ABSTRACT
Political participation is one very important element of democracy. As indicated in chapter 1, democracy needs some form of political participation in order for it to be a democracy. Even the most minimalist ideas on democracy incorporate some elements of popular input in the design of democracy. However, it seems that the public has to some extent withdrawn from politics in democracies – people trust several aspects of their democratic system less, they appear less involved in politics, and fewer people seem to be involved in civic or voluntary organisations. These notions have caused concern about the future of democracy – how can a democracy be exactly that when the demos has withdrawn itself from the political process? These concerns were one of the motivations for this study on the changing patterns of political participation: is there indeed such a withdrawal, and how can we explain this?
