Political Participation Cannot Be Measured Simply in Terms of Electoral Turnout

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‘Political participation cannot be measured simply in terms of electoral turnout’ Political participation is defined as a range of activities that people can take part in that will influence who should govern and the policies made by them. Therefore, when answering this question I will consider other forms of political participation; some obvious, and some not so obvious. Many people who would not consider themselves politically active are, in fact, participating in politics in ways that they are unaware of. I will also take this into account when trying to determine whether or not political participation can or cannot be measured simply in terms of electoral turnout. The most obvious form of political participation is, of course, voting- usually through general elections and referendums. However, the percentage of people who voted in a general election dropped from 83% in 1984 to 72% in 2000, and only 65% of people voting in the 2010 general election. This may well be due to a lack of interest in modern politics, or the feelings that your vote will not have a great impact on the outcome of the election, or a distrust of many of the politicians standing for election. In addition, Crewe’s survey of young people in Britain found that 80% of British pupils engaged in little or no discussion of political affairs at home. If the height of interaction between young people and politics is so limited, it seems doubtful that the political interest of tomorrow will be any better than the political interest of today. However, there are unobvious forms of political participation which many people are unaware of. Belonging to a church group, for example, counts as political participation; the same goes for belonging to a trade union, which can strike and bring about governmental policy change. After performing a survey of teachers in Aylesbury Grammar School, we discovered
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