highlight that a lack of trust in political institutions results in more
unconventional participation.
10.2). Why does trust in political institutions affect the nature of participation?
Having now clearly determined that differing levels of trust in political
institutions does have a clear effect on the nature of participation, it is also
essential that we theorise why this is the case. Whilst the driving force behind
this is clearly the level of institutional trust, other factors may be central in
determining why the precise nature of these events developed.
When firstly applying the past
Conventional Participation
Watergate: High Past Confidence
confidence
in
institutions
Iraq War Protests: High Past Confidence
argument, mentioned in section
Sit-ins: Low Past Confidence
4, we see that this argument is
Storming of US Capitol: High Past Confidence
not applicable to all of our case
Unconventional Participation
studies. The suggestion that
past confidence in the functions of institutions is a driving force for the nature
of participation is somewhat pertinent though, as we see from our conventional
examples that a lack of trust in institutional mechanisms themselves was not an
issue in these cases. Furthermore, we see how this is applicable to our sit-ins
case study as a lack of past confidence in institutional mechanisms by African-
Americans was arguably a key driving force behind this participation.
Fundamentally though, this particular argument fails to account for the example
of the storming of the Capitol as the participants in this event would have utilised
functioning institutional mechanisms in 2016 to elect Donald Trump as
president. This case study in particular is seemingly an outlier in relation to this
argument and potentially something that needs to be further analysed with
other case studies. Additionally, more research into how exactly levels of past
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