2. A Review of the Literature

On the concept, idea and history of participation see Boss-Stenner et al. 1970; von Alemann and Studiengruppe Partizipationsforschung 1975; Kaase et al. 2000; Gerhardt 2007; Roy 2013.

For an overview see Boss-Stenner et al. 1970; Hendler 1977; Kohout 2002; Geißel 2004b; Kersting 2008; von Alemann 2011; Roth 2011e, 2013a; Nanz and Fritsche 2012; Kersting and Woyke 2012; The Bertelsmann Stiftung and Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg 2014; Gabriel 2014; Geißel and Kersting 2014; Newig 2014; Denecke et al. 2016.

See recent research on alternative forms of participation (Ganuza and Francés 2011b; Ganuza et al. 2014), material participation (Marres 2012) and new forms of participation in civil society in van Deth (2011), Theocharis and van Deth 2018 and van Deth and Maloney (2012), Micheletti and McFarland (2011) discuss “creative participation”; central questions are the modes of action with regard to democratic inclusion in Merkel and Petring (2012) and critical comments on “checkbook participation” in Stadelmann-Steffen and Traunmüller (2010).

See approaches that reflect recent trends in citizen participation procedures in Germany (Baumann et al. 2004; Hartwig and Kroneberg 2014), electronic forms of participation (Kubicek et al. 2009; Märker and Wehner 2011; Seckelmann 2014) and electronic-cooperative forms (Holtkamp and Bathge 2013), under the term of extended citizen participation, mostly innovative-creative processes and cooperative action using modern forms of communication (so called Citizen Participation 3.0, see Oxenfarth and Obermayr 2011 – Citizen Participation 2.0, however, understood as the inclusion of electronic processes, see Masser et al. 2013). Back in 2003, when the internet did not yet have the omnipresence it has had since the beginning of the 2010s, Claus Leggewie and Christoph Bieber spoke of a “democracy 2.0” and meant a “democratic renewal” with the help of new media (Leggewie and Bieber 2003; see also Leggewie and Bieber 2001 and the discussion in Imhof 2015). On internet and participation and political action, see also: Wesselmann (2002), Heigl and Hacker (2010), Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (2012), Gräßer and Hagedorn (2012), Lamla (2012), Lutz et al. (2012), Banse (2013), Dahlgren (2013), Dolata and Schrape (2013a), Kneuer (2013), Voss (2014), Send et al. (2014), Baringhorst (2015), Coleman and Freelon (2015), Merkel (2015b: 64 ff.), Trottier (2015), Fries et al. (2016), Lindner et al. (2016); critically, Schrape (2010). It is still unclear what effects electronic forms of participation generate. The theoretical possibility of easier access and a broader circle of users has so far been rather doubtful: “In contrast, decision-theoretical approaches tend to expect greater participation through the use of modern means of communication such as the internet, e-mail and mobile communications. These technologies considerably reduce the information and participation costs for all participants. However, experience with these new technologies shows neither a remarkable increase in participation nor a strong expansion of the circle of participants” (van Deth 2009: 156; see also Schlozman et al. 2010; Kersting 2014; Vowe 2014: 43 f.).

On the transformation of participatory practices see Jan van Deth (2009: 156 f.): “Due to the close connection between democracy and participation, the continuous expansion of the repertoire of political participation can certainly be seen as a strengthening of democracy, despite the persistent social and political inequality. Moreover, a stabilization or perhaps even a decline in the level of political participation need not necessarily be interpreted as harmful to democracy. Increasing prosperity and higher education have obviously contributed to the fact that politics is no longer seen as a necessary part of social conflicts, and citizens can therefore increasingly turn to other occupations. Moreover, a lack of participation in modern societies can also be attributed to the success of traditional politics – and not to the defeats, incompetence, inability, alienation or frustration caused by politics. Politics has made the lives of many citizens considerably easier and safer in recent decades. It is precisely because politics has been so successful that citizens can devote themselves to the more enjoyable things in life (…)”.

Kersting and Woyke assume, however, that in the end it is the social movements that lead to less solid membership and that sporadic activity leads to a crisis in voluntary work and causes the legitimacy of organizations to decline (Kersting and Woyke 2012: 16).

Current data can be found in particular in the Engagement Reports for the German Federal Government of 2012 and 2016 (“First Engagement Report”, see Enste et al. 2012; “Second Engagement Report”, see Zentrum für zivilgesellschaftliche Entwicklung 2016) and the 2009 study by the WZB Berlin (see Alscher et al. 2009). Finally, the so-called Volunteer Survey (Gensicke and Geiss 2010, 2015) collects a wide range of findings on civic engagement and the backgrounds of volunteers.

In the SOEP monitor (from 2012), see the two questions “Proportion of persons who are “active as volunteers” at least once a month” and “Proportion of persons who are “politically active” at least once a month”, last survey for 2011; see Goebel and Haas 2014: 26 f.

See the view of Jason Brennan, who only wants competent citizens to have a say in democracy, as less competent citizens are more likely to contribute to negative, that is undemocratic, effects in elections (see Brennan and Hill 2014).

See Keil (2013b: 54).

See Schultze (2005: 676).

See Keil (2013a: 186).

See also Gabriel (2013b: 407).

See Gabriel’s further argumentation according to which the structural local context can have a positive influence on individual political involvement (Gabriel 2013b: 407 f.): “The socioeconomic modernity of a community plays an important role in how strongly individual resource endowment influences participation in traditional political activities. Socioeconomic development promotes political equality because it weakens the resource dependence of political participation. Social engagement also has different effects on political participation in different contexts. Its political mobilization effect is particularly strong in highly socioeconomically developed communities. These results convey a positive message for the future of participatory politics, because as modernization progresses, political engagement is increasingly linked to social engagement and less to access to socioeconomic resources”.

See results of Dahl and Tufte (1973), Oliver (2000) and Keil (2013a, 2013b).

Thus Nolte (2011) also addresses the issue of middle class bias. Finally, he points to the (long known) problem that the “new, post-representative dimensions of democracy” favour above all the middle class, which is educated and articulated – the “working and lower classes, the formally less educated, often also migrants” are missing, since they cannot overcome “material and cultural entry thresholds” (ibid.: 11 f.). Nolte concludes: “Now mistrust and withdrawal of the lower classes, who have difficulty finding their place in multiple democracy, are increasing” (ibid: 12) – Walter (2013) comments on the “law of the middle class”: “For this reason alone, members of the middle class with academic titles and degrees populate the citizen petitions, but hardly any people from the precariat. And in collective engagement, the expansion of competence continues once again among those who are already abundantly supplied with knowledge, information, oratory skills. For in the organization of collective commitment, skills also accumulate. The active members must be able to build up organizational structures, maintain contacts with the media, exert pressure and make an impression on the authorities with solid justifications for their concerns, and be knowledgeable in the details of jurisdiction”.

Hoecker cites the socioeconomic standard model (after Verba and Nie 1972) as an important determinant of participation, according to which the rule should apply: the higher the level of education, the more qualified the profession and the higher the income, “the greater the chance for conventional political participation” (Hoecker 2006: 12). The same rule should apply to the unconstituted forms of participation (ibid.: 13).

See on the classification of the van Deth study (2013b: 49 f.) and on democratic civic virtues Abendschön (2013).

Van Deth explains: “(…) Activists are relatively highly educated, count themselves among a higher class and have a higher level of internal political self-confidence than other citizens. For passives and citizens who limit their participation to voter participation, the reverse is true. We therefore see violations of the democratic principle of equality especially among very active and passive citizens. Above all, the profile of citizens who do not participate at all differs significantly from the profile of the ‘average citizen’” (van Deth 2013b: 50).

The former sees participation as a goal and value in itself, the function is seen as self-determination and self-fulfilment of the individual, direct democratic forms are preferred, political-social participation is seen as meaningful in as many areas of society as possible (see on this and in the following Hoecker 2006: 9). The intensity of participation is understood to be processual; the acquisition of political competences is to be achieved through education and participatory practice, and finally, the aim is a “self-transformation” of society through participation. Political apathy results in this way of thinking as a result of concrete power relations; a reduction of this is to be achieved through the expansion of participation. The instrumental understanding of participation, on the other hand, sees participation primarily as a method and means to an end; its function is the regulation of social conflicts through representation and elite rule. Representative democratic forms, especially elections, are emphasized here. Participation is considered to be limited to the political sphere; the intensity of participation is only perceived as selective. Political competences are supposed to counteract the lack of knowledge and lead to insight and possible willingness to engage. Political apathy is seen here as an empirical fact and is perceived functionally in terms of system stability. Hoecker also describes a taxonomy of political participation (Hoecker 2006: 11). According to this, the dimensions of political participation are, on the one hand, conventional and constitutional procedures with the forms of citizenship (elections) and party-oriented participation (activity in parties). On the other hand, there are unconventional and unconstituted forms, which are divided into legal and illegal forms. The former is understood as problem-oriented participation (participation in citizens’ initiatives, participation in demonstrations, collection of signatures, participation in assemblies in public discussions, etc.) (ibid.).Similarly, Schultze (2005: 675) divides political participation into an instrumental and normative understanding: “Instrumental or purpose-rational are all those forms of political participation that citizens undertake voluntarily, individually and/or collectively in association with others in order to influence political decisions directly or indirectly in their favour. It is about participation, value consideration and the assertion of interests”. The addressees of political participation are institutions and decision-makers in the political system. In contrast, in the “normative understanding, participation is not only a means to an end, but also an end and value in itself. It is not about exerting influence and asserting interests, but rather about self-realization in the process of direct-democratic cooperation and political-social participation in as many areas of society as possible. Such a normative concept of participation is consensus-oriented, communitarian and expressive, whereas the instrumental concept of participation, closely related to the market-liberal understanding of rationality, is conflict-oriented” (ibid.: 675 f.). Direct democratic forms of political participation such as citizens’ initiatives would indeed “allow participation graded according to intensity, but would also be associated with a (in part far) higher level of commitment and costs” (ibid.: 676).

This includes all activities of citizens that go beyond classical political participation via elections and parties, for example, events, initiatives, etc.: “The change in the political behavior of Germans can be seen above all in the great increase in the importance of topic-related activities, which since the 1970s have played an increasingly important role as forms of political influence and for some years have been more widespread than party and election-related activities” (Kersting 2014: 58).

See on the extended forms of political participation, which for example go beyond elections Christensen 2011, on methodological distinctions Pfenning and Benighaus 2008 and on the question of increasing democratic quality through extended procedures Erhard et al. 2013.

According to Kersting, political participation can be subdivided into four areas of democratic participation, each of which contains different instruments and logics: representative (invited space, e.g., elections), direct (e.g., referendum, petition), deliberative (e.g., forum, citizens’ assembly, planning cell, advisory board) and demonstrative (invented space, e.g., demonstration, letter to the editor) or symbolic participation (Kersting 2014: 60). Elsewhere, Kersting and Woyke distinguish between the following forms of political participation (Kersting and Woyke 2012: 21 ff.): “indirect/representative – direct/theme-oriented; numerical – dialogical/deliberative; mobilized (invited space) – spontaneous (invented space); real – virtual”.

In 1978 (p. 46), Verba et al. defined political participation as “legal activities by private citizens that are more or less directly aimed at influencing the selection of governmental personnel and/or the actions they take”. Verba et al. (1995: 38) further expanded this definition to include “political participation can be understood as every kind of behavior of the citizen, taken individually or as a group, with the goal to influence a political decision”. Barnes and Kaase (1979: 42, see also Kaase 1992: 339) spoke in a similar way of “behaviors of citizens (…) that they voluntarily undertake, alone or as a group, with the goal of influencing a political decision”.

Max Kaase (2000) attempts to concretize political participation further as “all actions that citizens undertake voluntarily, individually or in groups, with the aim of influencing and/or making decisions at the various levels of the political system (municipality, state, federal government, possibly supranational units). This instrumental definition of participation does not mean that in reality there cannot also be cases in which participation takes place in the context of, for example, group activities without a political objective of their own (expressive participation)” (Kaase 2000: 466). However, he also puts attitudes into perspective: “By limiting the focus to concrete actions, attitudes toward participation are initially excluded. On the one hand, this makes sense in the interest of a clear delineation of the subject matter. On the other hand, research has shown that action-related attitudes also contain important information about the action orientations of societies as a whole and about the conditions under which concrete acts of political participation take place” (Kaase 2000: 466 f.).

Beate Hoecker derives from the previous definition that only actions that are explicitly aimed at the achievement of a political goal are covered; moreover, it indicates individual use, primarily guaranteed by elections (Hoecker 2006: 4). Hoecker classifies such an approach into the realistic-empirical theory of democracy, which is distinguished from a second direction, the normative theory of democracy, which regards democracy not primarily as a method, but as a form of rule and life (ibid.: 6 ff.).

Max Kaase (2011: 1777) finally attempts a fundamental approach to participation in general with regard to the possibilities of influencing different levels of society: “(…) each domain encompasses individuals (the microlevel), an intermediary structure (the mesolevel) linking individuals and institutions in that domain, and systemic elements crystallized in rules and institutions regulating the particular domain in question (the macrolevel)”. There is also an overarching transnational level. Kaase now describes the participation options that may arise depending on the level, whereby individual influences (participation is sought “from below” by individuals) and institutional arrangements (participation is made possible “from above”) are conceivable: “Participation refers (…) to activities by individual members of any given mesoor macro-unit of analysis. Secont, in the core of participation is the action itself -that is, individual behavior-even if attitutes as the antecedents of such behavior (…) may also be of interest. Third, individuals never act in a social void; therefore, to understand why people act at all and in the way they do, one has to consider the embeddedness of individuals in a context conducive to action. This context can also be the institutional arrangements on the macrolevel (e.g., for voting, the electoral law in a given country) or the social environment that an individual is part of. Fourth, modern social science is (…) also about dynamics and change (…). Fifth, and returning to the concept of domains as subunits of sociopolitical systems resulting form processes of differentiation in in contemporary societies, participation for the purpose of this entry is divided into a part on political participation and a-smaller-part on social participation (ther are other fields worth looking at, e.g., cultural participation (…)” (ibid..: 1777 f.)

de Moor (2017).

Thus, Jan van Deth refers to typological approaches that distinguish between structural channels (van Deth 2009: 147): channels of representation (such as elections, party activities or even citizens’ initiatives that want to influence members of parliament) as well as other channels beyond democratic institutions (such as the use of product boycotts or attempts to influence public opinion, another new form is consumption).

See on the debate about the exclusion of civic engagement from political participation versus inclusion of civic engagement Norbert Kersting, who explicitly advocates a separation: “First of all, a fundamental distinction must be made between political participation as participation in decision-making and civic engagement as participation in the implementation of self-help projects oriented towards the common good. (…) Civic engagement (co-production) plays an important role in society (e.g., for building social capital). However, this civic engagement should be fundamentally distinguished from political participation, i.e. participation that is primarily aimed at influencing decision-making” (Kersting 2014: 60). See elsewhere also Kersting and Woyke, who define civic engagement as participation in the context of implementations or (public welfareoriented) self-help, which could be found in privatized, self-responsible organizations (such as associations) (Kersting and Woyke 2012: 20 f., and Kersting 2008: 20). Political participation, on the other hand, is exclusively “participation in the decision-making process” (ibid.). Klaus Koopmann takes a contrary view by explicitly speaking of civic participation. He refers to the influence on political processes and combines participation with high qualitative, in particular individual demands, in relation to “voluntary, reflective, responsible, cooperative and not for personal material gain related participation of citizens in public, community-related, democratically legitimized negotiation and decision-making processes involving state political actors and institutions under the conditions of written democratic rules and public, conflicting constellations of interests and public use of power” (Koopmann 2012: 1). In the form of a combination, Koopmann defines civic participation as follows: “Civic participation (…) is the voluntary, reflective, self-directed and at the same time cooperative and responsible participation of citizens in public, community-related, usually problem-solving oriented, democratically legitimized negotiation and decision-making processes involving state policy actors and institutions under the conditions of written democratic rules as well as public, conflicting constellations of interests and the public use of power” (ibid.: 6 f.).

Thus Wichard Woyke defines political participation as “those behaviors of citizens who, as a group or on their own, voluntarily seek to exert influence on political decisions at various levels of the political system (local, state, federal, and European). A distinction is made between conventional (written, legally guaranteed and regulated) and unconventional (not written) forms of political participation (Woyke 2009: 549). Woyke defines community-related activities of political participation as “institutionalized, but temporary forms of political participation (…) such as, for example, temporary participation in local problem solving (…)” – which presumably means citizens’ initiatives and the like (ibid.: 550). Woyke, in turn, distinguishes these forms of political participation from social participation, which “includes above all voluntary and civic engagement” (ibid.).

The distinguishing feature here should be volunteerism, although this can also be an explicit component of political participation: “Although these activities aimed at social integration can certainly achieve a political character, they are usually to be found in the voluntary sector” (ibid.).

See co-determination research: Schaffer and Eidherr 1973; Ahlbrecht 1976; von Mitschke-Collande 1977; Barthel and Dikau 1980; Wilpert and Rayley 1983; Diefenbacher et al. 1984; Kißler 1989; Greifenstein et al. 1991, 1993; Wilpert 1997; Frick 1999; Kommission Mitbestimmung 1999; Niedenhoff 2005; Herbert 2008; Andersen 2009; Greifenstein and Kißler 2010; Kißler et al. 2011; Weninger 2011; Kolbe 2013; Rügenhagen 2013; Lowitzsch et al. 2014; Lowitzsch et al. 2014; Wilkinson 2014; Owetschkin 2016.

See on recent research of participation in business: Rothschild and Whitt 1986; Arlt 1999; Baglioni 1999; Weber 1999; Weber et al. 2003; Vilmar and Weber 2004; Weber 2004a, 2004b; Demirović 2007; Weber et al. 2007, 2012; Weber et al. 2008; Moldaschl and Weber 2009; Schmid 2009; Weber and Höge 2009; Weber et al. 2009; Weber and Lampert 2010; Wegge et al. 2010; Unterrainer et al. 2011; Fricke 2012; Hemetsberger 2012; Lind 2012; Ostendorf and Thoma 2012; Weber and Moldaschl 2012; Weber and Unterrainer 2012; Verdorfer et al. 2013.

Weber (2004b: 466) names as research desiderata of organizational research:In his own study of research cooperatives, Weber (ibid.: 468) first found a positive correlation between “the extent to which cooperative members (…) were involved in decision-making (…) and the willingness to act pro-socially towards the cooperative and its members (…) reported by respondents” (ibid.: 468). Second, a relationship exists between “the level of democratic participation and affective commitment (…)” (ibid.). “The more the cooperative members surveyed can have a say in their operational concerns, the more likely they are to identify with the values and goals of their company, the more they are committed to its concerns, including publicly, and the more likely they are to feel part of a community” (ibid.). On this question of the transformation from individual-utilitarian to pro-social action through cooperative behaviour, see also Weber 1998.

Moldaschl and Weber (2009), for example, investigated the extent to which organizational participation can contribute to social democratization and came to the following conclusion (ibid.: 104): “Decision-making participation of employees and the sociomoral atmosphere are positively related to work-related solidarity and helpfulness, humanistic orientations and the willingness to get involved in democratic and social concerns in society. The same applies to the affective and normative commitment of employees towards their company”.

For a theoretical concept of integrative business ethics, see for example, von Ulrich (2008).

See on the discussion of questions of demarcation between political and social participation van Deth 2001 and on the connection with local participation Bühler 1997; Detjen 2000; Wollmann 2002 and Vetter 2008.

Jan van Deth (2001) considered the relationship between social and political participation (“alternatives, complements or twins?”). He argues that “both types of activities are closely linked and support (or inhibit) each other. The two forms are therefore seen as complements rather than alternatives or twins” (van Deth 2001: 195). Van Deth therefore assumes that participation generates participation (thought of in both directions).

Silke Keil increasingly sees the “boundaries between political and non-political disappearing and citizens choosing the appropriate means to achieve their goals” (Keil 2013a: 177). These goals of citizens’ political action “do not in principle have to be disposed of by political means”, “which means that participation nowadays has to be defined broadly”. Following Jan van Deth (2009: 141), Silke Keil suggests that ultimately, actually everything a person does can be considered political participation at some point (Keil 2013a: 176 f.). In her way of thinking and arguing, Keil explicitly refers to the areas of political consumption and boycott.

Furthermore, Keil emphasizes that social participation does not have to be related only to formalized structures: “Social engagement can have many manifestations and not only take place in associations. In informal terms, there is also a broad field of activity: people help other people, family members stand by each other in emergency situations, people meet with friends and get involved in projects together, they work in professional contexts to solve various problems, etc. However, formal involvement in clubs and associations is usually considered to play a more significant role in civil society than informal participation. Particularly in the context of theories of social modernization and social integration, they are seen as a necessary link between primary groups and state institutions” (Keil 2013b: 53).

On the connection of civil society associations to local politics and democracy see Hallmann 2005 and on the networking function of cooperatives between municipalities, citizens and business Bauer et al. 2014; on the one hand, functions of civil society associations as a “democratic productive force” (Rucht 1997), on the other hand as a counterforce to representative elements of democracy are discussed (“check the parliament”, Paulsen et al. 2008).

Following Pierre Bourdieu (see Bourdieu 1983) and Robert Putnam (see Putnam et al. 1993; Putnam 2000), social capital is defined by Westle and Gabriel (2008: 5) “as a construct consisting of three elements: 1) social relationships, as they arise primarily from activities in associations and other types of networks, 2) a fundamental trust in one’s fellow human beings and 3) certain values and norms that support thinking and acting in solidarity with the community. (…) This is postulated: The more social capital (i.e., the more involvement in associations, the more trust and the more community values and norms) there is in a society, the better democracy and the welfare state function, and the more likely it is that the manifold evils and distortions of modernity can be avoided.” See also Coleman 1988; Baron et al. 2000; Dekker and Uslaner 2001; Gabriel et al. 2002; Klein et al. 2004a; Smith et al. 2004; Franzen and Freitag 2007; Maloney and Roßteutscher 2007; Castiglione et al. 2008; Häuberer 2011; Badura et al. 2013; Li 2015.

See Ebert 1974; Hättich 1978, 1984; Gabriel 1983, 2000; Simon 1983b; Guggenberger and Kempf 1984; Schneider-Wilkes 2001; Dachwitz 2002; Pappi 2004; Guggenberger 2009; Wolling and Bräuer 2010; Klausen and Winsvold 2012.

Research on cooperatives is very complex, describing, among other things, the following topics (for an overview, see Michie et al. 2015):

Research now covers the following aspects and areas:

Dark sides of community and civil society associations such as corruption, exclusion, oligarchy, imbalance in the overall social influence, clientelism, cronyism, etc. are discussed in the literature by Fiorina (1999), Nullmeier (2002), Roth (2003, 2004, 2008), Adloff (2005), Munsch (2005), Stecker and Nährlich (2005), Zimmer (2003, 2007), Clarke (2008b), Fehren (2008), Geißel (2008a), Staeheli (2008), van Deth and Zmerli (2010), Klatt et al. (2011), and Gmür (2013b), Schäfer (2013a), Simsa and Zimmer (2014), and Wilde (2014).

Sebastian Braun examined a wide variety of social aspects in associationism, such as solidarity, community and common good (Braun 2004), as well as voluntary associations “as catalysts and producers of social capital” (Braun 2003, 2007), similarly “associations as catalysts of social and political competences” (Braun et al. 2007) and “associative lifeworld, binding social capital and communities of choice of taste” (Braun 2009) (see on this already Simon 1983a). In addition, Vortkamp was able to make contributions to the question of “integration through participation and participation through citizen engagement in associations and associated civil society potential” (Vortkamp 2005, 2008). – See further studies on the question of whether civil society associations can serve as carriers of solidarity, community and common good (Braun 2004). Further topics concern the creation of associative lifeworlds, binding social capital and communities of taste (Braun 2009; Bühlmann and Freitag 2007), the question of the connection between social inequality, social capital and subjective quality of life (Oshege 2002; Jütting et al. 2003; Geißel 2004a; Geißel et al. 2004; Hartmann 2009; Hellmann 2004; Kern 2004; Stecker 2005; Diekmann 2007a; Diewald and Lüdicke 2007; Franzen and Freitag 2007; Kriesi 2007a; Gabriel 2010), creation or equalization of inequality (Lüdicke 2007; Manske 2007; Keil 2013b) as well as formation of social capital in the context of entrepreneurial activity (Preisendörfer 2007) and an exclusionary effect of social capital (Vogt 2009).

Effects such as organizational learning are analysed by Hansen 2008; Bono 2012 and Trumann 2013, as well as educational processes by Naumann 2010, local value creation by Flieger 2010, and innovation potential and trust-building through active co-determination by Kädtler et al. 2013 and Scholl et al. 2013; further effects relate, among other things, to communication in neighbourhoods (Danner et al. 2007), creation of community (Immerfall et al. 2010) and socialization services (Nobis 2012). On the importance of volunteering, see Janning and Bartjes 1999; Dettling 2000a, 2000b; Klages 2000a; Notz 2000; Erlinghagen 2003; Nitschke 2005; Zimmer 2005b; Priller 2010; Ehrhardt 2011 and Stricker 2011; for descriptions of parallel developments in civic engagement, gainful employment and organizational development, see Birkhölzer 2002 and Sprengel 2007.

Examples of this can be conflicts between committees (Bürgisser 2011, 2012a, 2012b, between honorary/official (Bürgisser and Helmig 2009). See further criticisms such as “participation myth”: Identifying lofty participation ideals and low (participation) supply in Hoffjann et al. 2013; in addition, a lack of willingness to take on responsible positions and their work between civic engagement and management (Zimmer 2005a; Beher et al. 2008; Deicher 2010; Wolf and Zimmer 2010; Liebig 2011) as well as problems regarding gender-specific aspects (Weg 2005) and power issues (Zimmer 2003) are described.

Thus van Deth (2001) assesses the consequences of participation in clubs and associations as consistently very positive. Accordingly, empirical analyses show that especially voter turnout and participation in so-called conventional forms of political participation are promoted by citizens’ social involvement. In this sense, social participation should be regarded as a “school of democracy”. On the evaluation of civil society associations as schools of democracy in the sense of democracy-promoting learning and democratic practices, see Simon 1983a, and on the acquisition of competencies through voluntary engagement Hansen 2008 and Düx et al. 2009.

See study results on Germany in Alscher et al. 2009; Gensicke and Geiss 2010, 2015; Enste et al. 2012; Statistisches Bundesamt and WZB 2013; Statistisches Bundesamt 2015; Zentrum für zivilgesellschaftliche Entwicklung 2016.

Helmut Schoene (Schoene 2011: 248) defines civic engagement as “citizens access to and participation in information, decision making, and implementation of public policies broadly construed; taking part in democracy – individually or as a part of organized groups – through communication and public actions (including electoral campaigns and elections) where public interests prevail over private ones; the act of becoming involved in the political process and working to better the community; and a means to guarantee the credibility of institutions, through articulation of citizens’ demands and holding public officials accountable”. In the definition, the emphasis on civic education becomes visible, also the input side, decision-making and quality of engagement are emphasized, in particular the accesses of individuals to decision-making processes are focused (ibid.). See also further definitions in Evers (2009) and Olk and Hartnuß (2011) as well as reflections on guiding principles of the concept of engagement by Maaser (2010).

Arnstein (1969: 217) divided into “Manipulation”, “Therapy”, “Informing”, “Consultation”, “Placation”, “Partnership”, “Delegated Power” up to “Citizen control”.

Lüttringhaus (2000, 2003) distinguishes between “granting participation” and here the levels “information”, “exchange, dialogue, discussion”, “cooperation in partnership”, “delegation of decisions” as well as “participating” with the levels “observation/information”, “participation”, “co-decision”, “self-responsibility” and “autonomy”. Further classifications can be found in Arbter et al. (2005), Abels (2007), Zschocke (2007) and Fishkin (2009).

Connor (1988) presented a ladder of stages with a different understanding, citing the three stages of “education”, “information feedback” and “consultation” with regard to public participation, “joint planning”, “mediation” and “litigation” at the level of the “leaders” and finally, at the highest stage in the reverse understanding (i.e., starting from citizens themselves), the introduction of “resolution” and “prevention”. On the one hand, Connor thus goes more into the ideas of public participation (i.e., how citizens can at best be involved from the user perspective, see Connor 1988: 256), on the other hand he emphasizes the perspective of learning influence and cooperative co-creation, which was still rather excluded in Arnstein’s work and in a rather radical way of thinking can only be achieved through autarky. However, whether one stage can and must always only necessarily build on the other, as Connor (1988: 257) indicates, seems very questionable, even if he concedes that processes can run synchronously and approaches must always be adapted to the specific context (ibid.).

The pyramid is also applied to e-renewable energies in another study (Carmen 2014: 13), whereby the lowest level of “information” is supposed to mean informing, “consultation” is supposed to mean thinking, “cooperation” is supposed to mean co-deciding and shaping, and the highest level of “responsible action” is supposed to mean initiating projects on one’s own initiative (ibid.). This highest level of acting on one’s own responsibility as well as the lower level “cooperation and co-determination” should lead to financial participation and, with regard to this, to “active acceptance, support and commitment”, which could also be given in the other cases, but here there is also the possibility that only “passive acceptance” and “advocacy” will develop (ibid.: 14).

The model distinguishes between “participants” with “information: providing information”, “consultation: obtaining opinions”, “cooperation: granting co-decision”, “acting on one’s own responsibility” and “participants” with “informing themselves”, “thinking and expressing opinions”, “co-deciding”, “self-responsible action”. It is related to three different perspectives: “local / facility-based participation”, “financial participation” and “Regional participation”. An acceptance and commitment/participation dimension are linked in a matrix (Schweizer-Ries et al. 2008: 30). An acceptance dimension is combined and related to the strategy or commitment of the operating company, resulting in four criteria:Accordingly, a positive evaluation can lead to advocacy or active engagement, a passive evaluation to acquiescence or active action, and a negative evaluation to rejection or resistance (ibid.). Finally, the levels of participation in a scale are: informing, questioning, involving, cooperating, participating. It can be seen that implicit normative criteria such as “self control” are dispensed with. Nevertheless, the meaningfulness of a hierarchical subdivision remains questionable (Rau and Zöllner 2011: 115).

Enumerated are: Coherence (meaning of individual action), self-location (living out personal idiosyncrasies), significant others (making new contacts), productivity (e.g., dealing productively with frustration, individual concerns, meaningful time management), “experiencing competence” (building on one’s own strengths), recognition (private/public, self-acknowledgement, subjective valuations, social recognition). Possible competencies that play a special role in civic engagement are thus personal and social competencies, methodological and emotional competencies, and communicative and technical competencies (Steinfort 2010: 230).

See research on power and domination issues in associations and organizations: Städler 1984; Alvesson 1996; Abell and Heller 2000; Wex 2004; Clegg et al. 2006; Jäger 2011; Imbusch 2012; Jörke 2012; Richter 2013.

Kevenhörster summarized here (Kevenhörster 1975: 35 ff.):According to Kersting (2008: 17 ff.), further points of criticism concern:

Nolte points to these solidifying tendencies of social inequalities (2003: 38): “Civil society is a beautiful dream, the design of a better society. For this reason alone, it is not surprising that the project of civil society is often associated with a relatively egalitarian society: a society not only of citizens with equal rights, but also of relatively equal economic privileges and opportunities. In contrast, however, is the reality of entrenched social structures, the reality of socio-economic inequality. In a reversal of the secular egalitarian trend that prevailed for many decades, social inequality has actually worsened in most Western societies since about 1980; gaps have grown again.” – Two tendencies are central for Nolte in this context: the decline of the labor movement and the lack of integrative power of the new culture of engagement (ibid.: 44): “Can we infer from this, conversely, that civil society can be produced solely with a middle class that is politically engaged? This question has become more explosive in recent decades in all Western countries in an unsuspected way. The traditional working-class movement culture, and with it the lower-class organizations that had largely adapted to the bourgeois model of civil society, are increasingly dissolving or losing their power to shape society as a whole; new lower classes beyond the classical industrial workforce are withdrawing from organizations and, as the class-specific decline in voter turnout shows, tend to behave politically indifferently or apathetically. On the other hand, the new forms of civic engagement that have gained in importance in recent decades over the classical culture of clubs, associations, and organizations (e.g., citizens’ initiatives, protest movements) are characterized to a conspicuous degree by a post-educational middle class and are in many cases far less capable of cross-class integration than was the case in the traditional pattern.”

Walter (2013) also describes the dark sides of civil society as a well-known phenomenon: “Civil society, i.e. the space between the state and individuals that is organized by citizens themselves, is not only a proven fertilizer for the praiseworthy virtues of liberality, tolerance and humanity. Civil society is also a nesting place for pathological fears and aggressions, social and ethnic exclusion and repression, cynicism and contempt for the democratic process. (…) A civil society fragmented in confrontational world views and individual worlds, moreover heated up by agitation and confronted with weak state institutions and representative bodies, cannot consolidate parliamentary democracies, but only undermine them”. See also the résumé of Gmür (2013b: 32), who speaks of the limits of civil society, it “does not only stand for free engagement, orientation towards progress and the common good or social integration, but it can also mean: particular interests, exclusion, developmental delay or patriarchy”.

Nullmeier (2002: 18) identifies the penetration of economic principles as a central problem: “These external influences, but also internal efforts of civil society organizations to adapt to new social developments of individualization and competitiveness, lead to a creeping transformation of civil society. Resources specific to civil society are increasingly being procured in ways that conform to the rules of competition, the services of civil society are being extensively marketed, and the internal organization obeys the latest management concepts.” As a solution, Nullmeier proposes a strategy of politicization and transformation of the citizen role from economic to political citizen (ibid.: 19): “A continuation of the civil society debate would have to produce both a less euphemistic analysis of reality and develop a more offensive strategy towards the market and economic competition. The citizen in his role as a committed person, donor, volunteer will be of secondary importance if his possibilities as a political citizen are weakened and he is confronted with an overpowering economic citizen. It would therefore be important to attack the citizen in the role of the economic citizen. Such a task cannot be left or assigned to state politics alone. From within society, the market must be made the object of intervening activity. Civic engagement must also extend to economic decisions. Of course, this implies a politicization of civil society, a shift from helping, active to participatory engagement, towards a self-image as a political actor in society – towards a politics beyond the state. Thus, the word should be spoken of a political civil society that is able to actively intervene in market events, that sees itself as an expression of social control and correction of economic events, whose commitment does not shy away from intervening in the economic cycle and thus offers a counterweight to the state and the market.

Stecker and Nährlich (2005: 162) point out the empirical deficit of the initial consideration: “At this point, however, it becomes conspicuous that the socially integrative effects for the macro-level of society have not yet been conclusively demonstrated, although they are also used to justify the resources allocated to the nonprofit sector. But what if the resources merely produce a suboptimal effect (misallocation) and the voluntary associations are overburdened by the positive characteristics often attributed to them?” The authors see advantages above all in comparison with other areas of society: “These diverse claims, hopes and objectives raise the question of whether voluntary engagement and the nonprofit sector can actually achieve what is expected of them. For it is to be feared that the nonprofit sector is overtaxed in the face of these complex challenges. Doubts are also raised as to whether voluntary engagement and nonprofit organizations even possess the positive qualities attributed to them. In order to answer these questions, (…) the dark sides of the functions located on the meso level of the organizations and the effects acting on the macro level of society were examined. In this context, in terms of institutional choice, it is only in comparison with the institutions of the state, the market and the family that the comparative advantages, if any, of the third sector emerge. The existence of comparative competitive advantages at the level of nonprofit organizations does not automatically indicate more efficient economic production and economic allocation”. – For this reason, there is a plea to differentiate more strongly between functions and effects and to include the emergence of external effects (ibid.: 176): “It is considered imperative to turn away from the largely one-sided positive evaluation of nonprofit organizations and civic engagement. Neither is nonprofit status under tax law a (sole) guarantee for the fulfilment of certain positive functions and the occurrence of positive external effects, nor do commitment and the third sector represent a ‘general solution’ for all social problems. Here it is necessary to come to a realistic assessment of the performance of the third sector and – in comparison to the market, the state and the family – to refer more strongly to its comparative advantages” (ibid.).

See Luhmann 1983, who has already pointed out the problem of disappointment in participation procedures (Luhmann 1983: 233 ff.) and paradoxical processes within the administration (ibid.: 203 ff.).

Luhmann explicitly explains his idea of bureaucratization through participation elsewhere: “Democratization already means in itself: Multiplication of the burden of decision. One decision becomes many decisions. Whoever participates in committees, commissions, conferences, senates, councils, must decide how to cast his vote. Often he has to take part in further meetings, which are supposed to ensure a coordinated voting, because otherwise the aggregability and the connectivity of the decision-making would be endangered and random majorities would rule. Voting, for its part, requires preparations, some at random meetings, some at arranged ones; and it requires specially elected organizers in each case. Democracy means the resolution and recombination of factual decision-making, and the organization required for this inevitably takes on bureaucratic, pre-regulated, formalized structures” (ibid.: 226).

On the question of enhancing legitimacy and accountability, see Abels (2007) and Bringenberg (2013); on the failure of participation processes, Avenhaus et al. (2006b); on conditions for political participation (socio-structural, etc.), Baum (1978) and Buse et al. (1978); on experiences and evaluations of various participatory instruments Bertke et al. (2005) and Blakeley and Evans (2010); on the staging of participation Burchardt (2008); on the establishment of participation standards Avenhaus et al. (2006a).