than Watergate, it was still legal and somewhat institutionally endorsed and
other more conventional means were not available to participate in at the time.
Similarly to Watergate, there does not appear to be an active lack of trust in
political institutions themselves from citizens but instead a lack of trust in a
certain government as a result of a particular decision.
The case study of the sit-in
Conventional Participation
protests also fundamentally
Watergate: Particularised Distrust
highlights the substance of
Iraq War Protests: Particularised Distrust
our initial hypothesis. We
Sit-ins: Institutionalised Distrust
see in this case of clear
Storming of US Capitol: Institutionalised Distrust
Unconventional Participation
unconventional, illegal, and
non-institutionalised political participation that it was driven by a clear lack of
trust in political institutions, almost entirely from African-Americans. Our sit-in
example shows that African-Americans did not feel an active part of the decision
making within institutions or that they lacked an impactful say in the polices that
affected them as they were completely disenfranchised. This aligns with the
claims of Whiteley et al that a lack of trust develops in instances such as this, and
with the discussion Antonini et al provide regarding the idea that this results in
unconventional participation (2016, p.237) (2015, p.135). Adding to this, our
final case study on the storming of the US Capitol in 2021 also clearly highlights
a level of truth behind this sentiment. In this particular case we see another
similar example of a group who have a distinct lack trust in their political
institutions so therefore acted extremely unconventionally. Based on our
conventionality spectrum, the participation in this case is more unconventional
than what occurred in our sit-ins example, and this is perhaps because distrust
in political institutions was higher. Nevertheless, our case studies do clearly
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