Political Participation
Political Participation is the voluntary activities of members of a society in the selection of rulers.
Political Participation can be defined as those actions of private citizens by which they seek to influence or to support government and politics. Participation in electoral processes involves much more than just voting. Political participation derives from the freedom to speak out, assemble and associate; the ability to take part in the conduct of public affairs; and the opportunity to register as a candidate, to campaign, to be elected and to hold office at all levels of government.
Forum For Political Participation
The citizens have the opportunity to participate in politics through the following ways:
General Election:This offers the citizens opportunity to participate in politics through casting of votes.
Referendum/Plebiscite: This offers the citizens opportunity to participate in politics through voting on political issues made public by the Government.
Advantages of Political Participation
Political Participation has the following advantages or merits:
- I makes the citizens to be informed about Government activities. In other words, it enlightens or educates the citizens on the roles they should play to make the Government to succeed and what should be their expectation form the Government.
- It ensures public confidence in the works of the Government.
- It generates legitimacy or support for the Government
- It makes room for political stability
- It reduces the amount of coercion or force the Government has to use to obtain compliance form the citizens.
There are many different forms of political participation, and whether you know it or not, you’ve probably taken part in some of them at different points in your life.
Forms Of Political Participation
Some of the most common forms of political participation are:
- Voting: In a democracy, voting is the single most important form of political participation that a person can take part in because it ensures that politicians are elected by the people, rather than being assigned to their position of power by someone else.
- Protest: Whether or not it is a constitutional right, public protests are another important form of political participation because you are making your opinions known in a very obvious way, with the hope that your actions will influence or initiate change in a particular area of politics.
- Public consultations: Like voting, public consultations (which are more commonly known as town hall meetings) offer ordinary citizens the chance to get together in a group with a politician or elected official in order to make their opinions and feelings known.
- Jury duty: Although most people shudder at the thought of having to attend jury duty, it is an important type of political participation because it ensures that people who are charged with a crime are judged by people like them, rather than allowing the outcome to depend entirely on a single person, such as a judge.
While these are some of the most common forms of political participation, there are many others. These include:
- Signing a petition
- Writing a letter to a public official
- Blogging about a political issue
- Donating money to a cause
- Volunteering for a campaign
- Joining an activist or interest group
- Holding a public official position
- Occupying a building in an act of protest
- Committing a terrorist act
Representative Government
A Representative Government is the type of government in which the citizens or the electorate are allowed to elect their leaders i.e. representatives. It is an indirect form of democracy. There are three essential pre-conditions for satisfactory working of representative government.
- First the assembly must be freely representative as it is possible to make it.
- Second, members must be free to discuss issues with complete frankness and to reach decision without hindrance
- Third, the assembly’s decision must be binding and enforceable.
A truly representative parliament according to J.H. Price involves the following requirements: free elections, a proper register of electors, proper constituencies and real choice of candidates and programmes, a politically educated electorate, frequent elections.
For free elections, the voters should have the opportunity of choosing the people they wish to represent them. They must therefore have genuine freedom of choice. Any eligible candidate should be allowed to stand for election without hindrance and the voter must feel himself free to vote for him with no fear of unpleasant consequences. Voting must therefore be by secret ballot, in order that the individual voter’s decision may never be known to anybody else.
