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When conducting a postal survey, a traditional recommendation is to use paper postage stamps instead of an automated postage system, to make sure that invitations have a more personal and attractive appearance. In this research note, we investigate whether this traditional recommendation is still valid. In the autumn of 2020, a postal survey was conducted among high-school teachers in Belgium strictly adhering to the Dillman protocol. The overall response rate was 43.4%. Invitations with a real paper postage stamp had a three-percentage points higher response rate (44.9% versus 41.8%), but this difference proved not to be significant. There are no significant gender or age differences between the groups. In addition, the presence or absence of a paper stamp did not influence the respondents’ choice for answering the questionnaire online or on paper, as those who received a stamped envelope were equally likely to choose the online answering tool.

Political consumerism, that is, the buying or boycotting of goods and services for political or ethical reasons, is now firmly accepted as a form of political participation increasingly adopted by the young. In this article we investigate two claims often made concerning the democratic potential of political consumerism. First, visibility bias would imply that political consumerism mainly targets visible and often symbolic goods, without real economic impact. Our results suggest that participants indeed tend to focus on goods, and neglect services, despite the growing importance of the service sector. Second, it has been argued that political consumerism is only a weapon for the ‘happy few’. Our results indeed show that especially higher educated and progressive respondents tend to use political consumerism. Although our findings are based on specific samples in Belgium, and therefore cannot be generalised, we close with some observations on the broader democratic impact of political consumerism.

The literature on economic voting starts from the assumptions that citizens have a sufficiently high level of knowledge about their country’s economic situation, and that they vote according to their perception of the state of the economy. However, these assumptions have been challenged as economic perceptions could be plagued by partisan bias. We use the comparative dataset of the European Social Survey to investigate partisan bias in the perception of economic performance. Firstly, we observe that the economic perceptions of both supporters and opponents of governing parties are strongly related to real-life economic indicators such as gross domestic product growth and unemployment levels. Secondly, we find that shifts in economic performance (growth and unemployment) are strongly associated with similar changes in economic perceptions among both supporters of governing parties and opposition parties. There is, however, a significant but limited partisan bias in economic perceptions in countries with high levels of unemployment.

Turnout rates are in decline in advanced democracies, but the consequences of this trend for inequalities in participation have not yet been investigated in a large, comparative study. In this arti...

In Belgium, like in numerous other democracies, the representation of women in parliament has risen sharply in recent decades, partly because of gender quota legislation. This rapid evolution implies that traditional notions on the presence of gender bias in media reporting need to be re-assessed. Relying on data from more than six thousand full newscasts, we examine the allotted speaking time to members of parliament (MPs) from 2003 until 2011 in the two main television news broadcasts in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted to determine which factors influence the probability and volume of television news coverage of MPs. The results indicate that—even controlling for alternative explanations—news media persist in a biased treatment of female MPs: Female MPs are significantly less likely to be allotted speaking time, and they receive less speaking time than their male colleagues. Moreover, results show that this gap in media coverage is present especially for elite and thus newsworthy positions. Apparently, gender bias in the media persists, even when the political system evolves rapidly toward equal representation. ispartof: International Journal of Press / Politics vol:20 issue:4 pages:395-414 status: published

Various authors have claimed that citizenship norms have changed dramatically in contemporary societies. Recent research has studied the implications of Russell Dalton’s argument that duty-based citizenship norms (emphasizing voting and obeying the law) are being replaced by engaged citizenship norms (emphasizing self-expressive and non-institutionalized forms of participation). In this article we use the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Survey (ICCS 2009, n=140,650) to ascertain the cross-national empirical validity of engaged and duty-based norms. By means of latent class analysis, we show that both of these citizenship norms are indeed adhered to by different groups of adolescents. We also show however that only half of the research population holds these two norms, while other more traditional norms are also identified. The findings confirm expectations that high-status respondents with low political trust are more likely to adhere to engaged norms, but the country-level findings contradict expectations, showing that engaged norms are less prevalent in highly developed stable democracies, and this casts doubts on the hypothesis that new engaged citizenship norms are predominantly found in stable highly-developed democracies. ispartof: International Political Science Review vol:37 issue:1 pages:115-129 status: published

Political parties are essential linkage mechanisms between citizens and the political system. We know less, however, about the question how this mechanism operates. While some authors assume it is sufficient that parties offer citizens ideological options about the way society should be governed, others indicate that parties offer strong ties to the political system by offering stable identities like party membership. In this analysis of the European Social Survey cumulative file (five waves, 2002-2010), we investigate the relation between party membership, closeness to a political party and trust in political institutions. While party membership is declining, its relation with political trust is limited. We do not find any indication that the decline of party membership could have a substantial effect on levels of political trust. Feeling close to a political party is more strongly related to political trust, even controlling for political interest. Results indicate that in most European societies levels of party closeness are stable. We conclude that political parties function as a linkage mechanism between citizens and the state, but that there is no reason to attribute a privileged role to formal party membership, as feeling close to a political party has a stronger linkage effect. ispartof: Party Politics vol:21 issue:6 pages:944-956 ispartof: location:New Orleans status: published

This article investigates whether the commitment to social rights as integral to a well-functioning democracy exists among Americans in comparison to their European counterparts. In our comparison of data from the European Social Survey (2012) with a special parallel module of the US Cooperative Congressional Election Survey (2014) the findings suggest that similar conceptions of ideal democracy are found on both sides of the Atlantic. Although Americans are less likely than Europeans to consider fighting poverty and reducing income inequality as important democratic ideals, the analysis shows that the US is not exceptional in the existence of a social rights conception of democracy. A distinct feature of US public opinion is that support for social rights is more strongly associated with a left-right divide than in Europe. The observed congruence between policy and public opinion in the US highlights the importance of investigating the direction of causality between both phenomena. ispartof: Sociological Perspectives vol:61 issue:1 pages:14-38 ispartof: location:Chicago status: published

Within the literature there is a growing concern about lower voter turnout rates among young age cohorts. In this article we investigate the reported willingness to vote among 72,466 14-year old adolescents from 22 European countries, taking part in the International Citizen and Civic Education Survey (ICCS, 2009). Results indicate that the willingness to vote remains quite elevated among this age group, but with a clear gender division. While girls are more likely to state that they will vote, boys are more likely to see themselves as a future election candidate. An open classroom climate at school contributes to the willingness to vote in future elections. The elements that are known to have an effect on the turnout level of adults, however, do not have a significant impact on the intention to vote among adolescents. This would suggest that the observed lower turnout rate among young age groups cannot just be attributed to an alleged lack of political motivation among adolescents, and that therefore other elements will have to be taken into account if we want to explain this downward trend ispartof: Young: the Nordic Journal of Youth Research vol:21 issue:1 pages:1-28 ispartof: location:Seattle status: published

While party membership figures are clearly in decline in several Western countries, different interpretations have been offered on the likely consequences of this trend. Some authors stress that members have lost most of their importance for political parties that increasingly rely on professionalized campaign techniques. Other scholars have expressed concern about the decline of party membership. They emphasize the fact that party members continue to function as an important linkage mechanism providing a structural alignment between the party and society (and thus also to potential voters). By means of an election forecasting model for Belgium, we test whether party membership figures still can be related to election results. Results show that party membership has a strong effect on election results, and furthermore, that this relation does not weaken during the period under investigation (1981-2010). The analysis also demonstrates that forecasting models can also be used in a complex multiparty system like Belgium. ispartof: Party Politics vol:20 issue:3 pages:368-380 status: published

As voter turnout is steadily declining in western democracies, various authors have expressed concern about the stratification in electoral participation that this trend might entail. Some research suggests that specific categories of potential voters refrain from voting, leading to the electoral dominance of more privileged groups within the population. In this article, we investigate whether systems of compulsory voting are associated with more equal participation in elections. We study 36 countries that participated in the 2004 International Social Survey Programme. The analysis shows that compulsory voting is associated with higher turnout rates, but we do not observe any significant differences in electoral participation based on gender or educational level. However, we find a significant interaction effect between age and compulsory voting, suggesting that young age cohorts are unlikely to be affected by the dynamics of the civic duty argument that is inherent in systems of compulsory voting.

Traditional sociological insights assume that cities are characterized by lower levels of voluntary engagement as it is expected that community size and population density are negatively associated with network and mobilization opportunities. Others, however, argue that cities allow for the formation of different networks that are no longer based on ascribed personal characteristics. The authors analyze voluntary association membership in Belgium, based on the “Social Cohesion Indicators in Flanders” dataset ( n = 2,080 respondents, sampled in 40 communities). The analysis shows that neither population density nor community size have an effect on scope or intensity of participation in voluntary associations. Only two forms of associations are negatively related to population density. Their results therefore do not support the hypothesis of a rural-urban divide in participation in voluntary associations. They speculate how future research could take into account different sorts of voluntary associations when investigating the rural-urban divide and include other measurements of participation.

The purpose of the article is to examine whether an acculturation of trust takes place among non-western immigrants upon migrating to Western Europe and whether inclusionary integration policies have an effect on this process. Building on the second and third wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) we show that an acculturation of trust does take place, but that integration policy does not affect this process. In spite of some variation across destination countries, we also find that second generation immigrants tend to adapt more to the level of trust of natives in the destination country than first generation immigrants do. This indicates that the acculturation of trust is strengthened with the second generation in the country. The results hold up when controlling for confounding variables including the trust in the country of origin of immigrants.

Both anecdotal and case-study evidence have long suggested that consumer behavior such as the buying or boycotting of products and services for political and ethical reasons can take on political significance. Despite recent claims that such behavior has become more widespread in recent years, political consumerism has not been studied systematically in survey research on political participation. Through the use of a pilot survey conducted among 1015 Canadian, Belgian, and Swedish students, we ascertain whether political consumerism is a sufficiently consistent behavioral pattern to be measured and studied meaningfully. The data from this pilot survey allow us to build a “political consumerism index” incorporating attitudinal, behavioral, and frequency measurements. Our analysis of this cross-national student sample suggests that political consumerism is primarily a tool of those who are distrustful of political institutions. However, political consumers have more trust in other citizens, and they are disproportionately involved in checkbook organizations. They also tend to score highly on measures of political efficacy and post-materialism. We strongly suggest including measurements of political consumerism together with other emerging forms of activism in future population surveys on political participation.

It has been claimed that the current decline in party membership indicates the demise of mass-based parties. Despite the fact that youth organizations within parties traditionally played an important role in the recruitment of party members, these organizations have never been studied systematically. A survey among city councillors in Belgium (Flanders) demonstrates that youth sections of political parties serve as crucial recruitment channels: 41 percent of all councillors started their political career in a youth organization. We provide evidence that youth membership offers substantial advantages in building a political career. Youth organizations lose members much more rapidly than parties in general, which might further contribute to the demise of political parties. This implies that in the future political parties will have to rely on alternative mechanisms to recruit members. The current crisis of youth organizations could imply that the downward trend in the number of party members will continue.

Although most of the literature on social capital argues that voluntary associations are of crucial importance for the establishment of a democratic political culture, empirical research usually reveals but a weak effect of membership on democratic attitudes. This article investigates the possibility that this weak relation might be the result of an inadequate measurement of participation. In testing this hypothesis, the author relies on the results of a face-to-face survey that proved to be representative for the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium. Previous memberships are shown to have strong effects on civic attitudes and feelings of political empowerment. This would imply that a full measurement of participation should not be limited to current membership status but should also include the entire participation history of the respondent.

In the debate on the alleged erosion of social cohesion in Western societies, some authors have stressed the negative role of television. Others have argued that some programs like news and current affairs programs could strengthen civic engagement and political participation. In this article, the author uses cross-sectional survey data in an effort to disentangle the possible causal mechanisms between television and political behavior and attitudes. No evidence is found for a time-replacement effect on the individual level, but robust relations are found between television and attitudinal components of social capital. While news programs are positively related with some of these attitudes, consistent negative relations are found with the time spent on television and a preference for entertainment programs and commercial stations. This could imply that commercial stations, especially, cultivate a less civic-minded value pattern among their viewers. The analysis demonstrates that television effects are dependent not only on the time people spend but also on the kind of programs they watch and (at least in countries with a public broadcasting system) on the station they tune in to.

In recent years, voluntary associations and political organizations have increasingly switched to Internet-based mobilization campaigns, replacing traditional forms of face-to-face recruitment and mobilization. The existing body of empirical research on Internet-based mobilization, however, is not conclusive about the effects this form of mobilization might have. In this article, the authors argue that this lack of strong conclusions might be due to the failure to distinguish different behavioral outcomes of mobilization, and more specifically, a distinction between online and off-line forms of participation is missing. In this experimental study, participants were exposed to potentially mobilizing information either by way of face-to-face interaction or by website. The results of the experiment indicate that web-based mobilization only has a significant effect on online participation, whereas face-to-face mobilization has a significant impact on off-line behavior, which would imply that mobilization effects are medium-specific. The authors close with some observations on what these findings might imply for the democratic consequences of the current trend toward an increasing reliance on Internet-based forms of political mobilization. ispartof: Social Science Computer Review vol:30 issue:2 pages:152-169 ispartof: location:Barcelona status: published

During recent election campaigns non-partisan party profile websites (PPWs) have become hugely popular in various countries with multiparty systems, sometimes even attracting 25 percent of all voters. On these interactive websites, PPW users respond to policy questions, and their answers are used to calculate the distance between their own preferences and party agendas, resulting in an individualized 'party profile'. PPWs can be seen as one of the few innovations in election campaigning that fully exploit the internet's interactive opportunities. The analysis in this article of the log files of 2003 and 2004 Belgian PPWs demonstrate that PPW users tend to be highly educated, male and young. Party and policy preferences of late PPW users (the final days before the elections) are not more crystallized than those of early PPW users (40 days before the elections). The article concludes with speculation on what this finding might reveal about campaign dynamics. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications. ispartof: pages:965-985 ispartof: New media & society vol:9 issue:6 pages:965-985 ispartof: location:DC, Washington status: published