An Alternative to Representation: Explaining Preferences for Citizens as Political Decision-Makers

Abstract

Extensive scholarly attention is devoted to citizens’ preferences for alternative models of political decision-making. However, few efforts were made to identify who these citizens are and why they display a certain preference. To address this void in the literature, our article analyzes the determinants of preferences for citizens as decision-makers. It uses individual-level data from a 2014 survey on a probability representative sample in Germany and tests the effects of political attitudes toward institutions of representative democracy, interest in politics, and civic involvement. It controls for consumption of political news, education, and age.

How citizens evaluate participatory processes: A conjoint analysis

“…Furthermore, the effects were similar across policy issues and process preferences, suggesting that the effects are a relatively stable in society. The results are therefore able to give new insights into what type of participatory mechanisms ordinary citizens want to see introduced on a more detailed level compared to previous research that have examined either broad process preferences (Bengtsson and Christensen 2016;Gherghina and Geissel 2017;Font, Wojcieszak, and Navarro 2015) or attitudes to specific mechanisms (Goldberg, Wyss, and Bächtiger 2019;Jacquet 2018;Christensen and von Schoultz 2019).…”

“…Testing H3 makes it necessary to measure the extent to which people prefer citizens or elected representatives as principal decision makers (Bengtsson and Christensen 2016;Font, Wojcieszak, and Navarro 2015;Gherghina and Geissel 2017). This is here measured with a single item where respondents are asked whether they prefer ordinary citizens or elected representatives to make decisions on a scale from 0-10, where 10 indicates a preference for elected representatives (Wojcieszak 2014).…”

“…However, even when a specific participatory innovation could potentially deliver every imaginable democratic good, it would still need citizens' support to be able to fulfil this potential. Not only are people less likely to support its introduction in the first place, they are also less likely to take advantage of the possibility to take part once in place (Gherghina and Geissel 2017;Bengtsson and Christensen 2016;Christensen and von Schoultz 2019). Hence, although popularity does not alter the proposed advantages of a participatory mechanism, it affects the possibility to bring the hypothetical advantages to fruition.…”

“…While several attributes can be of importance, the present study focuses on attitudes towards participation as a way of making political decisions and how this attitude shapes the effect of the participatory features. Previous studies show that people hold persistent preferences for how political decisions should be made and what actors should be involved (Bengtsson and Christensen 2016;Gherghina and Geissel 2017;Font, Wojcieszak, and Navarro 2015). A central question is whether ordinary citizens or elected representative should make the final decision on important political decisions (Wojcieszak 2014;Gherghina and Geissel 2019).…”

“…Other studies examine popular attitudes towards specific types of participatory mechanisms (Goldberg, Wyss, and Bächtiger 2019;Jacquet 2018;Christensen and von Schoultz 2019), or differences in process preferences, i.e. how political decision should be made (Bengtsson and Christensen 2016;Gherghina and Geissel 2017;Font, Wojcieszak, and Navarro 2015). While these studies provide important insights, they do not show what participatory mechanisms citizens want or how specific design features of these mechanisms affect citizens' evaluations of them.…”