Political Participation in a Changing World

Yannis Theocharis is Research Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, Germany. His research focuses on political behavior, political communication, new media, and social networks. He was Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and has co-directed several projects investigating the impact of social media on politics. His work has appeared in political science and communication journals such as Journal of Communication, European Political Science Review, New Media & Society, and Electoral Studies.Jan W. van Deth is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Comparative Social Research at the University of Mannheim, Germany. His research areas are political culture (especially social capital, political engagement, and citizenship), social change, and comparative research methods. He is a Corresponding Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and Project Director at the MZES. His publications appeared in leading international journals and with high-ranked publishers.

• Preface 1. Would you recognize a form of political participation if you saw one? 2. The continuous expansions of political participation 3. The continuous expansions of concepts and definitions of political participation 4. Conceptualizing political participation 5. Measuring old and new forms of political participation 6. A road map for the study of political participation

'Citizen political participation is increasing and diversifying in contemporary democracies. Political Participation in a Changing World provides a theoretical guide to this rich and expanding literature. Theocharis and van Deth present a valuable summary of the research evidence and the new research questions in the participation field.' - Russell J. Dalton, University of California'Political Participating in a Changing World addresses several scholarly debates associated with studying how, where, and why citizens engage in politics. The authors argue that participation research has not sufficiently acknowledged societal developments such as globalization, digitalization, and individualization. Theocharis and van Deth attempt to remedy this weakness by identifying five distinct modes of participation that can be used to study how and why citizens engage in and beyond the parliamentary realm of politics. This book offers important advice about studying participation in looser and transnational governance settings that use citizen action to address complex, borderless problems.' - Michele Micheletti, Stockholm University