Keyword

Axes

Upper Left Quadrant Details Upper Right Quadrant Details Lower Left Quadrant Details Lower Right Quadrant Details Details

Quadrants

Outline

In the ULQ, election represents the classic and most widespread means for an individual to choose freely to participate (or not), by exercising her basic citizenship rights through expressing her own preferences. There is, though, a more elementary and less demanding form of participation, as in the LLQ, through opinions which can be easily changed. Media are the main channel through which opinions can be expressed, but also influenced to the point of manipulation and induced participation. Quite the opposite, the LRQ indicates intense political engagement on contentious issues and through radical forms of mass mobilization, falling within the category of social movements (Tilly and Tarrow 2006; Touraine 1981). The URQ refers to participation within the political system. Organized actors and lobbies play the role of gatekeepers to most institutional resources, usually by building more or less overt coalitions to maintain their monopoly as the power elite in the participatory game (Berger 1981). [Silvia Bolgherini]