United in Diversity: Building Bridges in the Study of Political Participation

Abstract This review article points to a number of ways in which the study of political participation has followed separate tracks, hence preventing it from deploying its full potential. We argue that the field stands to benefit much from ‘bridging’ different approaches and insights, combining those from different disciplines or subdisciplines. We review works that try to build such bridges, with the aim of encouraging dialogue across the disciplinary boundaries between political science and political sociology, on the one hand, and sociology and social movement studies, on the other. We advocate that students of political participation take such ‘bridges’ seriously in their work and employ them as the basis for new dynamic theorization. We suggest five possible ways in which the study of political participation may combine different perspectives and research traditions. Three of them are theoretical: bridging rationalist, structuralist and culturalist theoretical approaches; bringing together cognitive (attitudes) and affective (emotions) explanations; and combining macro- and micro-level accounts. The fourth is methodological: bridging qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches. The fifth is substantive: bridging a focus on electoral (institutional) participation with one on non-electoral (non-institutional) participation.