ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 examines the involvement of West European RLP voters in unions, civil society organizations, and non-electoral forms of political participation. RLPs have traditionally been considered to be working-class parties and a part of the workers’ movement. They have maintained strong ties with the labour movement as well as other social movements, and this is reflected in the characteristics of their electorate. RLP voters are a highly mobilized group of individuals, who are often involved in non-electoral forms of political action as well as trade unions and other civil society organizations. However, they do not show higher levels of mobilization than voters with an equivalent socio-economic and attitudinal profile. Therefore, while some forms of political engagement, such as union membership, have a direct impact on the probability to vote for RLPs, this effect is generally small compared to other key individual-level variables examined in Chapters 3 and 4.
