What drives process preferences? The role of perceived qualities of policymakers and party preferences

Fernández-Martínez, José Luis; Alarcón, Pau; Fábregas, Joan Font

doi:10.1057/s41269-020-00176-2

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Consequently, their support for citizen participation in the policy process likely also depends on expected outcomes in specific policy questions. Moreover, although our results reflect strong self‐confidence among citizens, on closer inspection, citizens could also be skeptical of their own capacities (Fernandez‐Martinez et al., 2022). Also, as Hibbing and Theiss‐Morse (2002) demonstrated, even the process preferences of citizens might not necessarily differ substantially from elites' claim to “custodianship”, as citizens, too, might want to be governed by experts who know better what is going on.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Decision‐makers, advisers or educable subjects? Policymakers' perceptions of citizen participation in a Nordic democracy

2023

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The perceived disconnect between policymaking elites and citizens has intensified demands for citizen engagement in democracies, but we know little about policymakers' attitudes towards increased citizen involvement. This study presents an in‐depth, mixed‐methods analysis of participatory views of politicians, public officials, and interest group representatives in Finland. We first utilize a unique survey battery presented to representative samples of policymakers (n = 675) and ordinary citizens (n = 1701). We then perform a qualitative content analysis for 24 in‐depth interviews of high‐ranking policymakers to explore reasons for the observed attitudes. We find that while citizens strongly support participatory attitudes, policymakers are more skeptical, especially when participation threatens their control of the policy process. Elite skepticism stems mainly from low trust in citizens' capacity to deal with complexity, and to relieve the pressure to engage citizens more elites support learning‐based methods. The broad citizen‐elite attitude gap may require re‐negotiating representative mandates in the future.

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 54%