How Has The Nature Of Political Participation Changed In The Past 30 Years?

Since the mid 1970's membership of political organisations began to fall. Since then, people have been increasingly drawn to unconventional forms of political participation, a factor which has accelerated in recent years. There are five explanations for this change:

1) Globalisation has sifted the focus of power, moving it away form Westminster to Brussels, for instance
2) De-industrialisation has loosened the old social controls. This has been a shift of culture which is manifested in new forms of political participation.
3) Britain is a strong, centralised state and the growth of unconventional participation is a response to the fact that opportunities for success using conventional channels are limited.
4) The new class thesis is now a middle-class phenomenon
5) People are less loyal to a single party than they used to be and are more open to the appeal of single issue groups. This has led to party de-alignment with political parties.

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