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Unit 12: Politics of Representation and Participation

• The wider the definition of political participation, the greater the number who can be said to be Notes
involved in politics, at least indirectly. More than half of adults belong to an organization that
can act as an interest group, such as an anglers’ club concerned about the pollution of a local
stream or the Automobile Association, which represents motorists.
• A healthy fabric of voluntary associations has been recognized since de Tocqueville’s time as
an important component of democracy. As political scientist Robert D. Putnam has shown,
participation in civic life builds social capital—networks of reciprocal ties of trust and obligation
among citizens that facilitate collective action. Where social capital is greater, people treat one
another as equals rather than as members of social hierarchies.
• Participation in voluntary associations in contemporary Russia is extremely low: according to
survey data, 90 percent of the population do not belong to any sports or recreational club,
literary or other, cultural group, political party, local housing association or charitable
organization. Only 1 percent report being a member of a political party. About 13 percent report
attending church at least a few times a year, and about 17 percent report being members or
labor unions.
• Popular disengagement from politics was stimulated by the disappointment of expectations
that the change from communism to democracy would improve people’s lives. In the late 1980s
and early 1990s there was a great surge of popular participation. It took multiple forms, including
mass protest actions such as strikes and demonstrations, as well as the creation of tens of
thousands of new informal organizations. But following the end of the Soviet regime, this wave
subsided. The disengagement and skepticism reflected in public opinion today certainly reflects
disillusionment with how conditions have turned out.
• One of the most marked changed to have ocurred since the fall of the Soviet regime has been the
formation of a new business elite. To be sure, many of its members come out of the Soviet
nomenklatura, as old guard bureaucrats discovered ways to cash in on their political contacts.
Money from the Communist Party found its way into the establishment of as many a thousand
new business ventures, including several of the first commercial, banks.
• The atmosphere of close and collusive relations between many businesses and government
officials has nurtured widespread corruption and the meteoric rise of a small group of business
tycoons popularly, known as “oligarchs” who took advantage of their links to President Yeltsin’s
administration to acquire, control of some of Russia’s most valuable companies. The pervasive
influence of money on politics has deepened the problem of corruption at all levels of government
and daily life.
• France was the first European country to enfranchise a mass electorate, and France was also the
first European country to demonstrate that a mass electorate did not preclude the possibility of
authoritarian government. The electoral law of 1848 enfranchised all male citizens over the age
of 21, but within five years this same mass electorate had ratified Louis Napoleon’s coup d’etat
and his establishment of the Second Empire.
• For referendums, a new record was set in 2000: almost 70 percent of the registered voters chose
not to vote in a (successful) referendum to reduce the presidential term from 7 to 5 years (after
the elections of 2002).
• The highest” abstention rates in 2002 were among those voters who expressed no preference
between parties of the right and left.
• The stability of the Fifth Republic cannot be attributed to the method of electing National
Assembly deputies, for the system is essentially the same one used during the most troubled
years of the Third Republic. As in the United States, electoral districts (577) are represented by
a single deputy who is selected through two rounds elections. On the first election day, candidates
who obtain a majority of all votes cast are elected to parliament; this is a relatively rare occurrence
because of the abundance of candidates. Candidates who obtain support of less than 12.5 percent
of the registered voters are dropped for the “second round” a week later.
• Presidential elections by direct popular suffrage are for French voters the most important
expressions of the general will. After the presidential elections of 1965, it became evident that

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