The NRW-Forschungskolleg Online-Partizipation invites you to its virtual guest lecture which is going to take place 19th May at 5.00 p.m (German time) via Webex. The lecture by Joe Greenwood-Hau (University of Strathclyde) presents research examining how levels of capital and perceptions of privilege relate to non-electoral political participation.
The lecture presents research examining how levels of capital and perceptions of privilege relate to non-electoral political participation. Drawing on Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady, and Sidney Verba’s Civic Voluntarism Model (2020; 1995) and on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu (1986, 1984), it is argued that economic, social, and cultural capital can be considered mechanisms that reproduce privilege as well as resources relating to political participation. The project underpinning the paper is the first to comprehensively measure the forms of capital (Harrits 2013; Harrits et al. 2010). It moves beyond expression of opinion (Laurison 2015) to consider a range of political activities, as well as the first to examine perceptions of privilege. Drawing on original and detailed survey data (gathered in 2014), and interviews with MPs and politically disengaged people (collected between 2013 and 2015), the paper offers a mixed-methods analysis of the stocks of capital and perceptions of privilege held by those who engage in a range of political activities or none. It finds that all three forms of capital, and especially cultural capital, are related to political participation. Specifically, legitimate (or ‘highbrow’) cultural capital is particularly positively related to contacting and collective forms of political participation. The lecture also presents tentative results relating to plausible causal relationships between the concepts, noting that both the Bourdieusian and the Civic Voluntarism story are consistent with the observed relationships. Finally, on an optimistic note, the lecture notes a great deal of similarity between MPs and the public in terms of how they speak about privilege, the divide between them, and how that divide can be overcome.
Joe Greenwood-Hau is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, where he is undertaking the Capital, Privilege and Political Participation in Britain and Beyond project. He previously worked at LSE as a Teaching Fellow, at YouGov as a Data Analyst and, before that, completed his PhD at the University of Essex. He tweets @niceonecombo.
The lecture is conducted via Webex. For registration (until 17th May) or any questions please contact