanto disminuyan o se vean quebrantadas esas posibilidades, vías y mecanismos de participación, más cerca se estará a los autocráticos. ; When speaking of democracy as a political system, it is referring to citizen participation as an essential element of it; participation that is multidimensional, since it not only includes the ideological or political aspect of human activity, but also the economic and social aspect. This means that in the democratic system popular participation should not be specified to influence or get involved in the political decision-making process within the State, but also, in conditions of balance, to enjoy goods and services of a socio-economic nature and others. values whose strict distribution is authoritative for all of society, and their respect and compliance corresponds to all. In line with the aforementioned, the greater and better the possibilities and channels for popular participation, the more democratic a State is and, on the contrary, as long as these possibilities, ways and mechanisms of participation are diminished or broken, the closer it will be to to autocratics.
Turnout as the most frequent form of political participation is often supposed to be linked to a relevant degree of political information of citizens. Non-voting on the other hand, is often assumed to be a decision caused by indifference or uninformedness. These stereotypes notwithstanding, there may be good reasons for informed citizens not to cast a vote, just as uninformed citizens may have good reasons to actually do cast a vote. This paper tries to combine two different views of the effects of political information on electoral participation: (a) the commonplace argument of participatory studies that informed citizens are more likely to take part in the political process and (b) the remark of partisan dealignment approaches that electoral behaviour of modern and cognitive mobilized voters is less stable and predictable. Heteroskedastic Probit models of electoral participation in the European Parliament Election 1994 demonstrate that political information increase the likelihood of turnout and decrease the predictability of the decision at the same time.
Modern democratic policy is essentially grounded on participation of citizens in public decision-making process. The focus of the study was the impact of social environment on political participation. The method of study was survey sample data analysis. The results of analysis reflect relationship between number of people whom respondent discuss about political and societal matters and political participation. Data anlysis confirm an assumption that social environment has impact on political behaviour, i.e. in some cases social environment could encourage low status group political participation or discourage high status group political participation. ; Piliečių politinis dalyvavimas yra būtina demokratinės valstybės funkcionavimo ir stabilumo užtikrinimo sąlyga. Tyrimo tikslas - nustatyti socialinės aplinkos poveikį piliečių politiniam dalyvavimui. Tyrimo metodas - literatūros šaltinių analizė bei daugiapakopės stratifikuotos apklausos, atliktos Lietuvoje 1999 m., duomenų analizė. Tyrimo rezultatai patvirtino, kad asmenų, su kuriais individas diskutuoja politiniais klausimais, skaičius daro poveikį individo politiniam dalyvavimui. Tyrimo rezultatai pagrindžia išvadą, kad klasikinis individo socio-ekonominio statuso modelis tik iš dalies paaiškina individų politinį dalyvavimą, nes neatsako į klausimą, kodėl tam tikra žemo socio-ekonominio statuso individų dalis dalyvauja politiniame procese ir kodėl tam tikra aukšto statuso individų dalis politiniame procese nedalyvauja. Duomenų analizė patvirtina prielaidą, kad minėtų marginalinių grupių elgesį galima paaiškinti socialinės aplinkos poveikiu, t.y. tam tikrais atvejais socialinė aplinka gali skatinti žemo socio-ekonominio statuso individus dalyvauti politinėje veikloje, o aukšto socioekonominio statuso individus nedalyvauti šioje veikloje.
No abstract availableRealidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 49, 1996: 81-103 ; No hay resúmenes disponiblesRealidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 49, 1996: 81-103
