Mass Political Behavior Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Mass political behavior, mass action, and collective action for political purposes take place when a large number of people choose to participate in an action for political ends. While time, effort, and risk can be great, pressure may be needed to secure an individual’s limited participation or contribution. Often groups have several goals, which require mediation, agreement, and coordination.

Various forms of mass political behavior exist. Elections represent the most common form and extend legitimacy to democratic systems: The public expresses its preference or will for a proposed decision in an institutionalized way. Citizens have power to shape issues and elect or remove their representatives—if to a limited degree. Elections can be general or national, as well as legislative on different levels, and direct or indirect, secret or open, truly competitive in democracies or noncompetitive in totalitarian regimes. Elections require less effort from participants than strikes, demonstrations, and citizen movements, and they limit political inequality.

Voters may be confronted with the dilemma of choice, they may not be well informed or apathetic, or they may vote in line with their parents, peers, social class, or party. Voting according to issues and political ideology has increased. Ethnicity, age, income, education, gender, and residence determine why some people vote. Voting behavior is more constant than often assumed. Although people can feel pressured to vote, voting is personally satisfying.

Another form of mass political behavior is direct action, which is usually a nonviolent way of asserting demands through noncooperation or obstruction. Greater state power, increasing demands for representation, the market economy, industrialization, new communication technologies, and the spread of democratic beliefs have led to more direct action. When people perceive a democratic deficit, direct action can empower them to resist oppression, gain basic rights, safeguard democracy, or raise marginalized issues.

Direct action can be internationally coordinated or gain transnational support. Usually, it is a visible and explicit, often symbolic, and at times dramatic way to spread a message and gain access to political debate. Strikes and boycotts have been partially legalized in democracies as legitimate means of protest and ways to protect citizens from business interests. Rallies, marches, and vigils are only symbolic, but if banned, they are acts of civil disobedience. Hunger strikes can be mass political behavior. Consumer boycotts also express the public’s wants or needs. Direct action may initiate parallel or alternative institutions or services. Social or citizen movements influence public opinion, public policy, citizen access, social awareness, and sometimes a government’s stability. To communicate with their members, groups use publications, mailings, mass media, the Internet, personal contacts, meetings, phone calls, and demonstrations. A movement’s goals and its implementation may be shaped by those in power, different agencies and interests, or competition with other groups. In addition, money and political interest groups are important. Political advertising and attempts to secure political support from the public and shape public opinion have increased over the years and often face criticism.

Bibliography:

Bangura, Abdul Karim, et al. Political Behavior. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996.
Buechler, Stephen M. Social Movements in Advanced Capitalism: The Political Economy and Cultural Construction of Social Activism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Carter, April. Direct Action and Democracy Today. Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 2005.
McHale, John P. Communicating for Change: Strategies of Social and Political Advocates. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004.
Nohlen, Dieter. “Wahlen.” In Lexikon der Politikwissenschaft: Theorien, Methoden, Begriffe, Vol. 2. Edited by Dieter Nohlen and Rainer-Olaf Schultze, 1088–1089. Munich:Verlag C. H. Beck, 2002.
Schultze, Rainer-Olaf. “Wählerverhalten.” In Lexikon der Politikwissenschaft: Theorien, Methoden, Begriffe, Vol. 2. Edited by Dieter Nohlen and RainerOlaf Schultze, 1089–1090. Munich:Verlag C. H. Beck, 2002.
Shepsle, Kenneth A., and Mark S. Bonchek. Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions. New York:W.W. Norton, 1997.

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