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What is “Political” Participation

Beyond Explicit Motivations and Oppositional Actions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Sadiya Akram and
David Marsh
Sadiya Akram*
Affiliation:
Manchester Metropolitan University
David Marsh*
Affiliation:
Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis, University of Canberra
*
E-mail: s.akram@mmu.ac.uk
E-mail: David.Marsh@canberra.edu.au
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Abstract

Wood and Flinders re-center political participation on the idea of “nexus politics.” The effort is laudable because it contributes to other ongoing efforts at broadening our understanding of the nature of ‘political’ participation. Unfortunately, in our view, the authors misspecify new forms of political participation that have emerged by: (1) failing to take Henrik Bang’s work seriously; (2) focusing exclusively on motivation/intention, so that an action is “political,” only if the person acting sees it as “political”; (3) seeing all political participation as necessarily oppositional.

Keywords

contemporary political theoryengagementEveryday Makerspoliticspolitical participation

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Democratic Theory , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , December 2018, pp. 99 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Berghahn Books 2018

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