Conclusions: Citizens and Political Activism in France

The study of political participation across areas and periods has yet to be completed. Overall, researchers have been able to achieve important conclusions on the main factors leading to citizens’ political activism. Whether the research prefers to focus on a specific context or on the motives behind political commitment, it remains clear that individuals are brought into the political arena with a pre-determined disposition to be active. The on-going interaction of socio-demographic factors with levels and styles of political action has shown that a parsimonious political action equation cannot fully account for the possibility of political involvement. More precisely, the context of political action may not be the most important element in assessing whether a person will be a strong participant. To predict citizen activism, the French situation suggests that an individual’s socio-demographic characteristics can be as relevant as a person’s social and political integration. Whereas Tocqueville emphasized the social integration element over the individual’s features, this study has balanced the relevance of both aspects fostering political involvement. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.