Survey Variable: Religious Involvement

As Verba, Schlozman, and Brady showed thirty years ago, albeit in the context of the United States, religious institutions can act as important drivers of political participation. They provide social networks and prompt people to develop and use civic skills, both of which can prove useful when participating in politics. As such, the Privilege and

Survey Variable: Past Vote

Perhaps the form of political participation that has received most attention is voting. This is for good reason; it is consequential in the sense that it clearly affects who governs and the policies that are implemented. From the perspective of political science, it also has the advantage of being a form of participation for which,

Survey Variable: Ranked Reasons for Non-Involvement

In addition to indicating their reasons for not being involved in political acts or organisations, respondents were also asked to rank the reasons that they selected. Again, these questions were only answered by people who do not do any political acts, get involved in any organisations, or both (n = 505). As Figure 1 (above,

Survey Variable: Selected Reasons for Non-Involvement

Respondents who indicated that they didn’t do any political acts or get involved in any organisations (n = 505) were asked to indicate the reasons for their lack of involvement. As Figure 1 (using weighted data) shows, the two most common answers are lack of money and lack of time, which were each selected by

Survey Variable: Organisations Supported

Those respondents who indicated that they supported a campaign organisation or a charity (or both) were given the opportunity to write the organisation(s) that they support into an open text box. Far more people (n = 980) indicated that they supported charities than campaign organisations (n = 220), and almost all of those who supported

Survey Variable: Unpaid Position Length

As with organisation membership, those respondents who indicated that they hold an unpaid position of responsibility in an organisation were asked how long they had held it for. Their answers are presented in Figure 1 (above, using weighted data) and show that taking on an unpaid position of responsibility is a extremely minority pastime.[1] One

Survey Variable: Membership Length

Having asked about involvement with a range of political organisations, the survey asked people who were members of an organisation how long they had held that status. As Figure 1 (above, using weighted data) shows, the vast majority of respondents indicated that they were not members of an organisation and were thus not asked about

Survey Variable: Volunteering

Similarly to donating, respondents who indicated that they volunteered for at least one type of organisation were asked how frequently they did so, and roughly how much time they spent in each instance. Again, those who had indicated that they do not make donations were coded as such (rather than as missing values). Figures 1

Survey Variable: Donating

Those respondents who indicated that they donated to at least one type of organisation were asked to estimate roughly how much they donated in total (across all donations to all organisations that they support) in the last year. Those who had indicated that they do not make donations were coded as such (rather than as

Survey Variable: Organisation Civic Skills

Drawing on Verba, Schlozman and Brady’s (1995) seminal Civic Voluntarism Model, the survey asked people whether they had done any activities involving particular skills for the organisations that they supported. This was to see whether (and how many) people utilise and sustain civic skills when getting involved with the organisations that they support. Specifically, they