Two key questions for anyone interested in democracy working are, or should be: who does not participate in politics, and why?
Answers to these questions often overlook the views of a key group: political non-participants. This matters because if we do not hear from non-participants, we might not properly understand the barriers to participation that exist. Without understanding those barriers, our political system is likely to hear more from people who can overcome them than from those who cannot.
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This inequality in the voices that are heard undermines a key principle of democracy: an equal say in political decisions. This is what makes the work of the John Smith Centre on opening politics up to diverse young people and especially those from marginalised groups so important. It is also why I focused part of my new book, Capital, Privilege and Political Participation, on the reasons that non-participants give for their lack of political activity and on the barriers to political participation identified by a range of people.
People can be politically disengaged in different ways, and the survey data gathered for my research allows me to focus separately on people who do not support any political organisation, who do no political activities, and who do neither.[1] The barriers to participation identified by these different groups are similar, but with some notable differences. People who are disengaged from a range of organisations relating to politics (parties, trade unions, campaigning organisations, and charities) focus on practical constraints: lack of time and money. To varying degrees, these barriers are also highlighted by people who do not undertake any political acts (e.g., signing petitions, writing to elected representatives, protesting), and by people who neither support organisations nor undertake political acts. What distinguishes the latter two groups from people who are disengaged from organisations, however, is the emphasis they place on their lack of confidence. It is also worth noting that, across all three groups, around a fifth of non-participants indicate that involvement is ‘not for me.’ This might mean that political involvement is something they are not interested in, or that it is not open to them. Either way, we see that there are practical barriers to participation, such as lacking time and money, and that people’s views of themselves and politics can also act as such barriers.
Turning from survey data to the interviews and focus groups that I conducted with low-participation members of the public, as well as MPs and activists, we see three major themes emerge in the barriers that they talk about. First, they emphasise the personal constraints that stop people from participating in politics. Primarily, here, they talk about lack of time and confidence, reflecting the survey findings. Departing from the survey, however, they do not mention lack of money as much and instead emphasise lack of knowledge as a key constraint on participation. This highlights a possible tension: when we ask highly politically active people (MPs and activists) what drives non-participation, they often talk about lack of knowledge but that is a barrier that non-participants themselves do not place much emphasis on.
Where the different groups who I spoke to are united is in their frequent identification of the disincentives to participation that stem from the functioning of the political system. They highlight the imperfect functioning of the UK’s democratic institutions, particularly political parties, which are viewed as unresponsive, inflexible, distant, unrepresentative, and too tolerant of bad behaviour. It is worth noting that, often, the most withering comments in this area come from MPs themselves, so it is clear that there are frustrations with the political system on all sides. Indeed, as I note in the book, MPs themselves:
‘identify problems including the “confrontational style of politics”, “the sheer pettiness” of politicians, parroting of party lines, using “a hundred words when you can answer the damn question in five”, treating “going to the constituency like something they have to do three times a year”, and failing to “appreciate the difficulties that so many people have”.’
Frustrations with the political system are also reflected in the third and final theme emerging from the interviews and focus groups: negative images of politics. Here, people talk explicitly about how views of politics are themselves barriers to participation. In particular, people emphasise that politics is routinely viewed as inefficacious or irrelevant. One focus group participant observes that ‘no matter who’s in power, whatever, it’s, the status quo, though, it’s not gonna change, it’s gonna stay constant, no matter what.’ Here, they are reporting this view of politics as a reason for their disinclination to participate, whilst others talk about it in more general terms. Often, when talking about the problem more widely, people demonstrate considerable nuance in their diagnosis of the problem. Some recognise that politicians are trying to do good but are constrained by the system. Others emphasise the role that the media plays in shaping views of politics, which therefore may not reflect the whole picture. As one member of the public says: ‘You should always, at least, hear it from the horse’s mouth when it comes to stuff, you know, because then you can make a better opinion of it. I mean, the media, they can build up and destroy anyone in a week.’
As with the barriers identified by non-participants, the MPs, activists and members of the public who I spoke to identified practical constraints on participation as well as the role of views of politics as a disincentive to get involved. In addition, interviewees and focus group participants offered a highly developed critique of the flaws in the functioning of the UK’s political system. Due to the options offered to non-participants in the survey, this barrier was not identified by non-participants, but it is eminently possible that they share that critique. Thus, with exceptions such as the emphasis placed on lack of knowledge by MPs and activists, politically disengaged and engaged people share a common analysis of the barriers to participation. Crucially, this analysis focuses on material and perceptual barriers. This means that efforts to open politics up need to focus on practical measures to enable people to participate, reform of the political system to remove disincentives to participation, and efforts to show how the political system works and why it (sometimes) does not. This is no small undertaking, but it illustrates the importance of the work of the John Smith Centre and others.
[1] These are small groups of respondents: there are 188 people who do not do any political acts, 192 who do not support any organisations, and 125 who neither do acts nor support organisations. This means that we must be careful with figures based on their answers because these people are unlikely to be representative of non-participants more widely. Thus, the figures amongst non-participants more generally might be considerably lower or higher than we estimate based on the answers to the survey.
