In certain situations, individuals organise themselves into groups, elaborate demands and express them in a collective form. They act in concert in order to force the political system to take account of these demands. Groupings which already exist, or which are brought into being for a specific purpose, seek to create or to reactivate a sense of identity and solidarity which is capable of lasting a long time and of being relatively firm. In this sense, political participation is not necessarily a continuous and permanent phenomenon. It can differ both according to the issues which are generated by collective action, and according to the level of decision-making, so that its extent and its intensity may vary considerably.

A WORKING DEFINITION OF POLITICAL MOBILISATION

As we shall argue, the concept of political mobilisation is not simply a form of participation which has been initiated from outside. Indeed, as a working definition we here take it to mean the processes which are intended to create or to reactivate a commitment or an identification, with the purpose of promoting collective aims. In more concrete terms these aims are to influence public decisions or to put forward new values by means of actions defined according to three distinctive criteria:

1. (a) A collective dimension: individuals form groups on the basis of common objectives so that their demands will be taken into account in one way or another by the local politico-administrative system. Unlike some approaches to the study of political participation, it is the action of the group which becomes the object of study, and not the behaviour of individuals.

2. […]