“dissatisfaction” with their government and vote in order to replace them
through conventional means (Lee & Schachter, 2019, p.407). This suggests that
when citizens are distrusting of and unhappy with particular elected politicians
or governments, they tend to participate through conventional means that will
result in a replacement of them with others.
Separately however, another argument surrounding distrust and participation
states that this relationship results in more unconventional participation.
Antonini et al imply that in situations when distrust towards the institutions
themselves is particularly high, due to dissatisfaction, citizens may seek to
participate in unconventional means of participation such as protesting (2015,
p.135). This is key to explaining why, in some cases, we may see forms of
unconventional participation taking place as opposed to conventional. More
specifically, this argument is centred around the notion that when individuals are
more distrusting of politics as a whole and not with particular politicians, they
are likely to engage in “more direct or unconventional” political action (de Rooj
& Reeskens, 2015, p.187). This is perhaps because unconventional participation
tends to be more focused on issues affecting political institutions as a whole and
not necessarily particular governments (Michalski et al, 2021, p.3). With this
more goal orientated approach that unconventional participation can provide,
those who become “disenchanted” with the general political system are more
likely to engage in these unconventional means in order to enact wider change
(Anderson & Tverdova, 2003, p.92). Despite these being somewhat alternative
arguments to one another, the reasons behind their analysis do suggest that they
are in fact not mutually exclusive. These arguments suggest that:
The more citizens distrust their institutions generally, the more likely the more unconventional their political participation becomes.
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