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Apathy
Type:	(yawn)
Keywords:	Protest; participation; acquiescence; affluent society; generation X; voluntarism; democracy; age of the post-political
Requests:	PLEASE DON'T BE APATHETIC, SOMEONE EMAIL US SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING TO GO ON HERE
Whereas political apathy is a genuine problem for progressive politics often the responses to it are ill founded. Often the argument runs that it is a responsibility or a duty to vote, a common feature of democratic attempts at voter participation. Often anti-democratic proposals are proposed as a solution to lack of participation in the democractic process, such as making it a criminal offence not to vote. A broad response to this might be simply that for political decisions to have any meaning � or indeed be democratic � alternatives must be on offer in the political field. The two �party system in the UK and the USA; the olligarchical dominance of media moguls in Italy and the general middling of politics to the centre ground in most of Europe demonstrate that voting for a party is much the same things as voting for the legitimacy of the system.
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Bibliography		AVOIDING POLITICS: HOW AMERICANS PRODUCE APATHY IN EVERYDAY LIFE (Nina Eliasoph)