FS in 90-203
THE NORMALIZATION OF THE UNCONVENTIONAL Forms of Political Action
and New Social Movements Dieter Fuchs
Berlin, September 1990
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung gGmbH (WZB) Reichpietschufer 50, D-1000 Berlin 30,
Telefon: (030) 25 49 1-0
Discussion Paper FS HI 90-203.
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin.
Unkonventionelle Formen politscher Beteiligung sind inzwischen zu einer Normalität in der politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik geworden. Diese Normalisierung des Unkonventionellen ist nach den analysierten Umfragedaten kein Ausdruck einer funda
mentalen Unzufriedenheit m it den etablierten Formen der Artikulation von Interessen. "Neue"
und "alte" Formen politischer Beteiligung bilden in der Perspektive der Bürger kein gegensätzliches Verhältnis, sondern sind komplementäre Optionen, die situationsspezifisch eingesetzt werden. Ein Anpassungsdruck auf das politische System im Sinne eines strukturellen Wandels ist von daher gesehen eher unwahrscheinlich.
Abstract
Unconventional forms o f political participation have become a normality in the W est German political culture in the meantime. This normalization of the unconventional is, according to the survey data we analyzed, not an expression o f a fundamental dissatisfaction with the established forms o f interest articulation. "New" and "old" forms are not in a conflicting relationship, but are complementary options to be used depending on the situation. Seen from this perspective, it is unlikely that the political system will experience stress leading to a structural change.
1. Introduction
One aspect of the political process in the Western democracies has undergone a fundamental change since the middle of the 60s. Up until this point in time, the average citizen’s articulation of political interests had been primarily limited to established forms of political participation in the context of representative institutions. The main expression of this participation was voting for a specific political party in periodic elections. In this form of political participation, the articulation of political interests was only possible as a generalized support for the political platform of the parties selected.
This generalized support on the part of the electorate was specified by the political authorities and transformed into collectively binding decisions. Since then, new collective actors have emerged alongside of the parties and are playing an increasingly important role in the political process. These were first of all the various protest movements, which were subsequently replaced by the so-called new social movements (Roth 1985; Rucht 1989). The new social movements primarily used non- institutionalized forms of action to articulate their political interests. These action forms had two sources: they had either been reactivated from the tradition of the workers’
movement or were newly developed in the context of the movements themselves. They differ from institutionalized action forms primarily in the fact that they are aimed directly at the political authorities and express very specific interests. This creates a qualitatively new relationship between citizens and political authorities, which Inglehart (1989) characterizes as a change from "elite directed" to "elite challenging" politics.
Kaase (1984) describes this development as a "participatory revolution".
While the expansion of the political participation repertory of ordinary citizens through non-institutionalized or unconventional actions can be considered as an empirically established phenomenon (Bames/Kaase et al. 1979; Jennings/van Deth et al. 1989), the consequences of this phenomenon for the political system are still unclear. Is this a sign of a structural change in the intermediary system of politics, or is it only connected with a peripheral adjustment to a changing societal environment which does not affect the identity of the system? We cannot directly discuss this question on the basis of the survey data analyzed. We can only collect empirical evidence to find out whether this behavior is exerting a "stress" (Easton 1965) on the intermediary system of politics which could potentially lead to institutional changes.
For the time being, we will be proceeding from the assumption that a pressure for the representatively constituted intermediary system to adjust would become greater to the
extent that the use of non-institutionalized forms of action by its citizens increases.
From the backdrop of this assumption we will be attempting to trace the development of non-institutional or unconventional political participation over time in the Federal Republic of Germany. Then we will be looking at the question of whether the unconventional forms of participation and the new social movements which primarily use them are more likely to be seen as a supplement or a replacement for traditional politics. An integration into the existing institutional system would surely be easier if they are seen to be complementary than if they are considered as substitutive.
2. Trends of participation in unconventional forms of action
We can rely on indicators developed in the Political Action Study to empirically determine participation in unconventional political action forms. A total of nine unconventional action forms were differentiated in the first wave of this study (Bames/Kaase et al. 1979). These were supplemented in the second wave by an additional action form - the participation in citizen action groups (Jennings/van Deth et al. 1989). The respondents indicated for each form of action whether they had already taken part in such an action, whether they would participate in an important situation, in an extraordinary situation, or whether they would not participate under any circum
stances. In regard to these indicators there are data for 1974 and 1980 from the two waves of the Political Action Study. The battery of questions was later partially (1985/86 and 1988) or completely (1989) covered in three subsequent representative surveys, so that we have access to data for a total of five points in time covering a sixteen year period (s. Appendix).
In table 1, the percentages of those surveyed who had already participated in the respective action form or who would participate under certain circumstances (in important or extraordinary situation) are presented for each point in time. Only people who had indicated that they would not participate under any circumstances were excluded. The percentages given in table 1 thus represented the greatest possible potential for participation in the individual actions. The basis for the percentages was all people surveyed who were 18 years and older and had given a valid response. In contrast to the Political Action Survey we did not form a Guttman scale, but left the answers untransformed. We did, however, list the individual actions in the same order as the Guttman scales made for the 1974 and 1980 data sets. That meant that the
"easiest" forms of action were listed first and the "most difficult" at the end. In this
manner we obtained a hierarchy in the sense of a latent "difficulty dimension". Because the Guttman scale is a technical procedure, it reveals little about the content of the latent difficulty dimension determined. This would necessitate further systematic empirical analyses which have yet to be performed. With a closer inspection of the individual forms of action and their arrangement, there are a few theoretical possibilities which present themselves: it could, for example, be a latent dimension of risk or effort. A final decision over these questions has to be left open here. As the distribution of responses shows, however, ordering the action forms according to the latent difficulty criterion proved to be justified. The potential for participation in the individual action forms is greater the higher they are located in the hierarchy and lesser the lower their standing.
This holds true for all five points in time.
Table 1: Unconventional Political Actions: Participation Potential (Percentage)
1974 1980 1985/86 1988 1989
Legal
unconventional
Signing a petition 85,3 82,3 80,9 80,1 85,4
Citizen action group - 77,2 74,7 75,0 79,2
actions
Lawful demonstration 66,0 51,1 57,0 51,0 58,6
Boycott 53,0 44,4 50,3 47,5 55,2
Rent strike 29,5 27,9 - - 38,4
Civil
disobedience Blocking traffic 26,5 23,5 - - 30,6
Wildcat strike 22,5 17,5 - - 21,2
Occupying buildings 16,8 13,8 - - 16,0
Political Violence against others 5,4 4,2 - ■ 4,4
violence
Damaging property 3,4 3,1 - - 3,0
N 2243 2061 1843 3052 962
Notes: Percentage of respondents who answered that they have participated, would participate or might participate.
Respondents with missing data were excluded.
The largest relative gaps in regard to the quantity of the participation potential occurred between "boycott" and "rent strike" and between "occupying buildings" and "violence against others". In the first case, the gap is characterized by crossing the line between legality and illegality and in the second case by crossing the violence threshold. This empirical finding confirms our classifying the different unconventional actions into
three general categories based on theoretical considerations and dimensional analyses (Fuchs 1984; Uehlinger 1988; Kaase 1989b). These three categories are labelled "legal unconventional action", "civil disobedience" and "political violence". The structure exhibited by the willingness to participate in unconventional actions is apparently more complex than was frequently assumed. On the one hand, we have a continuum in the sense of a latent difficulty dimension and, on the other hand, thresholds or leaps within this continuum at the legality and violence lines. The former structural feature is revealed with an application of the Guttman scale (Bames/Kaase et al. 1979) and the latter by applying a multidimensional scaling (Uehlinger 1988). Limiting the analysis to one procedure or the other would thus not suffice to define the structure of uncon
ventional political participation.
There are quite different views regarding the developmental trends in the willingness of people to participate in unconventional forms of political action. Whereas Kaase (1989a: 35) saw a "substantial de-legitimation of direct action tactics, both of the legal and the illegal type" on the basis of a comparison between 1974 and 1980, Uehlinger (1988: 143), on the other hand, discovered an increase in legitimation for actions of civil disobedience and political violence on the basis of a comparison between 1980 and 1985. This diverging assessment can quite obviously be traced to the different periods which were compared. A picture of pronounced stability in the willingness to participate is conveyed if several points in time are taken into consideration (see table 1). Berger, Gibowski and Roth (1989:45) come to a similar conclusion on the basis of a time series with six surveys between 1984 and 1989 based on comparable indicators.
Only the two "easiest" action forms of civil disobedience have diverged somewhat from this apparent stability. In 1989, we can see a 9% increase in the willingness to participate in "rent strikes" compared to 1974; the willingness to participate in "traffic blockades" increased by 4% in the same period. In our opinion, it would be rash to conclude from this that the willingness to participate in actions of civil disobedience as a whole had increased. In the first place, the increase observed was only in regard to one point in time, this means that a random variation caused by the sample and the effects of factors specific to the situation cannot be ruled out. In the second place, the willingness to participate in the other two forms of civil disobedience did not increase compared to 1974, but decreased slightly.
A functioning political process in a given institutional framework requires the acceptance of certain basic norms controlling this process. Among these are the principle of legality and the taboo in regard to violence. According to our empirical fin-
dings, the taboo on violence has not been loosened. This willingness existed by a maximum of 5% of the respondents at all three points in time where data on the willingness to participate in violent actions were available. This share also included those who responded that they would only participate in such violent acts in an extraordinary situation. As the analyses by Kaase and Neidhardt (1990) suggest, the respondents frequently envisioned this extraordinary situation as resisting an attempt to eliminate the democratic political system, thus a situation expressly legitimated in the West German Constitution ("Grundgesetz"). Such a definition of the situation can hardly be regarded as abandoning the taboo on violence.
The participation potential is clearly greater in regard to the action forms of civil disobedience. It varies considerably, though, with the "difficulty" of the action. It can be surmised that this "difficulty" is connected with the subjective perception of the degree of divergence from the legality principle and thus the increased risk involved in this participation. Based on the distribution in 1989, the participation potential would amount to around one third of the respondents for the two "easier" actions, and around one fifth for the two more "difficult" ones. The extent to which these amounts can be in
terpreted as an erosion of the legality principle is difficult to determine. Of central importance for this issue is, in our opinion, the question of what the citizens consider to be "important" and "extraordinary" situations. Unfortunately, we have no data on this subject. From the share of respondents who have actually taken part in one of these forms of civil disobedience, conclusions can be drawn to a certain extent as to how many respondents would consider such a situation to exist in West Germany.
Before we discuss this question, we would like to summarize the most important findings in regard to legal-unconventional actions. The potential for this dimension also varies with the degree of "difficulty" of the action form. The participation potential includes a majority of the respondents in all four cases, however. The legal- unconventional activities have therefore almost become a normality in the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany. At least in regard to "signing a petition"
and "citizen action groups", the willingness to participate is so pronounced that the label
"unconventional" is hardly appropriate any more, except when it is interpreted in the sense of not being institutionalized.
In table 2, the percentages of the respondents who had actually participated in the individual actions, are presented. In the formulation of the question, this participation was limited to the preceding ten years so that the time period covered would start in
1964, thus around the time when the protest movements were becoming important (Rucht 1989). It is immediately clear from the distributions in table 2 that when looking at "political violence" and "civil disobedience", we are only dealing with a very small percentage of the respondents who admitted that they had ever taken part in these action forms. The share is almost without exception equal or less than 1%. It was only a little above one percent in the case of "blocking traffic". The participation potential for these two dimensions is therefore hardly ever transferred into actual behavior. This is also true for the two "easiest" action forms of civil disobedience, although a relatively large participation potential was determined. The participation rates would hardly let us conclude that a large number of citizens perceive an "important" or "extraordinary"
situation in the Federal Republic of Germany which could necessitate their participation in acts of civil disobedience or even political violence. This conclusion appears justified in view of the extraordinarily low level of the participation rates, even if we take into account the fact that a transfer of the willingness to participate into actual deeds does not only take place due to the individual citizen’s situational definitions in regard to a specific problem, but is also dependent on other factors like the subjective and objective opportunity structure.
Table 2: Unconventional Political Actions: Actual Participation (Percentage)
1974 1980 1985/86 1988 1989
Signing a petition 30,8 18,0 30,2 27,4 28,7
Legal
unconventional actions
Citizen action group - 6,6 13,5 14,2 12,4
Lawful demonstration 8,7 4,7 11,3 12,2 6,8
Boycott 4,4 1,4 4,6 5,9 5,6
Rent strike 0,8 0,5 0,6
Civil
disobedience Blocking traffic 1,7 1,0 - - 1,3
Wildcat strike 1,0 0,3 - - 0,6
Occupying buikSngs 0,2 0,1 - - 0,6
Political Violence against others 0,3 0,1 - - 0,3
violence
Damaging property 0,3 0,1 - - 0,3
N 2243 2061 1843 3052 962
Notes: Percentages of respondents who answered that they have participated.
Respondents with missing data were excluded.
Compared to "civil disobedience" and "political violence", actual participation in the legal unconventional actions is considerably greater. But in these actions we are also only dealing with small minorities. "Signing a petition", where an average of slightly more than one quarter of the respondents had already participated, was somewhat of an exception here.
In order to quantify the degree to which the participation potential is realized we have calculated the percentage of actual participation out of the total participation potential (see Table 3). If the average realization rate is taken as a basis, then this is about 33%
for signing a petition, 15% each for "citizen action group" and "lawful demonstration"
and 9% for "boycott". The results show that there is also a considerable discrepancy between potential and behavior with the legal unconventional actions. If we have established elsewhere that the legal unconventional actions have become a normal occurrence in the political culture in the Federal Republic o f Germany, then this observation now has to be modified. The normalization refers above all to the attitudinal level and less to the behavioral level. A potential which is not converted into behavior, however, remains relatively ineffective politically.
Table 3: Unconventional Political Actions: Realization of the Partiepation Potential through Actual Participation (Percentage)
1974 1980 1985/86 1988 1989
Legal
unconventional
Signing a petition 36,2 21,9 37,3 34,2 33,6
Citizen action group - 8,5 18,1 18,9 15,4
actions
Lawful demonstration 13,2 9,2 19,8 23,9 11,6
Boycott 8,3 3,2 9,1 12,4 10,1
Rent strike 2,7 1,8 1,6
Civil
disobedience Blocking traffic 6,4 4,3 - - 4,2
Wildcat strike 4,4 1,7 - - 2,8
Occupying buildings 1,2 0,7 - - 1,9
Political Violence against others 5.6 2,4 - - 6,8
violence
Damaging property 8,8 3,2 - - 10,0
Note: Percentages of the actual participation on the participation potential.
3. Trends in participation in new social movements
The use of unconventional actions by citizens does not take place as an isolated action by each individual, but as participation in collective actions. In West Germany, this type of collective action is currently being organized above all in the context of the new social movements. The new social movements thus provide the primary opportunity structure for individual participation in collective actions. The generalized willingness to participate in unconventional action forms, which was the object of our analysis in the last chapter, does not necessarily have to be realized in participation in collective actions of the new social movements. In principle, it is conceivable that totally different groups could organize collective actions. In practice, however, this is hardly the case in West Germany. Because the new social movements have consolidated themselves as a permanent phenomenon and have institutionalized themselves in this sense (Roth 1989), we believe that at least in the near future it can be expected that unconventional actions will primarily take place in the context of these movements. We are therefore attempting to determine the participation potential for new social movements. The participation in new social movements can be determined above all by participation in their collective actions. Collective actions of the new social movements are characterized by a specific connection between means and ends: the attempt is made to realize a specific category of objectives by using unconventional action forms. The question of whether the fundamental commonality of these goals can be seen in the paradigm of life-styles (Raschke 1985), in anti-modernism (Klandermans/Tarrow
1988), or in postmaterialism (Inglehart 1989) need not be discussed further here.
Important in our context is the fact that the willingness of citizens to participate in collective actions of the new social movements is dependent on their attitude regarding the ends and means of these actions. It could be shown that the direct question regarding the attitude toward the new social movements involves both components (Fuchs/Kiihnel
1990).
In order to make a concrete determination of the potential participation in new social movements we have an indicator at our disposal which was developed by Nicholas Watts and David Handley and which, thanks to financial support by the "Social Science Center Berlin", could be included in several Eurobarometer surveys. The indicator consists of the following question: "Many groups and movements are seeking public support nowadays. Could you tell me for each of the following movements whether you (a) approve or disapprove of it and (b) whether you are a member, might join, or will definitely not join." Included on the list of groups and movements which was given to
the people interviewed were the "ecology movement", the "anti-nuclear power movement" and the "peace movement", thus the three most important new social movements in West Germany.
In this analysis we will be focusing on the second part of the question which referred to the membership in new social movements. Membership in the strict sense of the word can only exist in formal organizations with clear boundaries in respect to their environment. One of the characteristics of new social movements is, however, that they are not formal organizations in this sense, but only develop transitory organizational cores with unclear boundaries (Neidhardt 1985). Despite this difficulty, we believe that the respondents could establish a meaningful relation between the membership question and the new social movements. The respondents generally do not have a definition of membership available, but presumably understand it in the sense in which the creators of the indicator intended, as another word for participation. Participation in the new social movements can be concretized in a twofold manner: firstly, as a participation in one of the initiative groups which organize collective actions (social movement organizations) and secondly, as participation in these collective actions. E we assume that the respondents understand membership in the way it was described above, then the question is a valid indicator for determining the participation potential and actual participation in new social movements.
In contrast to the usual procedure of excluding missing values from the percentages, we have included them in table 4. Using our indicator to determine the participation potential for new social movements implied that "new social movements", as the object being studied, were also cognitively present in the theoretically intended sense for the respondents. This assumption (which implies quite a number of preconditions) can hardly be made for the politically disinterested (Fuchs/Kühnel 1990). It does not make much sense, however, to determine the participation potential of people who cannot relate meaningfully to the object "new social movement". A realistic determination of the participation potential therefore requires that those people interviewed who did not give a valid answer also be included in the percentages. The respondents with little political interest are clearly overrepresented in this category (data are not presented). As table 4 shows, about one third of the respondents could not give a meaningful answer to the membership question for each of the three movements.
E c o lo g y M ovem ent Member
Might join Would not join Don 1 know
1-6 > 2 1 , 5 1 9 ,9 ^ 42,1 36,4 TÜÖ-
” e7s > 27'2 38.4 34.4
“ T O T
0.® > 2 5 ,7 25,i 41,4 32,9
" W
1>3 > 3 6 ,7 35,4<
34,1 29,3 100 A n ti-N u c le a r P ow er
M ovem ent Member Might join Would not join D o n 't know
11-5 > 1 8 , 9 1 7 , 4 ^ 44,9 36,1 1ÖÖ
°>5 > 2 0 , 9 20,4 <
44,9 34,2
“ TDÖ“
0.5 > 22,0 21,5 42,7 35,3
1«1 > 3 4 ,2 33, r 36.4 29.4 100 Peace M ovem ent
Member Might join Would not join Don t know
2.0 > 3 3 , 5 31.5 33,0 33.5 100
01.6 > 38,6 37,(T 28,9 32,5 100
1’4 > 3 9 ,6 38,2 27„4 33,0 100
2.4 \ 44,2 41,8"^
27.4 28.4 100
N 1197 992 987 1202
Data base: Eurobarometer 1 7 ,2 1,2 5 ,31a
Analogous to our procedure with unconventional action forms, we counted those citizens who had already taken part and those who might join as the participation potential of the new social movements. We proceeded from the assumption that those who had already participated in the new social movements in some manner would also do so again if the situation should arise. The citizens’ willingness to participate increased for all three movements in the period observed. The largest relative increase took place between 1986 and 1989. The nuclear accident in Chernobyl could be one of the reasons for this increase. This event was primarily a concern for the anti-nuclear power movement, but due to the fact that the three movements are obviously seen together in the public perception (Fuchs/Kühnel 1990), it would not be unreasonable to suggest that this event could have had an effect on the other two movements.
Answering the question of whether structural factors could have caused the increase in the participation potential would require further analyses, which we are not undertaking at this point. We do want to record the empirical fact that the participation potential for all three movements encompassed more than one third of the population. The potential was almost surely underestimated in the case of the ecology movement due to a reference to the Green Party in the formulation of the question. As the Green Party is seen to be much more controversial than the ecology movement, we can assume that the responses were distorted to an extent Empirical support for this assumption is found in
the results of another representative survey in 1989 (Gewaltstudie, s. appendix), in which the ecology movement received the most positive rating of all new social movements.
As in the case of the unconventional action forms, the expressed willingness to participate in the new social movements remained lip service for the overwhelming majority of respondents. The share of the respondents who had actually participated in these movements varies between 1.1% and 2.4% in 1989. This means a 3.5% rate of realization of the willingness to participate for the ecology movement, 3.2% for the anti-nuclear power movement and 5.4% for the peace movement. The new social movements have a great deal of public support on the attitudinal level. This support became even clearer when people were only asked how they rated the movements and not about their willingness to participate (Fuchs/Rucht 1990). The matter looks quite differently on the action level. Only a very small minority of citizens actually transferred their expressed willingness into actual participation. The discrepancy between potential and behavior also emerges in respect to the new social movements.
4. New forms of political participation and established politics
A crisis of the Western democracies has been diagnosed time and again for at least two decades. Each of the diagnoses has given differing reasons for this crisis. According to most theories dealing with the stability of political systems, a system crisis would have to be expressed in the citizens withdrawing their support for this system. All previous empirical studies which have systematically examined this question have shown that such a withdrawal of support has not taken place in West Germany up to now (Gabriel 1986; Fuchs 1989; Westle 1989). The expansion of unconventional political action forms is frequently also interpreted as a manifestation of this presumed crisis (Huntington 1974; Crozier et al. 1975; Dalton 1988). If we were to accept this hypothesis for the time being and connect it with the empirical fact of a noticeably large degree of support for the political system as a whole, then we would have to conclude that there is an erosion of support at a lower level which could, in the long run, have an affect on the political system as a whole. This lower level would be the intermediary system of articulating interests and transmitting them to the polity. In the following empirical analysis we want to pick up the thread of this reasoning and determine the extent to which the new forms of political participation have a complementary or a
substitutive relationship to established politics. We are investigating this both on the level of the action forms and on the level of the collective actors.
One of the most important findings of the Political Action Study was, according to Kaase (1989: 27), a complementarity of conventional and unconventional participation.
He saw the proof in the correlation between the two dimensions (r = .28 in the 1974 survey). We will take up this finding and try to reproduce it using comparable indicators for a newer study, which was carried out in 1989 (Gewaltstudie). The people inter
viewed in this study were presented with a battery of questions containing the following conventional and unconventional action forms:
-to take part in elections
-to participate in gatherings for public discussions - to join a political party and actively take part - to sign a petition
- participation in a citizen action group
- participation in a lawful political demonstration - participation in a forbidden demonstration - participation in a wildcat strike
- occupying buildings, factories, offices
- really raising hell at a demonstration, even if something is destroyed in the process - emphatically presenting your own point of view, even if it comes to a direct con
frontation with the police or the public authority
- to fight for a cause, even if it is necessary to use violence against those who are politically responsible.
The respondents were instructed to indicate for each of the action forms whether they would use it to emphasize their political viewpoint. The action forms were again ordered according to their presumed "degree of difficulty". A Guttman scale for em
pirical verification was again not carried out in this case, however. These action forms replicate the indicators from Schmidtchen’s study "Jugend und Staat" ("Youth and the State") which formed the basis for a large share of Uehlinger’s dimensional analyses (1988). A factor analysis was carried out with these indicators. We selected a skewed rotation in order to allow for the a priori fact of a correlation between the factors.
Because we defined four different dimensions of political action forms on the basis of the above-mentioned theoretical considerations and dimensional analyses, we tried to take this into account in the factor analysis by specifying four factors. One of the factors
could not be interpreted in the four factor solution so we reduced the given number of factors to three. The results of this factor analysis are presented in table 5.
Table 5: Dimensions of Political Action (Factor Analysis; Factor loadings >.250)
Factors 1 2 3
Conventional actions
Electoral participation Participation in discussions Party work
.320 .658 .476
Legal unconventional Signing a petion .617
actions Citizen action group .690
Lawful demonstration .601
Civil Illegal demonstration .555
disobedience Wildcat strike .698
Occupying buildings .630
Political Damaging property .272 .396
violence Direct confrontation .531
Violence against others .693
Notes: Extraction = principal axis factoring, rotation = oblimin, given number of factors = 3.
Data base: Gewaltstudie, 1989
The results of the factor analysis are remarkable for several reasons. The two categories
"conventional action forms" and "legal unconventional action forms" make up one factor. In contrast to the Political Action Study there is thus not only a relatively high correlation between the two categories, but they form a unified dimension. Thus, of the two competing assumptions about the relationship between the categories of political participation, the complementarity hypothesis was clearly corroborated. This even clearer outcome than in the Political Action Study can, in our opinion, be traced back to two causes. First, in the Political Action Study, attitudes toward unconventional and conventional forms of action were determined in two separate batteries. It is possible that in this manner a methods effect reducing the correlation occurred. Second, in the Political Action Study’s measuring instrument for unconventional political participation there were, in addition to legal-unconventional actions, also actions of civil disobedience. According to our analysis, the latter did not correlate significantly with either the legal unconventional or with the conventional actions. In our factor analysis, factor 1 (civil disobedience) and factor 2 (conventional and legal unconventional
actions) only correlate with r = .10. To support this finding using a slightly different procedure, we have formed indices for each of the different dimensions of political participation and correlated them with each other (see table 6).
Table 6: Dimensions of Political Action: Correlations of Indices* (Pearson’s r) Conventional
actions
Legal uncon
ventional actions Civil
disobedience
Political violence
Conventional
actions 1.00
Legal unconventional
actions .588 1.00
Civil disobedience .050 .161 1.00
Political violence .002 .126 .512 1.00
* Additive Indices
Data base: Gewaltstudie, 1989
The correlation matrix confirms the results of the factor analysis. Conventional actions show an extremely high correlation with legal unconventional actions. Civil disobedience shows only a weak correlation with legal unconventional actions and practically no correlation with conventional actions. Thus, according to our analysis, the complementarity of conventional and unconventional actions does not refer to illegal actions of civil disobedience.
We have also carried out a comparable analysis for the collective actors representing the dimensions of unconventional and established politics. Here we are dealing with the new social movements and the political parties. One expression of a complementary relationship between the two collective actors would be the fact that an individual’s emotional ties to both of the actors would not contradictory. The emotional ties to the parties were measured through party identification and emotional ties to new social movements were measured by an assessment question with a response ranging from very positive to very negative. In order to determine a general attitude to new social
movements we computed an mean value index from the individual attitudes toward the ecology movement, the anti-nuclear power movement and the peace movement The values obtained were rounded off so that the original scale was maintained. This con
struction appeared justified in view of the high correlation exhibited by the assessment of the three movements. The average of the three correlations between these assessments was r = .568 (Pearson’s r).
If a conflicting relationship were to exist between attitudes toward the new social movements and the parties, then this would most likely be expressed in a systematic relationship between the evaluation of new social movements and the existence of a party identification. According to table 7, however, this is not the case: the percentage of respondents without a party identification is only a little greater among the respondents with a very positive attitude to new social movements than among those with a negative attitude, and clearly lower than among the respondents with a neutral attitude. A further indication of the relationship between the two categories of collective actors in the public perception is given by the concrete party identification of those respondents close to the new social movements. A clear majority of the respondents with a very positive attitude toward the new social movements shows a identification with the SPD (48.8%) and not with the Greens (21.4%), who are generally characterized as a movement party. As a whole, 64% of the respondents with a very positive attitude toward new social movements identify themselves with an established party; among the respondents with a positive assessment of the movements were 78% who identify themselves with an established party. These results make it clear that the overwhelming majority of respondents with an emotional tie to the new social movements simultaneously have a similar tie to one of the parties. A complementary rather than substitutive relationship between "old” and "new" politics is therefore emerging in the general perception, also in regard to the collective actors.
Table 7: Attitude toward New Social Movements and Party Identification (Percentage)
Attitude toward New Social Movements very
positive
positive neutral negative very negative
SPD 48,8 45,1 29,7 13,7
Party identification CDU/CSU 13,0 27,9 44,7 68,5
FDP 1,9 5,1 3,7 2,7
GRÜNE 21,4 4,9 0,8 1,4
OTHER 0,4 0,4 1,8 11,4
NO IDENT. 14,4 16,6 19,2 12,3
100 100 100 100
N 471 749 300 73
Data base: Gewaltstudie, 1989
The intermediate system of politics would only experience a pressure to make structural changes if the expansion of the new forms of political participation were an expression of dissatisfaction with this system. The empirically determined complementarity between the new forms of political participation and established politics does not support this assumption. For a further clarification of this crucial problem we will be using an indicator which refers directly to satisfaction with the established political system. It is the following question: "All in all are you very satisfied, quite satisfied, quite unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with the way democracy functions in the Federal Republic of Germany?" This indicator records a generalized attitude toward the political system or—more precise-the political regime (Fuchs, 1989). In the analysis of public attitudes toward the political regime, differentiating between a person’s attitude toward the regime in the sense of a constitutional norm and in the sense of how it actually functions has proved to be relevant. Dissatisfaction with the actual functioning of the regime does not necessarily imply dissatisfaction with the constitutionally established structure of the political system. The question of the functioning should thus be assigned to a somewhat lower level of generalization. If the new forms of political participation are an expression of a generalized dissatisfaction with the political regime, then we would have to find systematic correlations with "satisfaction with democracy"
as measured by our indicator. These correlations either did not exist empirically or are
shown only weakly. The correlation of "satisfaction with democracy" with the index for legal unconventional action forms is r = -.040, the correlation with the index for civil disobedience is r = +.113 and with the index for new social movements it is r = -.107.
These correlations indicate that neither the citizens’ willingness for participation in unconventional action forms nor their attitude toward new social movements "can be characterized by their fundamental opposition to the existing system" (von Beyme 1986: 35). The sample used to calculate these correlations (Gewaltstudie, 1989) also contain further indicators measuring the attitude of the respondents toward the political system. The correlation pattern is, however, very similar to the one presented here in each case. The lack of a systematic connection between the new forms of political participation and a generalized dissatisfaction with the political system is, at least for this survey, a consistent empirical finding.
5. Conclusions
At the latest since the mid-70s has a majority of citizens been willing in principle to also use unconventional actions to push through their political interests. A "normalization of the unconventional" has therefore occurred in this spirit. This applies more to legal actions and less to illegal acts of civil disobedience. A comparable development can also be seen at the level of collective actors. The willingness to participate in new social movements increased noticeably in the period we studied. Starting with the mere empirical fact that an expansion of new forms of political participation has taken place, very differing conclusions about their consequences for the political system could be reached. A popular interpretative paradigm sees the main causes for this expansion to lie in deficits in the existing political system with its representative institutional structure. From this perspective, the new forms of political participation are mainly a
"compensation for the minimal chances for institutional influence" (Roth 1989: 192).
Accordingly, a challenge to representative democracy would arise through the expansion of new forms of political participation. This challenge could only be met by the implementation of institutional forms of direct democracy (Dalton 1988; Roth 1989). An opposing interpretation would be to not consider the new political par
ticipation forms as a compensation for a deficiency, but as a functional differentiation of the average citizen’s political action repertory. With this interpretation, the new political participation forms would then only be an extension of the possibilities which the citizens have to articulate their political interests.
We attempted to convert these competing interpretations into an empirically verifiable formulation of the question by asking about the relationship between established and new forms of political participation in the public perception. A substitutive perception would tend to support the first interpretation and a complementary perception would tend to support the latter. The empirical analyses showed that those people who were willing to use (legal) unconventional action forms would, at the same time, also use conventional action forms and that those people who exhibited emotional ties to the new social movements also had similar ties to the political parties. "New" and "old"
forms would therefore be complementary options available to the individual which are used depending on the situation.
Because of this empirical complementarity, we are assuming that the expansion of new forms of political participation is less a result of dissatisfaction with established politics than a political manifestation of a general process of societal differentiation. The lack of a systematic relationship between (dis)-satisfaction with the functioning of democracy and the willingness to take part in new forms of political participation points in this direction. Even if the individuals subjectively see the new forms of political participation simply as an expansion of their political action repertory in conformity with the system, some researchers believe that the mere quantitative increase in political participation could lead to an overloading of the political system with demands which would make an efficient process of political decision-making more difficult (Crozier et al. 1975; Huntington 1974, 1981). The marked discrepancy between the willingness to participate expressed by citizens and their actual participation shows, in our opinion, that the expansion of the participation repertory is above all an expansion of options, which in fact are relatively seldom used. An overloading of the political system is, from this perspective, not very likely. As a whole, the limited use of new forms of political participation appears to us to be a corrective mechanism for articulating interests which tend to be neglected by the established forms of politics. The new forms of political participation would thus be an innovative element in the political system, which retains its adaptability in respect to a changing societal environment.
Appendix Data sets used:
Politische Ideologie (1974). ZA-Nr. 0757, primary researchers: Klaus R. Allerbeck, Max Kaase, Hans D. Klingemann.
Politische Ideologie II (1980). ZA-Nr. 1190/1191, primary researchers: Klaus R.
Allerbeck, Max Kaase, Hans D. Klingemann.
Ansprüche der Bürger an den Staat (1985/86). ZA-Nr. 1486, primary researcher Max Kaase.
Allgemeine Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften (1988). ZA-Nr. 1670, primary researchers: Karl Ulrich Mayer, Walter Müller, Franz Urban Pappi, Erwin K. Scheuch, Rolf Ziegler.
Gewaltstudie (1989). (Will be placed at the disposition of the Central Archive), primary researchers: Max Kaase, Friedhelm Neidhardt.
Eurobarometers 17 (1982), 21 (1984), 25 (1985), 31a (1989). (available in the Central Archive), primary researchers: Jacques-Rene Rabier, Ronald Inglehart.
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