Political Participation in France and Germany

The main objective of this volume is to answer the question of how France and Germany can be situated in the world of participatory political communities. It sets the historical, theoretical and institutional framework for the comparative empirical analysis of the forms, patterns, trends and determinants of citizen participation in France and Germany. It starts with an outline of the participatory traditions of the two respective countries. Thereafter, it turns to the theoretical foundations of empirical research regarding the role of political participation in modern democracies, and gives an overview as to how the perception of political participation has changed over the years. Furthermore the forms of conventional participation, particularly with regard to electoral participation, and unconventional participation like protest and other new forms of citizen involvement are analysed in detail. Following the new approaches in participation research, social participation is not only supposed to correlate with political participation, but is a specific form of civic engagement for itself. Therefore this aspect is included in the analyses. The volume does not only discuss national trends and patterns but also local ones because elementary differences can be noticed here, depending amongst others on the level of centralisation of the state structure.

Oscar W. Gabriel is a full professor of political science at the University of Stuttgart (Germany), Associate Researcher and former Visting Professor at the Institut of Political Science Bordeaux (France). He was Convenor of the Working Group on Elections and Political Attitudes, GPSA, Convenor of the Section on Political Sociology. Important Actual Research Activities: Participant in the Research Group on Political Representation in France and Germany (ANR/DFG), Political Trust and Attitudes towards Welfare State Reforms in Germany, Participant in the German NCT for the European Social Survey. His main research areas are political sociology and political psychology, particularly political attitudes and political culture, social and political participation, electoral behaviour. Silke I. Keil is an assistant professor of Political Science and Political Sociology at the University of Stuttgart (Germany). She was general manager of the German Project of the European Social Survey (2006-2010). Her main research areas are political sociology, particularly political attitudes, participation, social capital and electoral behaviour. Eric Kerrouche is CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research) Senior Research Fellow at SPIRIT, the research centre of Bordeaux Institute of Political Science. He is a specialist of Local Government and Parliaments in France and Europe.