Beyond Membership: A Sense of Community and Political Behavior

Beyond Membership: A Sense of Community and Political Behavior Why does community matter for political participation? In this paper, I consider how community psychology, particularly “sense of community” can be used to address questions of political behavior. Individuals’ perceptions about their significance in a given community can have meaningful effects on the way in which communities influence politics. Using a unique survey instrument designed to capture individual’s perceptions of community connectedness and political behavior across five contexts (workplace, church, associations, neighborhood, and circle of friends (i.e., an informal network) I analyze data from 822 respondents and examine how sense of community influences two types of political behavior: voting in local elections and political discussion. The empirical analyses presented demonstrate that sense of community contributes to explaining voting and discussion, even after controlling for demographic, personality, and other political factors. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Political Behavior Springer Journals

Beyond Membership: A Sense of Community and Political Behavior

25 pages
Read Article

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer_journal/beyond-membership-a-sense-of-community-and-political-behavior-LI5CkB1owD
Publisher
Springer US
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Subject
Political Science and International Relations; Political Science; Sociology, general
ISSN
0190-9320
eISSN
1573-6687
D.O.I.
10.1007/s11109-009-9089-x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Why does community matter for political participation? In this paper, I consider how community psychology, particularly “sense of community” can be used to address questions of political behavior. Individuals’ perceptions about their significance in a given community can have meaningful effects on the way in which communities influence politics. Using a unique survey instrument designed to capture individual’s perceptions of community connectedness and political behavior across five contexts (workplace, church, associations, neighborhood, and circle of friends (i.e., an informal network) I analyze data from 822 respondents and examine how sense of community influences two types of political behavior: voting in local elections and political discussion. The empirical analyses presented demonstrate that sense of community contributes to explaining voting and discussion, even after controlling for demographic, personality, and other political factors.

Journal

Political Behavior – Springer Journals

Published: Mar 27, 2009

References

  • Sense of community and union participation
    Catano, V; Pretty, G; Southwell, R; Cole, G
  • Sense of community through Brunswick’s lens: A first look
    Chavis, D; Hogge, J; McMillan, D; Wandersman, A
  • A review of the sense of community index: Current uses, factor structure, reliability, and further development
    Chipuer, H; Pretty, G
    Bookmark
  • Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model
    Digman, JM
    Bookmark
  • The five factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives
    Digman, JM
  • An alternative ‘Description of Personality’: The big-five factor structure
    Goldberg, LR
  • Political disagreement: The survival of diverse opinions within communication networks
    Huckfeldt, R; Johnson, PE; Sprague, J
  • Alternative contexts of political behavior: Churches, neighborhoods, and individuals
    Huckfeldt, R; Plutzer, E; Sprague, J
  • Citizens, politics, and social communication: Information and influence in an election campaign
    Huckfeldt, R; Sprague, J
  • Handbook of personality: Theory and research
    John, OP; Srivastava, S
  • The role of social networks in explaining political participation
    McClurg, S
  • The electoral relevance of political talk: Examining disagreement and expertise effects in social networks on political participation
    McClurg, S
  • Sense of community: A definition and theory
    McMillan, D; Chavis, D
  • A framework for the study of personality and political behavior
    Mondak, J; Halperin, K
  • Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice
    Mutz, D
  • Hearing the other side: Deliberative versus participatory democracy
    Mutz, D
  • The workplace as a context for cross-cutting political discourse
    Mutz, DC; Mondak, JJ
  • City size and civic involvement in metropolitian America
    Oliver, JE
  • Participation and the social and physical environment of resident blocks: Crime and community context
    Perkins, DD; Florin, P; Rich, RC; Wandersman, A; Chavis, D
  • Relating psychology sense of community to social climate characteristics
    Pretty, G
  • Exploring adolescents’ sense of community and its relationship to loneliness
    Pretty, G; Andrews, L; Collett, C
  • Sense of community and its relevance to adolescents of all ages
    Pretty, G; Conroy, C; Dugay, J; Fowler, K; Williams, D
  • Exploring psychological sense of community among women and men of the corporation
    Pretty, G; McCarthy, M
  • Making democracy work
    Putnam, RD
  • Bowling alone
    Putnam, RD
  • Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community
    Putnam, RD
  • Local friendship ties and community attachment in mass society. A multilevel systemic model
    Sampson, R
  • The social logic of politics: Personal networks as contexts for political behavior
    Verba, S; Schlozman, KL; Burns, N
  • Churches as political communities
    Wald, K; Owen, DE; Hill, SS
  • Political cohesion in Churches
    Wald, K; Owen, DE; Hill, SS
  • Talking about politics: Informal groups and social identity in American life
    Walsh, KC
  • The social logic of politics: Personal networks as contexts for political behavior
    Zuckerman, AS

You’re reading a free preview. Subscribe to read the entire article.

Try 2 weeks free now

DeepDyve is your
personal research library

It’s your single place to instantly
discover and read the research
that matters to you.

Enjoy affordable access to
over 18 million articles from more than
15,000 peer-reviewed journals.

All for just $49/month

Explore the DeepDyve Library

or browse the journals available

Search

Query the DeepDyve database, plus search all of PubMed and Google Scholar seamlessly

Organize

Save any article or search result from DeepDyve, PubMed, and Google Scholar... all in one place.

Access

Get unlimited, online access to over 18 million full-text articles from more than 15,000 scientific journals.

Your journals are on DeepDyve

Read from thousands of the leading scholarly journals from SpringerNature, Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press and more.

All the latest content is available, no embargo periods.

See the journals in your area

DeepDyve

Freelancer

DeepDyve

Pro

Price

FREE

$49/month
$360/year

Save searches from
Google Scholar,
PubMed

Create lists to
organize your research

Export lists, citations

Read DeepDyve articles

Abstract access only

Unlimited access to over
18 million full-text articles

Print

20 pages / month

PDF Discount

20% off

Sign up
for free
Start 14 day
Free Trial