From Patterns in Attitudes to Political Participation – Introducing the ‘Concept of the State’

In the last years, the number and forms of political participation have expanded considerably, and they continue doing so (van Deth 2014). In many a case, they involve private activities which are being used for expressing political concerns. As a consequence, the political nature is not always evident; a prominent and worldwide expanding phenomenon thereof is, for example, the purchasing of everyday products based on nationalistic considerations (see e.g. Stolle/Micheletti 2013). However, the particularly ambiguous character of these forms hand in hand with the morally and socially imbued meaning of participating politically makes measures of participation succinct to social desirability biases (Andorfer 2015). Probably more than ever, this points to the need to make use of implicit measures and comparable psychological concepts to reliably discern who participates, and why. Building on ideas from social psychology (Ajzen 1991; Fishbein/Ajzen 1975; Greenwald/Banajo 1995) and political sociology (Almond/Verba 1963; Hall/Soskice 2001; Swidler 1986), the paper delineates a political-psychological construct that gauges underlying patterns in attitudes which in turn affect the forming of particular attitudes like nationalism, patriotism or, in the reverse, tolerance, openness to change and deliberative problem-solving. The construct is empirically tested in a survey conducted among 1.350 individuals living in Germany in 2014. As discussed in a final section, the resultant concept sheds light on fundamental cognitive components which influence individuals’ development of attitudes towards politics and the polity, as well as these attitudes’ translation into behaviour. With it, the construct can help on sharpening existing tools that are being used for assessing political participation. Likewise, it renders an efficient framework for developing an improved understanding of social conflict and cohesion.