Social groups, sport and political engagement in New Zealand

Research Note

Bibliographic Data

ID6233898
AuthorsTodd Donovan (0000-0001-6098-5161, Western Washington University), Shaun Bowler (0000-0002-0739-6090, b University of California , Riverside), Robert Hanneman (b University of California , Riverside), Jeffrey A Karp (0000-0001-9582-136X, University of Twente), Jeffrey Karp (c Texas Tech University and University of Twente , Netherlands)
Year2004
Volume39
Issue2
Pages405-419
Publication date2004-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1036-1146 • E-ISSN: 1363-030X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1036114042000254476
OpenAlexW1593844113
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited24

Many prominent social theorists contend that memberships in voluntary associations make major contributions to making citizens more engaged with democracy. Although substantial attention has been directed at the potential role of sports groups, previous studies using survey data have not found membership in sports groups to be associated with political activity. New Zealand presents an important context for testing this theory, given its high levels of public participation in sports groups. We find that membership in sports and other social groups is associated with higher levels of political engagement. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of the role that specific group memberships may have in democratic societies. Notes Todd Donovan is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Shaun Bowler is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of California, Riverside. Jeffrey Karp is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Robert Hanneman is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. Data used in this article may be obtained from the Australian Social Science Data Archive. The interest group membership question specified ‘interest, pressure group, environmental group’. Respondents were asked: ‘there are forms of political action that people take. For each one, have you actually done it, might you do it, or would you never?’ They were coded 1 if they ticked the box indicating they actually did a particular act (signing a petition, writing to a newspaper, phoning a talkback show, boycotting, and going on a protest march). Other responses were coded as 0. They were also asked: ‘during the election campaign, did you do the following?’ Those who ticked ‘discuss politics with others’ and ‘worked for a political party or candidate’ were coded 1, respectively, or otherwise coded as 0. Seyd et al (Citation2001) used a larger battery of questions to measure political activity in Britain. Their results are similar to these from New Zealand, with voting, signing petitions and boycotting having the highest reported levels of participation among items asked in both surveys. Principal Components Analysis is often referred to as Factor Analysis. The ‘principal components’ are actually linear combinations of observed variables (in this case our measures of political activity), with the components assumed to be somewhat distinct from each other. The components are also assumed to reflect some underlying factor that cannot observed directly (in this case, two realms of political activity we label passive and active). We used an orthogonal rotation to produce the two principle components. Consider the face validity of this passive versus active distinction. Boycotting a product simply requires that the actor do nothing (or cease doing something). Writing a letter, in contrast, requires time invested in generating an idea, composing a letter, and mailing it. Use of these factor scores as dependent variables makes the presentation of our results much more parsimonious. Tables are available from the authors detailing logistic regression results for estimates of eight individual items in the index, showing effects of membership (eight estimations) and of number of meetings attended (eight estimations). Results from these estimations are consistent with the substantive results presented in this article. Respondents were asked: ‘Are you a member of any of the organizations or associations listed below? If so, how often have you attended any meetings in the past 12 months?’ The list included: (1) ‘Trade unions, farmers, employers, professional association’, (2) ‘Political party, political organization, or movement’, (3) ‘Interest, pressure group, environmental group’, (4) ‘Sports club or association’, (5) ‘Cultural organisation’, (6) ‘Church or religious organisation’, (7) ‘Social club’, (8) ‘Youth group’, (9) ‘Community Service Group’, (10) ‘Hobbies group or club.’ Multiple responses were permitted. As illustrated in Table 1, there are four categories of response for this variable. Non‐members are coded 0, members who go to no meetings are scored 1, those going to one or three meetings in the year are scored 2, those attending at least one meeting per month are scored 3, and those who attend weekly meetings are scored 4. Other religions (11.8% of the sample) include Latter Day Saints, Ratana, Independent fundamentalist, ‘other Christian’ and ‘non‐Christian’. Protestants include Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. Twenty‐five percent are in the reference category of no religious affiliation. Respondents who cast their party and electorate votes for parties that failed to form government are coded as electoral losers. The slope for the effect of education in Table 5 is 0.087. Education is a six category measure (1=no education/incomplete primary, 2=completed primary, 3=secondary, without UE or sixth‐form certificate, 4=completed secondary, 5=non‐degree post‐secondary/professional, trade, technical, or tertiary qualification, 6=university degree). With a distance of two ordinal categories between secondary and university education, the effect of moving from a secondary degree to a university degree is 0.087×2=0.174. Another way to consider substantive effects is note that membership in a community group produces a 0.196 standard deviation increase in a respondent's score on the active political engagement measure. These estimates are available from the authors. Earlier versions of the paper also reported estimates of a single uni‐dimensional, additive, six‐item index of political engagement. These estimates showed no effects for hobby and social groups, yet they showed significant effects on engagement for membership in community groups, cultural organizations, and sports groups. These estimates are also available from the authors. Membership in sports groups produces a 0.169 standard deviation increase in a respondent's score on the passive political engagement measure. Specifically, the largest religious denomination in New Zealand is Anglican (24%), with 25% claiming no religious affiliation. Anglicans are quite rare in the USA, where 62% claim to be Protestant (34% of American Protestants are Baptist) and just 9% claim no affiliation. Moreover, Baptists are a rare denomination (2.6%) in New Zealand

Context (archaeology · Democracy · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · History · Law · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Public Administration · Social Capital and Networks · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

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