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Democracy in Transition pp 21–42Cite as

Contemporary Political Participation Research: A Critical Assessment

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Abstract

This chapter investigates and analyses contemporary research regarding political participation. An extensive discussion on different conceptualizations and definitions of political participation is presented, raising the issue pertaining to the distinction between conventional and unconventional political participation and showing why this distinction is largely artificial and to a certain extent elusive. To facilitate our discussion about extreme and violent political participation activities (as they are described in contemporary research), frequent references are drawn to perceptions of the ancient Athenians as regards the roles and civil duties as citizens within their community, showing that these duties did not necessarily distinguish between different types of participation. The chapter makes further theoretical suggestions for future, pointing out the useful synergy between sociological research and political science analysis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more information, the interested reader is redirected to Postill (2010).

  2. 2.

    For the readers who are not familiar with the work of Isaac Asimov, it is useful to say that he was an inspired author who published science fiction novels in the 1950s with the name Foundation Trilogy. In those books, Asimov foresaw the evolution of the science of psychohistory, a science which could forecast political, economic and social events. Asimov himself explained that psychohistory was “the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations” (Asimov 1983, p. xi).

  3. 3.

    We have already visited, in this chapter, theories of political behaviour with foundations on concepts familiar from Game Theory such as the decision-theoretic framework.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social and Political Science, University of Cyprus, 20537, 1678, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Iasonas Lamprianou

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Correspondence to Iasonas Lamprianou .

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  1. , Department of Social and Political Scien, University of Cyprus, Kallipoleos 75, Nicosia, 1678, Cyprus

    Kyriakos N. Demetriou

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Lamprianou, I. (2013). Contemporary Political Participation Research: A Critical Assessment. In: Demetriou, K. (eds) Democracy in Transition. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30068-4_2

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