POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND
REPRESENTATION
Meaning of Political Participation
• Political participation could be defined as consisting of
those level activities by private citizens which are more or
less directly aimed at influencing the selection of
government personnel and/or the action they take.
• Simply put, it is involvement of private citizens in political
activities.
• Effective political socialization affects in positive terms
the future political participation.
What Political Participation
entails?
1. It is concerned with influencing the composition and conduct, or personnel and policies, of
government.
2. It is not limited to voting at elections but includes many other ways in which citizens try to
influence government decisions.
3. Since political participation is often defined to include the activities of private citizens only,
government and party officials are described as objects not source of political participation.
4. Illegal and often violent forms of participation such as riots and assassinations are treated
as abnormal as only legal forms of participation are recognized.
5. Participation is often regarded as a desirable or positive process. It has been seen as civic
duty, as a sign of political health, as the best method of ensuring that one’s private interests
are not neglected and as requisite in a democracy.
6. Finally, political participation is a concrete activity of behaviour, and not simply a
psychological orientation or disposition.
Forms and Levels of Political Participation
• Political participation can take a wide variety of forms and can
occur at various levels.
• It entails costs in time, energy and resources. By implication, the
amount of resources that individuals are able and willing to
sacrifice is likely to determine the form or level of their
participation.
• Lester Malbraith in his book ‘Political Participation’ published
in1965 has made a very useful classification of levels of political
participation. He distinguishes between political participation at
the Spectator-level, the Transition level and the Gladiatorial level.
Spectator-Level of Participation
These are the activities in which people involve themselves at the spectator level
of participation:
(a) Voting at election;
(b) Initiating a public discussion;
(c) attempting to influence another into voting in a certain way; and
(d) wearing a political party badge or displaying party stickers.
• Activities listed above entail relatively little costs in time, energy and
resources and many people participate at this level.
• Apathetic are those who do not want to involve themselves in politics at all,
and are almost totally unconscious of the political world around them.
Transitional-Level of participation
• Activities at the transitional level include:
(a) Attending a political meeting or rally,
(b) making some monetary contribution to a campaign or political
course and
(c) contacting a public official or political leader.
• Activities at this level require more costs in time and financial
resources than those at the spectator level. For example, only 7 and
9% of United States citizens participate at this level.
• Activities at this level are referred to as transitional because of the
general tendency for participants at the level either to descend to
spectator level or ascend to gladiatorial activities.
The Gladiatorial-Level of participation
With regard to gladiatorial level of participation, activities involved include the
followings:
• a. Holding a public or party office;
• b. being a candidate for office;
• c. soliciting or appealing for party funds;
• d. attending a caucus or strategy meeting; and
• e. contributing time or other resources in a campaign.
• At this level activities are not only the most expensive, but also the most
effective form of political participation.
• Not surprisingly, only about 1 -3% of the population is usually able to
participate in politics at the gladiatorial level.
Another Classification
Nie and Verba in 1972 classified political participants
into
a.The inactive
b.The voting specialists
c. The campaigners
d.The communalists
e. The parochialists
f. The complete activists
Factors determining political
participation
• Different factors influence the levels and forms of
political participation and these factors vary across
political system.
• Generally, these factors can be categorized as
• Economic,
• Social,
• Political and
• Psychological.
Representation
• This is the process through which the attitudes,
preferences, viewpoints and desires of the entire citizenry
or a part of them, are with expressed approval, shaped into
governmental action on their behalf by a smaller number
among them, with binding effect upon those represented.
• Robert Von Mohl defines representation as the “process
through which the influence which the entire citizenry or a
part of them have upon government action, is with their
expressed approval, exercised on their behalf by a small
number among them, with binding effects upon those
represented.”
Heywood’ Theories of
Representation
• Trustee Model: A trustee is a person who is vested with formal
responsibility for another’s property or affairs.
• Delegate Model: A delegate is a person who is chosen to act for
another on the basis of clear guidance or instructions
• Mandate Model: Idea that in winning an election, a party gains a
popular mandate that authorizes it to carry out whatever policies
or programs it had outlined during the election campaign.
• Resemblance Model: It suggests that only persons coming from a
particular group, and who have shared the experiences of that
group, can fully identify with its interests.
Varieties of Representation
• Territorial or Geographical Representation: Implies that for the
purpose of holding election in a particular country, the whole
area should be divided into a number of constituencies or
electoral districts for distribution of seats into legislative
houses. The constituencies may be either single-member or
multi-member.
• Functional Representation: It signifies that the basis of
representation should be occupational composition of the
society. The idea is that social, economic and professional
groups, having special interests of their own, should find a
place in the national legislature.
Proportional Representation
• It stands on the principle that votes should be weighed and
not counted. It has three ingredients:
• (i) There should be a multi-member constituency
• (ii) a candidate should be elected not by gaining an
absolute or relative majority but by obtaining a quota of
votes that is equivalent to the total number of votes cast
and divided by the number of seats to be filled.
• (iii) there should be a mathematically exact, as far as
possible, representation of the electorate in the legislature.
Application of Proportional
Representation
• The method of proportional representation can be put to
application through
• Single – Transferable vote system: according to this device,
the voter is given ballot paper having names and party
symbols of all candidates on the left side and blank columns
on its right side. He/she has to fill these blank columns with
figures of 1, 2, 3, and so on in order to show his/her
preferences.
Electoral Quota = Total number of valid votes + 1
Total number of seats + 1
Application …..
• A candidate securing votes equal to or more than that of
the quota is declared successful.
• If some seats remain vacant, the candidate having least
number of votes is eliminated and his/her votes are
transferred to other candidates according to the order of
second preference, marked on the ballot paper.
• This process continues until all the seats are filled up, or
only the required number of candidates remains in the field
after the elimination of other candidates
THE LIST SYSTEM
• In this system, the candidates are grouped according to the labels of their political
parties.
• Each party submits a list of its chosen candidates equal to the number of seats to
be filled up or even less than that.
• The voter is asked to vote for a particular list that also means his/her preference to
the candidates in the order given in that very list.
• At the time of counting, the election quota is determined in the same manner as
given above. Then, it is seen as to which party has secured votes in what
percentage and the seats are apportioned between or among them according to
the same percentage.
• It may be that some parties either fail to have a clear-cut percentage entitling them
for certain seats, or they may have to forgo some of their percentage of votes
Advantages or Merits of Proportional
Representation
• It makes nearly every vote count, unlike in plurality elections where half or more than half
ballots are wasted.
• It is the best way to ensure representation of all sections of the people as far as possible.
• It gives a new kind of freedom to the individual, he/she can nominate and vote for the
candidates he/she really wants and a sense of security to those people or parties that are in
minority.
• It leads to the recognition of political parties on social and economic considerations.
• The independence of the voters is secured and an effective check can be placed on the
practices of electoral corruption.
• It recognizes the nature of modern political parties as based not altogether on sectional
divisions but on social and economic problems on national importance
• It does away with the need of primaries (as in US Presidential Election)
• Under it the voters control party organization instead of being controlled by them.
Disadvantages or Demerits
• It perpetuates a multi-party system with possible undesirable
consequences for a stable and effective government.
• It prevents development of disciplined parties and encourages
factional groups and also frequent and temporary party
alliances
• Its worst experiments can be seen in France under the Fourth
Republic (1946 – 58) when the life of a government had come
to a month on an average. It was due to the introduction of this
system that the Nazi leaders managed to emerged victorious in
the elections of 1933 and 1934.
Ideal Role of a Representative
• Policy Responsiveness: where the target is the great public issues
that agitate the public process.
• Service Responsiveness: which involves the efforts of the
representative to secure particularized benefits for individuals or
groups in his constituency.
• Allocation Responsiveness: this refers to the representative’s effort
to obtain benefits for his/her constituency through pork barrel
exchanges in the appropriateness, process through administrative
interventions
• Symbolic Responsiveness: that involves public gestures of a sort that
create a sense of trust and support in the relationship between the
representative and his/her constituents
