Levelling at the margin

.title[
# Levelling at the margin
]
.subtitle[
## Personal networks, social capital and the Internet in the mobilisation of the Five Star Movement
]
.author[
### Francesco Bailo (University of Sydney), Antonella Seddone (Università di Torino), Giulia Sandri (Université Catholique de Lille)
]
.institute[
### 2023 Australian Political Studies (APSA) Conference
27 - 30 November, the University of Sydney
]
.date[
### updated: 2023-11-30
]

---

<div style="position: absolute;left:60px;bottom:11px;color:gray;">Slides: fraba.github.io/presentation/2023-APSA</div>

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# Introduction, theoretical and conceptual frameworks

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- Democratic systems aspire to political equality, but **participatory equality** is never achieved in practice.

- Why? Because of **socio-economic** factors like income, education, race, gender, but also differences in "**capacity** and **opportunity**" (Verba, 2003, p. 666).

- **Civic Voluntarism Model (CVM)** developed by Verba et al. (1995) extend the Socio-Economic Status (SES) model. In CVM, factors predicting participation are:

1. **Resources** (money, time, education, civic skills) 
  
      * Can/Can't participate
  
  2. **Engagement** (political interest, sense of political efficacy)
  
      * Want/Don't Want participate
  
  3. Proximity to **Recruitment** networks 
  
      * Asked/Nobody Asked to participate
  
---

## Social Capital Theory and Participation

- **Role of Social Capital:** Benefits the three dimensions of CVM.

1. Provides *resources* like civic skills.
  
  2. Improves *engagement* and political efficacy.
  
  3. Access to *recruitment* networks.
  
**Social capital theory**

* treats recruitment networks as another type of resource for individuals and society at large;

* offers an explanation of why social networks are more or less effective as a resource for collective action:

* social capital is about accessing and participating in high-quality social networks that stretch outside of the inner clique of family and close friends.
---

## Internet Use and Political Participation

As social capital, the **Internet can also positively affect** the three factors of CVM (or at least in theory).

The Internet can

1. **Resources**: create more *time* for participation and foster civic skills (*can*/*can't* participate);

2. **Engagement**: create capacity & opportunities to engage with political content (*want*/*don't want* participate);

3. **Recruitment**: create capacity & opportunities to connect with people (*asked*/*nobody asked* to participate);

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Using nationwide survey data and our own survey data of participants to Italy's Five Star Movement (M5S), we ask:

.center[<img src = 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/MoVimento_5_Stelle_Logo_vettoriale.svg' width = '30%'>]

* **RQ1**: Does the diffusion of Internet use across the Italian population between 2005 and 2020 correspond to a reduction in the participatory gap?

* **RQ2**: How important are personal networks in recruitment into the M5S, and does this change over time as the Movement gains in popularity?

* **RQ3**: Are Internet affordances for recruitment into the Movement and engagement relatively more important for groups that are traditionally disadvantaged when it comes to political participation?

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# Data

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### Three large nation-wide population surveys (second-party data)

* 2005 survey (n=49,288)

* 2013 survey (n=20,275)

* 2020 survey (n=42,810)

### Two online surveys of M5S members

* 2013 survey (n=626): **snowballing** at grass-roots level

* 2020 survey (n=698): **snowballing** at grass-root level + **Facebook ads**

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Yes, limitations do apply!
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# Research operationalisation

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.center[<img src = "m5s_survey_presentation_files/figure-svg/Model - Focus on Social Capital.svg" width = "100%"></img>]

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.center[<img src = "m5s_survey_presentation_files/figure-svg/Model - Focus on Internet.svg" width = "100%"></img>]

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# Results

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## RQ1: Does the diffusion of Internet use across the Italian population between 2005 and 2020 correspond to a reduction in the participatory gap?

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### RQ1: Does the diffusion of Internet use across the Italian population between 2005 and 2020 correspond to a reduction in the participatory gap?

### Gender and education remain significant predictors for

1. access to social capital / participation in political associations (parties or others);

2. mobilisation in other forms of participation (when we don't control for social capital).

### Social capital / participation in political associations remains a significant predictor for

1. mobilisation in other forms of participation.

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## RQ2: How important are personal networks in recruitment into the M5S, and does this change over time as the Movement gains in popularity?

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## The role of news

#### How do you mobilise outside of personal or social capital networks?

#### First, you gotta get the news that something is going on!

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## Before and after 2012

- News media attention for the M5S dramatically increases in 2012 with the first (local) electoral successes.

- The importance of news as factor shaping the decision to join increases after 2012 to plateu.

For this reason,

### We divide our samples based on whether the first meeting was before or after 2012.

.center[<img src = 'https://www.lastampa.it/image/contentid/policy:1.36260100:1561813986/11IR5CPR3484--640x360.jpg?f=gallery_1280&h=702&w=1280&$p$f$h$w=2617957' width = '45%'></img>]

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Evolution of key demographics across the years among participants in political parties across the Italian population and among M5S participants

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## Before and after 2012

1. The proportion of female participants among new recruits into the M5S **increases** after 2012;

2. The proportion of university graduates among new recruits into the M5S **declines** after 2012;

3. The proportion of residents of the largest cities among new recruits into the M5S **declines** after 2012.

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Respondents' access to recruitment channels

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### RQ2: How important are personal networks in recruitment into the M5S, and does this change over time as the Movement gains in popularity?

As the news media dedicate more attention to the M5S,

1. the importance of personal networks remains stable and strong (65% -> 68%), but

2. the importance of social capital declines (90% -> 86%), and especially, political social capital (77% -> 62%).

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Coefficients predicting access to different types of social capital before joining the M5S

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class: center, middle

## RQ3: Are Internet affordances for recruitment into the Movement and engagement relatively more important for groups that are traditionally disadvantaged when it comes to political participation?

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## In other words ...

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### RQ3: Are Internet affordances for recruitment into the Movement and engagement relatively more important for groups that are traditionally disadvantaged when it comes to political participation?

1. Online interactions with the group, are relatively more important for low-education and female participants. Moreover,

2. Internet affordances are more important for the engagement of participants with the online content produced by the Movement, locally (i.e. by the local group) and globally.

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# Conclusions

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### Conclusions /1

1. Overall, the education and gender gap in political participation exists and persists over time—even as Internet access becomes ubiquitous.

2. Yet, the education and gender gap decreased in the mobilization of the M5S after 2012 as the Movement gained national attention.

* This coincides not with a decline in the importance of personal networks for recruitment, but
    
    * With a relative decline in the importance of access to political social capital networks. 
    
3. Low-education and female M5S participants give more importance to Internet affordances for **recruitment** and **engagement** in explaining their decision to join than other participants. But they also give more importance to personal ties to existing members.

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### Conclusions /2

This suggests a marginal leveling effect of Internet affordances, which can contribute to closing the participatory gap and escaping the social capital trap (where capital creates more social capital), under two possible conditions:

* News media must validate the mobilisation, and

* Personal networks (although not necessarily social capital networks) must provide access to the mobilisation.

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class: center, middle

# The End

Comments & questions

<a>francesco.bailo@sydney.edu.au</a>