Reformulating activism, reformulating the activist

Although the past decade has seen an upsurge of interest in ideas of public participation and democratisation, relatively little is known about the nature of voluntary activism. This article draws on interview data collected within the Labour Party, Amnesty International, tenants’ and residents’ associations, and the Exodus collective in order to examine the nature of voluntary participation within the UK. Using the work of Habermas and theorists of social capital, we argue that the data calls into question the potential within civil society for the development of deliberative tendencies.