Efficacy is held to be a key driver of political participation.. While it is the case that the contribution of various forms of social capital and informal groups have received quite a deal of attention (see e.g. Verba, Schlozman and Verba 1995 and related works) the role of the workplace has received much less attention. Despite the fact that employment is a central part of most people's lives and, also, the locus of a long standing argument is that one's workplace is an important driver of efficacy and hence political participation (Pateman 1975)
In this cross-national comparative study we examine to role of workplace conditions on sense of efficacy and political participation. Even after addressing questions of selection of workplace we find consistent evidence across 20 European nations that workplace conditions promote political participation