Politická participace - teorie a koncepty

This paper aims at reviewing concepts and theories of political participation. First part presents classical Verba’s and Barnes and Kaase’s definitions of political participation. Subsequently it shows how the repertoire of political activities has changed since the time the classical concepts were formulated. The paper argues that the transformation of political participation happened in three distinct dimensions, i.e. goals, targets, and space. On this basis and drawing on Teorell et al. and Rosenstone and Hansen a new definition of political participation as “action by ordinary citizens directed toward influencing some political outcomes: distribution of social goods and norms” is introduced. The second part of the paper deals with theories of political participation. It presents a three-level explanation model according to the level of analysis used by particular theories: micro (individual), meso (intermediary) and macro (structural) levels. Last but not least, the paper focuses on major theories explaining political participation: individual resources and political values (micro), social capital (meso), and modernization and institutional explanation (macro).