Political Participation

Meaning

The general level of participation in a society is the extent to which the people as a whole are active in politics, the number of active people multiplied by the amount of their action, to put it arithmetically. However, the question of what it is to take part in politics is massively complex and ultimately ambiguous. It raises the question of what constitutes and politics. So, “Participation is the principal means by which consent is granted or withdrawn in a democracy and rulers are made accountable to the ruled.”

Political participation has been popularised in Political Science by the Behaviouralists. Of course, arguments in favour of greater political participation had been advanced by republican and democratic theorists from Rousseau onwards and are still in use by contemporary political theorists. The behaviouralist paradigm rides on a liberal view of politics. Classically, such a view draws a distinction between state and individual on the one hand and public and private on the other, and leans toward the latter.

Accordingly, when participation is viewed as an attitude, it is understood as an individual's favourable orientation toward the state or government. That was the basis on which Americans were seen as having a ‘participant political culture’. The systematic use of culture and political culture as social science concepts dates only from the 1950s. Here, the political culture is seen as a shorthand for the set of values within which a political system operates. It is something between the state of public opinion and an individual's personality characteristics.

According to Gabriel Almond, it is the ‘particular pattern of orientations’ to political objects in which a political system is embedded. Orientations are predispositions to political action and are determined by factors such as tradition, historical memories, motives, norms, emotions, and symbols; the culture, therefore, represents a set of propensities. These orientations may be broken down into cognitive orientations (knowledge and awareness of the political effects), affective orientations (emotions and feelings toward the objects), and evaluative orientations (judgments about them). Almond later developed a typology of ideal political cultures or citizen types. Where most people are oriented toward input processes and see themselves as able to make demands and help shape policies, the political culture is participatory; the British, American, and Scandinavian political systems best represent this ideal.

Similarly, the government, as the point of reference of an individual’s activity, becomes a feature of political participation as an activity. Thus, writes Birch: ‘political participation is participation in the process of government, and the case for political participation is essentially a case for a substantial number of private citizens to play a part in the process by which leaders are chosen and for government policies are shaped and implemented.’

The Communitarians find a problem with this Liberal concept of participation because of its individualism and its view of government as the locus of participation. They argue that more important than participation in the process of government through the ‘politics of right’ is participation at the community level for ‘politics of common good’. They argue that more important than participation in the process of government is the exercise of autonomy, which can be developed and exercised in a certain kind of social environment, an autonomy-supporting community, not a government.

Thus, Political participation can be broadly defined as participation in the political life of the community or civil society, with different agents and levels of participation, such as running a community health club by a religious group or participating in an NGO-sponsored literacy campaign. Following the same logic, political participation may be for fulfilling the political obligation of a democratic citizen to lead a participatory social life, rather than for the civil obligation to the government regarding law and order. Wider political participation must include some degree of democratic control over, or within, large-scale economic enterprises, decentralisation of government to smaller units, such as regions or localities, and considerable use of referenda, etc.

DEFINITIONS OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

The definition of political participation is quite complex. The adoption of a definition automatically includes or excludes certain activities from the purview of political participation studies. For example, political participation is those voluntary actions in which people seek to influence the making of public policy. Here, the emphasis on ‘voluntary’ actions appears to exclude forms of mass participation that are obligatory or coerced, such as the requirement to show symbolic support for authoritarian regimes. Such a definition might further exclude the act of voting in democratic countries where voting is required by law.

According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, “political participation will refer to those voluntary activities by which members of a society share in the selection of rules, and directly and indirectly in the formation and influencing of public policy.” Samuel P. Huntington and Joan M. Nelson defined political Participation as “the activity by private citizen designed to influence governments decision making.” According to Almond and Verba, “the process of political participation is a continuation of an earlier process - that of political socialization.”

Political Participation: Different Types

Studies on participation typically treated citizens’ involvement in the electoral process as the only form of political participation. The perspective was quite narrow. Political participation was equated with electoral participation. Later, the scope of the concept was broadened to include other activities beyond electoral ones. It can broadly classify two types of political participation: (a) participation in the electoral process, and (b) participation through other modes in other kinds of activities.

(a) Political Participation and the Electoral Process

Modern-day democracies are indirect, representative democracies. To realise the idea of representative democracy in practice, we need various institutional arrangements. The electoral system is one of the most important of these. It is through the electoral process that individuals choose their representatives, who govern on their behalf. The right of universal adult suffrage makes this process possible. It is through their elected representatives that adult citizens indirectly participate in the policy-making process. The electoral process not only helps realise the individual’s right to political participation but also, through it, performs another essential function of a political system: political recruitment. It is an essential function in every political system. But except in a democracy, nowhere is this function performed through the system of election. In a monarchy or an authoritarian political system, for example, people have no role to play in the process of political recruitment.

An individual can take part in the electoral process in a number of ways: as a voter, as a candidate, by getting involved in candidate nominations, by taking part in election campaigns, by discussing politics, by distributing party literature, by attending political meetings, and so on. In whatever ways he participates, the individual actually engages in political participation. Such participation naturally assumes greater importance in a democratic political system. Regular, periodic elections at different levels of government are seen as a symbol of popular sovereignty in a democratic political system. And this sovereignty is one of the principal components of democracy. Public opinion about the political system and the political process is reflected through the electoral process. There is also a close interrelationship between the electoral process and an individual’s political consciousness. A higher level of political consciousness may lead to higher electoral participation. Again, an increased rate of participation may, in turn, help in a higher degree of political consciousness.

The electoral process thus has several functions in the democratic political system. It is one of the major reasons why studies of political participation, from the very beginning, have primarily emphasised individuals’ electoral behaviour. In fact, numerous significant studies by both foreign and Indian scholars on elections and voting behaviour have been conducted. Works by Paul Lazarsfeld et al., Angus Campbell et al., Charles H. Titus, Myron Weiner and Rajni Kothari, and Iqbal Narain et. al., are some of the important research in this field among many others. These studies have focused on the different dimensions of electoral participation. It has been revealed that the individual's participation in the electoral process depends upon a number of socio-economic and political factors - education, age, caste, religion, economic status, electoral system and electoral rules, political culture, and so on. These collectively influence the individual’s electoral behaviour. The relative importance and impact of a particular factor vary over time and across space. Understanding the nature of the interactions among these various factors in the electoral process and comprehending individual electoral behaviour are beyond the scope of the present discussion. With this brief note about political participation and the electoral process, we will now focus on other types of political participation. This is necessary because electoral participation constitutes just one of the many aspects of political participation. Moreover, the formal freedom to vote and the exercise of that right tell us very little about the quality or effectiveness of political participation.

(b) Other Types of Political Participation

A number of political scientists have attempted to identify and classify different levels of political participation. Anthony Birch has included many other kinds of activities than that of merely voting, within the purview of political participation These are, for example, active membership of a political party or a pressure group, taking taking part in political demonstrations, industial shifted with political objectives and similar activities aimed at changing public policy, various forms of civil disobedience such as refusing to pay taxes, membership of government advisory commitees, and various forms of community action such as those concerned with housing or environment issues of the day.

While identifying different forms of political participation, Michael Rush and P. Althoff arrange them in a hierarchical order according to the degree or extent of participation. They place the types of activities in a descending order. (i) holding political or administrative office, (ii) seeking political or administrative office, (iii) active membership in a political organization, (iv) passive membership in political organization, (v) active membership of a quasi-political organization such as an interest group or a pressure group, (vi) passive membership of a quasi-political organization, (vii) participation in public meetings and demonstrations, (viii) participation in informal political discussion, (ix) general interest in politics, (x) voting, and (xi) political apathy. What is significant in this hierarchical arrangement is that the act of voting has been placed almost at the lowest level. The argument is that, in all political systems, elections are occasional events; the electoral process is not continuously in operation. Moreover, voting requires minimal involvement and labour on the part of the individual. This arrangement also disregards the conceptual distinction between ‘professional participation’ and ‘non-professional participation’ emphasised by Nie and Verba as well as Huntington and Nelson.

For a professional, politics is a vocation. Party leaders, election contestants, and lobbyists are examples of this category. Non-professional participation, on the other hand, is performed by individuals alongside other roles; politics is secondary to them. Nie and others exclude the activities of the professional participants from the purview of their studies and argue that non-professional participation is the true form of political participation.

J.L Woodward and E. Roper in their study on the political activities of American citizens have considered five types of activity as political participation: (i) voting, (ii) supporting a pressure group through its membership, (iii) participation in the activities of a political party and a subsequent claim on legislators, (iv) engaging in the dissemination of political opinions verbally to other citzens, and (v) direct personal contact with elected representatives.

IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Political participation is so fundamental to democracy that democracy would not exist without the widespread, regular, and active participation of citizens. Liberal political philosophy holds that individual rights are protected through the exercise of citizens’ civil and economic rights and other constitutional guarantees.

Political participation is necessary because it enables citizens to consciously fashion their conditions of existence within a political community, thereby becoming genuinely autonomous agents, and to trust fellow beings by overcoming alienation, deracination, and many other anomalies of modern life. Political participation not only refers to engagement with government and the State, but also to engagement with civil society, thereby developing social trust and improving communal values and benefits.

Genuine and effective political participation must also acknowledge the rights of non-participants to stand outside the political process if they choose to do so. It must be noted that participation does not necessarily imply that political actors accept the political system. Although violent revolutions and direct political action, such as civil disobedience, are modes of political participation, democratic theorists are inclined to structure political participation through the constitutional framework. Of course, it is also important to note that the quantity of political participation is less important than its quality.

It hardly makes sense to claim that India is the largest democracy if the democratic process does not efficiently protect the poor, the women and the minorities.

An effective means of political participation is the work an individual can do within civil society; political activity can range from opposing the State to being part of it, in dialogue with it, in partnership with it, in support of it, or even beyond it. In a country where civil society is empowered, political participation may take a variety of formal and informal forms, in which citizens and non-citizens (such as refugees) can work towards social change.

THEORIES OF POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

There are two theories on political participation that are explained as follows:

1. Milbrath’s Theory of Political Participation

The political system functions on the basis of political participation. Lester Milbrath has suggested that society can be divided into four categories based on the degree of political participation. First, the politically apathetic who are literally unaware of the politics around them; second, those involved in spectator activities, including voting and taking part in discussions about politics; third, those involved transitional activities, which include attending a political meetings or making financial contributions to a political party; and finally, those who enter the political arena and participate in activities such as standing for and holding public and party offices. These levels of political participation are not uniformly distributed throughout the population.

In general, the higher an individual’s position in the class structure, the greater his degree of participation. Studies have shown that political participation is directly proportional to income level, occupational status and educational qualification. It has also been associated with a variety of other factors. For example, men are likely to have higher levels of participation than women, married people than single people, middle-aged people than young or old people, members of clubs and associations than non-members, and long-term residents in a community than short-term residents.

However, those with low levels of participation often lack the resources and opportunities to become more directly involved in politics. They lack the experience of higher education, which brings a greater awareness of the political process and knowledge of the mechanics of participation. Secondly, individuals are more likely to participate in politics if they expect to be rewarded for their involvement.

2. Dahl’s Theory of Political Participation

Robert Dahl argues that an individual is unlikely to participate in politics if he feels the probability of his influencing the outcome is low. Levels of political participation are related to an individual's degree of involvement and integration in society.

Thus, an individual who is unlikely to be involved in local or national politics does not feel part of either the local community or the wider society. Dahl suggests that individuals are unlikely to engage in high levels of political participation if they believe the outcome of events will be satisfactory without their involvement.

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION THROUGH ELECTIONS IN INDIA

At the heart of a democratic polity is the concept of sovereign powers vested in the people. In modern democracies, people govern themselves through their elected representatives. In a parliamentary system, the executive comes from the legislature, remains part of it, and is responsible to it. The election of members to the houses of legislatures is conducted through an institutionalised electoral process.

Therefore, this electoral process, no matter how it is designed and conducted, forms the foundation of a parliamentary democracy. Elections are critical to the maintenance and development of democratic tradition because, at one level, they are influenced by the political culture in which they operate, but at another, they also generate strong influences that can improve or distort this political culture.

As a representative parliamentary democracy, India has a well- established system of direct and indirect elections to man its institutions. A general election in India is a gigantic exercise. It is equal to holding polls in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia combined. General elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies in India are held under the supervision, direction and control of a constitutional body, the Election Commission of India. Elections to local bodies, such as Panchayats and Nagar Palikas, are the responsibility of State Election Commissioners.

A general election in India is a gigantic exercise. Statistically, the number of voters in India remains over 600 million (six hundred crores). The number of polling booths across the country totals about 9,00,000 (nine lakhs), with an average of 667 voters per booth. However, the population is not so uniformly spread over unequal territorial constituencies and usually, a polling booth caters to no more than 1200 voters even in highly populated metropolitan areas.

Five persons are needed for each polling booth, making a total of 4.5 to 5 million election personnel to be mobilised and administered. These polling personnel are drawn from the Central and State governments and other bodies. In addition, about 2 million security personnel will be deployed to maintain law and order on polling day. These basic figures give some idea of the enormity of the task of electing some 545 members of parliament. Once you factor in state and local elections, the figures become truly staggering. India has about 3.2 million (thirty-two lakhs) directly elected people’s representatives across various tiers of governance.

Our 50 years of experience with successive elections at various levels have shown that, generally, people can deliver electoral verdicts democratically. But this general statement hides substantial irregularities at the micro level. In fact, our experience with elections has also brought to the fore many distortions, some very serious, that have crept in either through loopholes in the electoral laws or through the system's inability to punish deviant and, in many ways, unacceptable behaviour. There have been constant references to three MPs (money power, muscle power and mafia power) and to four Cs (criminalisation, communalism, corruption and casteism). Basically, all of this has vitiated the political atmosphere in the country and even compromised the legitimacy of the political process.

REFORMS

The suggestions for reform can generally be placed into three broad categories. The first category seeks to address problems within the current electoral system. The second category goes a bit further and argues that the present electoral system itself needs to be modified (with an emphasis on reform rather than altering the system's basic framework). Both of these categories must be addressed together because there is considerable overlap between them, and we must view reform suggestions as an integrated package rather than piecemeal.

There is a third approach, which seeks to strike at the root of the problem, the terribly high costs of elections, and the question of finding legitimate funds for the purpose. The suggestion is to drastically cut costs by following the Gandhian principles of decentralising power to grassroots levels and building a multilayered government from below rather than the prevailing top-down approach.

Those advocating this approach state that the only way to conduct a meaningful electoral exercise in this country is to hold direct elections only at the local level, with the upper tiers filled by representatives indirectly elected by an electoral college composed of the representatives of the lower tiers.

A true democracy, as advocated by Gandhi, ensures that local, state, and national representatives are accountable to the people for local, state, and national matters, respectively, through effective transparency. Such one-to-one accountability may promote responsible politics and attract patriotic, competent professionals and social workers into politics. Our present system, based on diffused accountability, breeds corruption and attracts self-seekers to politics. For this breed, the interests of national development, the welfare of the people, and the need for good governance take lower priority, if any at all.

The elected representative is too far removed from the people, as there are an average of 1 million voters per Lok Sabha constituency spread across a large geographical area. To influence the choice of such a large, geographically dispersed number of voters, the candidate’s social action is totally inadequate.

This creates space and scope for using both money and muscle power. It is no surprise that candidates have to spend huge sums during campaigning to ‘purchase’ the votes of distant voters. This is done mostly through a host of intermediary brokers, who serve as the link in this transaction. These huge election expenses breed massive corruption; the electors are in no position to hold the candidate accountable, nor does the candidate consider himself accountable to them.

Based on Indian ethos, Gandhi had advocated a low-cost election system linked to watchdog councils and separate elected chief executives at each local level. He proposed a highly democratic and, more importantly, highly accountable system. More thought-out and more in keeping with the evolution of political culture in our country, many scholars have, in recent years, adopted these ideas in their work and advocated a system of direct elections only at the grassroots of Indian democracy. They propose that, without in any way interfering with the basic structure or features of the constitution and while fully continuing the parliamentary system, some reforms be brought to the electoral system.