Political participation and the gender gap in European Union Member States

Abstract:

The European Union (EU) has repeatedly tried to answer complaints about a possible democratic deficit. With the empowerment of the European Parliament scholars have assumed that European citizens were participating more in political matters. This research focuses on the levels and styles of political participation in general in the EU, testing whether EU Member States have reached similar levels of political participation, conventional and non-conventional, and whether there might be a possible base for a political gender gap assessment. Datasets from the World Values Surveys for European countries in 1990 are used to compare three dimensions of political involvement: conventional, protest-oriented and the intensity of political integration. The results highlight the presence not only of a group of countries whose citizens are strong political participants across the participation dimensions used, but also of a serious, constant presence of gender differences in the levels of political participation declared.