Associational involvement

The right of citizens to assemble and to unite in associations is a wellacknowledged and cited prerequisite for democracy. However, it is one thing to have the right and another to exercise it. Is it important to what extent citizens actually make use of this fundamental democratic right and how that use is distributed among them? During the last decade, social scientists have sparked a vivid debate about the virtues of associational involvement for democracy, for the economy and for society as a whole