Education and support for representative, direct and stealth democracy

Coffé, Hilde; Michels, Ank

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2014.03.006

Cited by 120 publications

(152 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The authors conclude that 'far from being diametrically opposed, the apparent desire to empower people often cohabits with the desire to empower entities virtually unconnected to the people' (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002, p. 140). Evidence from other countries also shows some support for the stealth democracy model (Coffé and Michels, 2014;Gangl, 2007), revealing complex relationships between citizen process preferences, as we mention below.…”

Section: The Dimensionality Of Political Process Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 84%

Participation, Representation and Expertise: Citizen Preferences for Political Decision-Making Processes

Fábregas¹,

Wojcieszak²,

Navarro³

2015

Political Studies

113

157

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In this article, it is shown that citizen process preferences are complex and include several dimensions. The argument relies on data from a representative sample of Spanish citizens (N = 2,450) to assess these dimensions. Using confirmatory factor analysis as well as Mokken analysis, it is shown that citizen process preferences capture support for three different models: participatory, representative and expert‐based. The relationships between these dimensions (where the opposition between representation and participation stands as the clearest result) and the substantive and methodological implications of these findings are discussed.

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Section: The Dimensionality Of Political Process Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 84%

Participation, Representation and Expertise: Citizen Preferences for Political Decision-Making Processes

Fábregas¹,

Wojcieszak²,

Navarro³

2015

Political Studies

113

157

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) found that US citizens would rather see their democracy led by impartial experts or busi-nessmen than being involved in it and seeing its workings too closely in their daily lives. Scholars have identified similar patterns of rising support for stealth democracy in Finland (Bengtsson and Mattila 2009) and the Netherlands (Coffé and Michels 2014), mainly to be found among less satisfied, less politically trusting and less educated citizens. However, the same works simultaneously find growing support for alternative forms of politics, in particular more direct democracy and citizen involvement.…”

Section: Democracy Technocracy and The People: A String Of Contestedmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…We also include two control variables derived directly from the stealth democracy lit-erature: that is, education and political interest. Both have been shown to be negatively correlated with support for stealth democracy (Coffé and Michels 2014;Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002). We would expect that the more active and interested a citizen is in politics, the less s/he will approve of delegating decision-making to 'unelected technocrats' (Kurki 2011).…”

Section: Individual-level Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technocratic attitudes: a citizens’ perspective of expert decision-making

Bertsou

Pastorella

2016

West European Politics

121

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Despite repeated appointments of technocratic governments in Europe and increasing interest in technocracy, there is little knowledge regarding citizens' attitudes towards technocracy and the idea of governance by unelected experts. This article revisits normative debates and hypothesises that technocracy and democracy stand in a negative relationship in the eyes of European citizens. It tests this alongside a series of hypotheses on technocratic attitudes combining country-level institutional characteristics with individual survey data. While findings confirm that individual beliefs about the merits of democracy influence technocratic attitudes, two additional important factors are also identified: first, levels of trust in current representative political institutions also motivate technocratic preferences; second, historical legacies, in terms of past party-based authoritarian regime experience, can explain significant cross-national variation. The implications of the findings are discussed in the broader context of citizen orientations towards government, elitism and the mounting challenges facing representative democracy.

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“…). Level of education has been shown to negatively relate to preferences for direct democratic decision making (Anderson & Goodyear‐Grant ; Coffé & Michels ) and was therefore included. Finally, respondents were questioned on their age, gender and generalised trust ( Most people can be trusted , 1–7, ESS ).…”

Section: Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

If I'll win it, I want it: The role of instrumental considerations in explaining public support for referendums

Werner

2019

European J Political Res

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Across established democracies, citizens express high levels of support for decision making via referendums. What drives these preferences remains yet unclear. In this article it is argued that, first, process preferences are less stable than previously assumed but vary substantially across policy proposals. Second, it is suggested that instrumental considerations play an important role in shaping citizens' preferences for referendums. Specifically, citizens who favour the policy proposal or believe that they hold a majority opinion are expected to express more support for the use of referendums. An original survey was designed and conducted in the Netherlands (N = 1,289) that contains both between and within respondent variation across a range of policy proposals. The findings support these arguments: Both the desire for a specific policy change and the perception of being in the majority with one's policy preference relate to support for the use of referendums across policy proposals, levels of governance, and between and within respondents. This study contributes to a better understanding of process preferences by showing that these preferences have a non-stable component and that instrumental considerations play an important role in citizens' support for referendums.

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Education and support for representative, direct and stealth democracy

Cited by 120 publications

References 21 publications

Participation, Representation and Expertise: Citizen Preferences for Political Decision-Making Processes

Participation, Representation and Expertise: Citizen Preferences for Political Decision-Making Processes

Technocratic attitudes: a citizens’ perspective of expert decision-making

If I'll win it, I want it: The role of instrumental considerations in explaining public support for referendums

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