GVPT 170 Lecture 4: Participation
18 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Two main types of political participation: conventional, going to rallies, sign on your lawn, unconventional, long history of unconventional participation in american politics, what are some examples of unconventional participation, unconventional actions can bring change? i. Protest is the great equalizer, the political action that weights intensity as well as sheer numbers . The structure of government & types of political participation. Goal of democratic institutions is to channel citizen activity into conventional forms of participation. Paradox of voting as applied to non-voting participation. Objectively the probability of your participation affecting the outcome is very low, but participation is costly. Probability of affecting the outcome (p) x utility of candidate winning (u) - cost of voting (c) > 0. Information is costly to obtain and isn"t very valuable because of low probability that it will affect outcome. But social networks and mobilization can encourage participation. Individuals with higher levels of ses are more likely to participate.
