Disentangling the Impact of Civil Association Membership on Political Participation: Evidence from Swedish Panel Data

What is the effect of membership in civil associations on political participation? Membership has been linked to providing social capital and personal networks, which in turn help citizens more easily navigate politics. Yet this link is empirically complex, since politically interested individuals self-select into networks and associations. This research note addresses the impact of membership on different forms of political participation using a panel survey from Sweden that distinguishes between passive and active membership in various types of associations. The baseline results reaffirm a strong association between membership and political participation. The survey's panel dimension is exploited to reveal that earlier scholarship has likely overstated the robustness of membership's participatory effects. Rather, the remaining impact of association membership in the panel specification is mainly driven by types of associations for which the highest degree of selection behaviour is expected.