Standby citizens: diverse faces of
political passivity: An interesting article
Published at European Political Science Review, 2013
by ERIK AMNA AND JOAKIM EKMAN
Abstract:
The current debate on political participation is bound to a discussion about whether
citizens are active or passive. This dichotomous notion is nurtured by an extensive
normative debate concerning whether passivity is an asset or a threat to democracy;
and it is especially manifest in studies of young people’s political orientations. Drawing
on this discussion, the present study goes beyond the dichotomy by keeping political
interest conceptually separate from participation in order to improve our understanding
of political passivity. Multivariate cluster analysis of empirical data on Swedish youth
suggests that we need to consider three distinctive forms of ‘political passivity’. In the
paper we present empirical evidence not only of the existence of a particular ‘standby
citizen’, but also of two kinds of genuinely passive young people: unengaged and
disillusioned citizens. Alongside active citizens, these people are in distinctly different
categories with regard to their political behavior. This entails a new analytical framework
that may be used to analyze an empirical phenomenon that has received surprisingly
little attention in the literature on political participation and civic engagement.
Whole article can be assessed here:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:606939/FULLTEXT03
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