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'That's a great deal to make one word mean', Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
'When I make a word do a lot of work like that', said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra'. (Carroll, 1871, pp. 186-187)
Introduction: The Challenges of Endless Expansions
Casting a vote, boycotting some product, donating money, running for office, forwarding emails, contacting an alderman, attending a political poetry slam - the list of modes of political participation is long and gets longer almost daily. The continuous expansion of available modes of participation in the last decades underlines the relevance of political participation for democracy and democratization: participation is the elixir of life for democracy. Yet especially discussions about the increase of opportunities for political involvement are accompanied by growing conceptual ambivalences in at least two ways. First, conclusions about the changing nature of participation differ widely depending on the concept used. Summarizing the consequences of applying similar concepts for different phenomena, Hay notices:
... those with the most restrictive and conventional conceptions of political participation identify a strong and consistent pattern of declining political participation and engagement over time, whilst those with a more inclusive conception discern instead a change in the mode of political participation. (2007, p. 23; emphasis in original)
In other words, actual conclusions about important changes in democratic societies depend on the participation concept used. Dalton (2008) studied political action in the USA and highlights the importance of depicting changes in political participation. His main conclusion is that: '... the trends in political activity represent changes in the style of political action, and not just changes in the level of participation' (Dalton, 2008, p. 94). The two, however, cannot be disentangled so easily because meaningful conclusions about 'styles' and 'levels' require a common understanding of 'political participation' at different points in time. If no such common understanding is available, conclusions should be restricted to distinct arguments about the 'level' of participation for each 'style' separately. Another example is provided by Fox's (2014, p. 502) critique of an empirical study on participation in Britain using a concept of participation that is '... too restrained in the light of social changes and technical advancements' and, therefore, we cannot be sure that '... a realistic and valid...