Mobilizing Potential: Pathways to Engaged Citizenship

Abstract Conventional wisdom assumes that people participate in democracy because they care about politics. However, this is not always the case. This article illustrates how civic associations mobilize diverse publics to participate in democracy, even when individuals lack prior politicization (political knowledge, interest, and efficacy). This article draws on 550 hours of ethnographic fieldwork across four years and in-depth interviews with 90 members of two civic associations. It identifies three distinct mobilization pathways: politicized , issue , and indirect . It also contributes to the literature on political participation, learning, and inequality in two ways. First, it provides an alternative to identity-based accounts of mobilization by focusing instead on the role of motivations. This approach illuminates the underlying processes and mechanisms that facilitate political participation. Second, it contributes to scholarship conceptualizing mobilization as a process rather than a static trait by distinguishing between initial and continued mobilization. This offers an opportunity to examine how motivations change. Longitudinal ethnographic methods provide crucial insights into the mobilization process as it unfolds in real time over many days, months, and even years. These findings have practical implications, pointing towards avenues to better realize democratic ideals by closing participation gaps and mobilizing a more diverse public.