The Multifaceted Nature of Civic Participation (A Literature Review)

Civic participation is an ideal concept in most democratic societies. People are encouraged to support neighbors, communities, and causes that combined contribute to the quality of life in their environment. However, too often the study of civic participation is carried out in a narrow intra-disciplinary manner that prevents a real understanding of what civic participation is and how to assess it. In this review, Cnaan and Park document how key writings are limited in scope and are either nonprofit, political science or environmental studies oriented. They then review many definitions of civic participation and form one that best captures the concept. They follow this with a set of six major forms of civic participation, each with numerous sub-categories and relevant statistics illustrating their occurrences. Cnaan and Park conclude with a call for future research of civic participation to be both comprehensive and sensitive.