CITIZENS’ CONCEPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY
AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN GERMANY
Sergiu Gherghina
Institute of Political Science
Goethe University Frankfurt
Brigitte Geissel
Institute of Political Science
Goethe University Frankfurt
Paper prepared for delivery at the Joint Sessions of Workshops
European Consortium for Political Research
29 March – 2 April 2015, Warsaw,
1
Introduction
The recent spread of representative democratic regimes across the world coincides with an
increase in citizens’ discontent towards representative institutions and actors. Over the last
three decades electoral turnout has been in decline, party membership shrank, and the
amount of loyal voters decreased in many contemporary democracies. A large body of
literature discusses the disaffection of citizens with representative democracy (Dalton &
Wattenberg 2000; Norris 2011). One of the solutions to address this “democratic malaise”
has been the adoption of alternative forms of democracy that give citizen more say in
political will‐formation and decision‐making (Scarrow 2001; Zittel & Fuchs 2007; Geissel &
Newton 2012).
At the same time, studies revealed that citizens’ preferences for different forms of
democracy are not uniform. People have different conceptions regarding (the functioning of)
democracy (Hibbing & Theiss‐Morse 2001; Font & Alarcón 2011; Bengtsson 2012). However,
only isolated studies have paid attention to the connection between citizens’ preferences for
democratic alternatives and their desire to get involved in (new) participatory procedures
(Bengtsson & Christensen 2014). To fill this gap and to advance the understanding of such a
linkage, our paper aims to investigate how preferences of German citizens for types of
democracy influence their retrospective as well as prospective involvement in political will‐
formation and decision‐making. Germany is the appropriate setting to investigate this
linkage for two main reasons. At institutional level, there are provisions for direct and
participatory democracy (at regional and local level) that allow citizens to engage in non‐
electoral forms of participation. At behavioral level, German citizens make use of various
ways to get involved in politics and the public participation reaches significant levels across
events (e.g. Stuttgart 21).
Our study is guided by the following research question: How do citizens’ conceptions
of democracy correlate with their retrospective and prospective political participation? To
provide an answer this paper presents the conceptions of democracy preferred by citizens
living in Germany and discusses the effects produced by these preferences on types of
political participation (voting, protests, referenda, deliberative procedures). In other words,
we investigate the way in which attitudes towards forms of democracy are linked to political
behavior. We seek to explain if people who, for example, prefer citizen‐oriented democracy
over other conceptions of democracy (i.e. representative or expert) are consistently willing
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to get involved in referenda and deliberation practices. To identify the relation between
conceptions of democracy and political behavior we use a combination of political science
theories and modified approaches from social psychology. In this sense, we apply several
models that have been elaborated with respect to what citizens prefer when it comes to
(alternative) processes for political decision making (representative, citizen‐oriented, expert)
(Hibbing & Theiss‐Morse 2001; Esaiasson et al. 2012; Bengtsson & Christensen 2014). Our
study draws on data from a survey conducted in autumn 2014 on a probability
representative sample at national level in Germany.
The paper starts with a review of the literature, i.e. theoretical approaches and state
of the art, and a formulation of six testable hypotheses. Among these, three are related to
conceptions of democracy and the other three refer to classic determinants of political
participation. The second section briefly describes the research design and data. Next, we
analyze and interpret our findings on the basis of descriptive and inferential statistics. The
conclusion summarizes the key findings, discusses the major theoretical implications, and
reflects on avenues for further research.
Theoretical approaches
In this paper we examine whether citizens’ conceptions of democracy are related to their
(willingness towards) involvement in politics, i.e. political participation. Since conceptual
work on this relationship is scarce we turn our attention to theoretical approaches form
other sub‐fields that conceptualize the relation between normative disposition (perception
of what is good democracy) and behavior (political participation).
Earlier research on behavior has indicated that normative dispositions do not
necessarily go hand in hand with the willingness to act according to these dispositions
(Darley & Batson 1973; Seligman & Katz 1996; McCarty & Shrum 2000; Sniderman et al.
2001). In this sense, research on environmental sociology is the most advanced and revealed
large differences between attitudes and actions. Many people are convinced that it is
necessary to protect the environment but this does not necessary lead to an increased
willingness to take specific actions in favor of environmental protection. The correlation
between the general normative disposition and the readiness to act is low (de Haan &
Kuckartz 1996, p.107) and the correlation between normative disposition and actual action is
even lower (Diekmann & Preisendoerfer 1998). In the remainder of this chapter we discuss
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the different factors to be taken into account when examining the relationship between
normative disposition and action.
Various studies have shown the importance of availability, i.e. whether devices
needed to act according to one’s normative disposition are provided. Someone with a
normative disposition for sustainability might, for example, be willing to separate waste, but
since waste separation is not provided in her country she cannot act according to her
disposition. Also research on the availability of sport facilities and activities showed a strong
correlation between availability and behavior: sport intention was “more strongly associated
with sports participation when sports facilities were more readily available” (Prins et al.
2010). Local‐area availability of physical activity‐related facilities and physical activity
correlate clearly with sport behavior (Powell et al. 2007). In the context of our paper these
findings reflect that normative dispositions go more often hand in hand with prospective
participation than with retrospective participation, because most likely not all forms of
political activity (referenda, deliberative procedure) have been available within a polity or
municipality. Citizens might be willing to participate in these forms of participation, but they
do not have the opportunity, i.e. no available provisions. In the German case there is
empirical evidence to strengthen this perspective: the absence of any direct democratic tool
at national level reduces the availability of means for involvement.
One reason for which citizens are willing to take action according to their normative
disposition are considerations on low‐ and high‐costs. Citizens might be more willing to act
when costs are low, e.g., if not much time is needed and if money or other resources are not
involved. If political participation is very time‐consuming the willingness to get involved is
quite likely low even if citizens consider this form of participation in line with their ideal
conception of democracy. From this perspective, voting – which requires small costs – will
most likely be the most important activity no matter which conception of democracy a
citizen might have. Looking comparatively at participation in referendums and deliberative
procedures through the lenses of costs, the former is expected to be more likely.
The Theory of Reasoned Action (e.g. Miller 2005) might be useful to understand the
relationship between normative disposition, behavioral intentions, and activity. Normative
dispositions do never “stand‐alone” but they are surrounded by a variety of other
convictions and attitudes. A citizen might, for example, favor a more direct democratic form
of democracy. At the same time she is convinced that political participation is meaningless
4
and without any effect, i.e. her external efficacy is very low. Weighting these two convictions
she might come to the conclusion that even if her normative concept of democracy includes
extensive participation she might come to the conclusion that based on the other conviction
(“participation is useless”, i.e. low external efficacy) her own willingness to participate is
around zero. Finally, individual resources and skills will most likely have an effect on activity.
A high level of individual resources and skills will make it more likely to transform normative
dispositions into intentions and to translate intentions into activity. Resources and skills are
mostly measured via educational level, but also experiences with civic engagement, political
interest or media consumption can be regarded as a means to acquire political information
(Figure 1).
Figure 1: The model explaining relations between normative dispositions, intentions, and activities
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
Not included in the paper
Main hypotheses
In the paper we scrutinize the relationship between the preferences for conceptions of
democracy (representative, citizen driven, and expert) and types of political participation
(voting, use of referenda, deliberations etc.). Three conceptions of democracy are of interest
to this paper. The representative model of democracy seems to be in a crisis and new
models are rising at the horizon. In the wake of the proliferation of democratic innovations
Normative disposition Intention Activity/Participation
Resources and skills Availability of participation option
Internal and external efficacy High‐low‐cost considerations
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leading to multifaceted forms of democracy (e.g. Geissel et al. 2014), variations of citizens’
perceptions of democracy emerged. We refer in a parsimonious way to three models:
representative, citizen driven and expert driven concepts of democracy (Bengtsson &
Christensen 2014). Our expectation is that citizens’ conceptions of the democracy are linked
to their willingness to get politically involved and to their actual political involvement.
Bengtsson and Christensen (2014) showed that in Finland there is “a distinct association
between citizens’ ideals and the actions they take”. Another body of research has also
shown that in the world of politics normative political dispositions and political behavior are
linked. Geissel (2008), for example, argued that citizens with a normative disposition of
attentiveness (“monitoring politicians as civic duty”) show more intention to participate and
they also participate more often. Based on these findings, we expect normative dispositions
do have an impact on political behavior.
Based on these consideration and as a replication of the work of Bengtsson and
Christiansen (2014) we expect that a preference for the representative model of democracy
is most likely at odds with direct political participation. Citizens with this preference are most
likely willing to elect their representatives, but then they respect the “division of labor”
between them and the political elite and do not try to interfere. Voting is probably their
preferred and only form of political participation. In contrast, citizens favoring a citizen‐
oriented form of democracy mostly also prefer comprehensive political engagement in a
variety of different forms of participation. Finally, citizens with a preference for an expert
democracy might be more oriented towards representative forms of participation than
towards citizen‐oriented. Using the theories from the previous section and the debate about
the linkages between conceptions of democracy and participation in this section, we
formulate three general hypotheses:
H1: Citizens preferring a representative conception of democracy engage mainly in electoral
political participation (i.e. voting) and hardly in participatory forms.
H2: Citizens preferring citizen‐oriented conceptions of democracy (direct or dialog‐oriented)
engage in voting as well as in non‐electoral forms of political participation..
H3: Citizens preferring a conception of expert democracy engage in electoral participation
and are unlikely to engage in non‐electoral forms of participation.
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Secondary hypotheses and control variables
In addition to the main effects highlighted in H1‐H3, we test for the impact of three factors
revealed in the literature as important determinants for participation: civic engagement,
political interest, and media consumption. Among these, civic engagement has been often
considered a valid explanation for political participation (Verba & Nie 1972; Rosenstone &
Hansen 1993; Verba et al. 1995; Putnam 2000). There are at least three mechanisms at
work: 1) the development of skills necessary for participation; 2) the provision of alternatives
for deprived citizens and 3) a reflection of a general activism. First, the membership in
organizations (political or non‐political) can enhance the political education and develop the
communication abilities necessary for the involvement in politics. People can be socialized
with the pro‐participatory values and to learn specific skills that may lead to further
participation (Leighley 1996). Although the organizations to which citizens belong do not
have (many) political activities, the discussions with other members may have a political
dimension. At the same time, various organizations encourage their members to get
politically involved in one way or another. Second, membership in organizations partly
compensates for scarce socio‐economic resources (Verba et al. 1978). This favors the
political participation though the use of organizational resources, thus making it
independent from the individual resources. As a result, the membership in voluntary
organizations increases the individual level of political participation (Verba & Nie 1972).
Third, following the core argument of Putnam (1993), citizens who get involved in
organizations are likely to be more interested in the societal problems. Consequently, their
propensity towards political participation is higher than that of their fellow citizens.
An extensive body of literature indicates that political interest is one of the most
powerful predictors of political participation (Verba et al. 1995; Norris 2000). The argument
is straightforward: individuals who are already interested in politics are more likely to
participate than the rest of the public. This hypothesis follows the general idea outlined for
H1‐H3 that attitudes stimulate behavior and thus an increased attention paid to politics can
be translated into actions.
Media is the primary source for information in general and political information in
particular. Referring to the latter, the role of media becomes prominent during electoral
campaigns to inform citizens about political programs, ideologies, and issues promoted by
candidates. So far, an extensive body of literature has shown a positive impact of media use
7
on political knowledge (Scheufele 2002; Drew & Weaver 2006). In turn, knowledge
influences involvement: empirical evidence has shown that individuals who closely follow
the development of the public affairs are more involved in comparison to the rest of the
citizens (McLeod et al. 1999). On the basis of these mechanisms, there is no surprise that
earlier findings pointed to a strong correlation between political participation and news
interest and consumption (Putnam 2000). In light of these arguments, we hypothesize that:
H4: Members of voluntary organizations are likely to participate more than the rest.
H5: Citizens with an interest in politics are likely to participate more than the rest
H6: Heavy media consumers are likely to participate more than their peers.
Unlike the hypothesized relationships H1‐H3, in H4‐H6 we cannot formulate different effects
for types of political participation. The arguments behind the relationships indicate that
individuals who consume more media, are engaged in civic activities and bear an interest in
politics will participate more than the others; there are no strong theoretical reasons to
differentiate between effects for types. In addition to the variables from H1‐H6, we control
for three variables associated to the socio‐economic status (SES) – income, education, and
age – that was considered important drivers for political participation (Millbrath & Goel
1978; Dalton 1988; Conway 1991; Verba et al. 1995).
Research design and data
To test these hypotheses we use individual level data from a national survey conducted in
August‐September 2014 by the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. The GESIS
Panel is a mixed‐mode (online and mail) omnibus access panel representative for the
German speaking population residing in Germany and aged between 18 and 70 years. The
survey carried out in 2014 included a specific one‐wave battery of questions about
conceptions of democracy and types of political participation, proposed by the authors of
this paper. A total number of 3,983 respondents answered the questions used to
operationalize the variables of this study. The “do not know” and “no answer” options were
treated as missing values and excluded from analysis.
We refer to three different models of democracy: representative, citizen‐ or expert‐
oriented. In our survey we asked citizens what kind of democracy they prefer using a
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continuum scale. That means that interviewees could choose on a continuum whether they
prefer a full representative democracy, a full direct democracy, where citizens make all
decisions or a model in between more inclined to the one or the other side. The same survey
structure was applied for model between representative and expert democracy. The
conception of democracy (representative vs. citizen oriented vs. expert oriented) is
measured as the answer to the following question: “Who should make important policy
decisions? Please indicate the number on the scale from 1 to 6 that is closest to your
opinion”. This was a matrix question that asked respondents to make three choices between
a) 1. Citizens and 6. Elected politicians; b) 1. Elected politicians and 6. Politically independent
experts; c) 1. Politically independent experts and 6. Citizens.
We are interested in four types of political participation: voting as a feature of
representative democracy, protest as a type associated to both representative and citizen
democracy, and referendums and deliberative processes associated with citizen democracy.
The use of different forms of political participation (retrospective) is measured through the
answers given to the following question: “So far, using a scale from 1 to 6 (where 1 = never,
6 = very often), which of the following activities did you undertake: a) Voting b) Participate in
referendum, c) Participate in protest/demonstrate and d) Participate in participatory
budgeting or other kinds of political consultations?”. The order of these forms was not
random and they were arranged to avoid a clear distinction between representative and
citizen democracy (from perspective of the interviewees), on the one hand, and to begin
with the most popular type of participation on the other hand. Similarly, the desire to use
political participation (prospective) is measured through the answers provided to the
question: “Using a scale from 1 to 6 (where 1 = never, 6 = very often), which of the following
activities would you be willing to undertake: a) Voting b) Participate in referendum, c)
Participate in protest/demonstrate and d) Participate in participatory budgeting or other
kinds of political consultations?”.
Media consumption is a four‐point cumulative index of three dummy variables:
watching TV, listening to the radio, and reading newspapers. Each of the variables was coded
0 when the respondent allocated less than one hour per day to media, and 1 when the
respondent spent more than one hour per day. Civic engagement is a five‐point cumulative
index of four dummy variables that measure the involvement (coded as 1) of respondents
into religious, social, union, and charity organizations. Interest in politics is an ordinal
9
variable measured as the answers provided to the question about how much interest
respondents have in politics. The possible answers varied from “not at all” (coded 0) to “very
interested” (coded 4).
Among the control variables, income was coded on a four‐point ordinal scale with 1
corresponding to a gross revenue of maximum 900 €, 2 when the revenue was between 900
and 1,700 €, 3 to income between 1,700 and 3,200 €, and 4 above 3,200 €. Age has been
recoded into four categories with the respondents up to 30 years old in the first group, those
between 31 and 45 in the second, those aged 46‐60 in the third and Germans above 61 in
the last one. Education is a four‐point ordinal variable that ranges from basic/primary (1)
studies to university (4).
Analysis and Main Results
First we present in detail the distribution of respondents on the two macro‐variables
(conception of democracy and political participation), while the second section presents the
results of bivariate analysis (correlation and cross‐tabs).
Descriptive Statistics
The distribution of the respondents’ answers on their conceptions of democracy is
summarized in percentages in Table 1. It indicates a fairly limited amount of respondents
choosing the extreme points of the provided continuum with a minimum of 5% of those
choosing politicians (when opposing experts) and experts (when opposing citizens) to 9% of
those choosing citizens (when opposing politicians).
Table 1: The Distribution of Respondents according to their perception of democracy (%)
Citizens vs. Representatives Representatives vs. Experts Experts vs. Citizens
Citizens 9 Politicians 5 Experts 5
14 12 17
25 28 34
28 28 26
18 20 11
Politicians 6 Experts 7 Citizens 7
N 3,811 3,758 3,722
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To have a better representation of citizens’ preferences we have plotted their answers into
three area graphs. Figure 2 presents the answers to the question if citizens or elected
politicians should take decisions, Figure 3 depicts the different answers on the elected
politicians‐experts continuum, while Figure 4 refers to the opinions on the expert‐citizens
continuum. The distributions indicate that most answers are clustered in the middle
categories (between 50% and 60% of respondents) indicating a moderate tendency of seeing
policies as a function of any of the three categories of decision‐makers.
Figure 2: The Distribution of Respondents on the Citizens‐Politicians continuum
Figure 3: The Distribution of Respondents on the Politicians‐Experts continuum
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Figure 4: The Distribution of Respondents on the Experts‐Citizens continuum
In spite of these nuances, the preferences for one decision‐maker against the other potential
decision‐makers allow the identification of conceptions of democracy. For example, one
respondent is considered to be a supporter of citizen democracy when preferring citizens
over both politicians and politically independent experts. To measure the three conceptions
of democracy, we recoded the respondents – according to the answers they provided – in
three categories. First, respondents with a conception of citizen democracy were considered
all those who chose 1, 2, or 3 at the question about citizens or elected politicians and those
who chose 4, 5, or 6 at the question about experts or citizens. Respondents who made these
two choices give consistent priority to citizenry both against elected politicians and experts.
All other respondents who were either inconsistent (e.g. priority against politicians but not
against experts) or who favored other types of democracy (e.g. politicians or experts).
Second, respondents with a conception of representative democracy were considered all
those who chose 4, 5, or 6 at the question about citizens or elected politicians and those
who chose 1, 2, or 3 at the question about elected politicians or experts. Third, respondents
with a conception of expert democracy were considered all those who chose 4, 5, or 6 at the
question about elected politicians or experts and those who chose 1, 2, or 3 at the question
about experts or citizens.
The three conceptions are mutually exclusive, i.e. a respondent cannot belong to
more than one. A graphical representation of their distribution is depicted in Figure 5 where
we have also included the percentage of citizens who do not belong to any of the three
categories and gave mixed answers.
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Figure 5: Conceptions of democracy among respondents
The distribution of respondents on the types of political participation is depicted in Figures 5
(retrospective) and 6 (prospective). The vertical axis indicates the percentage of
respondents, while the horizontal axis presents the degree of participation on a six‐point
ordinal scale that ranges from “never” (coded 1) to “very often” (coded 6). Referring to
Figure 6, it is not surprising to observe that voting is the most popular type of political
participation with almost 75% of the respondents doing this activity very often. At the other
extreme, participation in deliberative processes has been never done by 63% of respondents
and only 2% did it very often. The participation in referendum is the second most popular
form of retrospective political participation with approximately one quarter of the German
respondents being engaged on a regular basis; this confirms our initial theoretical
expectation regarding high participation in the two types associated to relatively reduced
costs. Since referendums are allowed only at local level (and not at national) it is quite likely
that some respondents never had the opportunity to participate in a referendum if they
were not organized in the area where they live. The same reasoning applies to deliberative
tools that are exclusively implemented at local level and take place even less than
referendums. With the exception of referendums where the distribution is relatively
balanced, the other three forms of participation do not have great variation. A large share of
the population clusters into one category: very often for voting or never for deliberation or
protests.
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Figure 6: The Types of Retrospective Political Participation
Note: N differs across types of participation between 3,286 and 3,897.
The distribution of prospective political participation (Figure 7) is quite similar to the one
about retrospective participation. Voting and referendums are again the most popular forms
of participation with more than 70% of the German respondents declaring that they will vote
very often in the future and almost 50% declaring that they will participate in referendums
very often. However, there are also some noticeable differences. The comparison between
referendum percentages ‐ involvement so far with the willingness to participate in the future
– reveals an optimistic attitude towards this form of participation. For example, 30% of the
respondents declare that they never participated in a referendum but only 7% answer that
they will never do that in the future. The positive attitudes towards prospective political
participation can be also observed in the case of deliberation where 63% of the respondents
have never participated but only 23% reject the possibility to participate for the future.
These observations strengthen the idea that the existence of referendums or deliberative
processes in the areas of respondents may have an influence on the distribution of
retrospective forms. Accordingly, there appear to be several instances in which respondents
wanted to participate but some forms were not available to them. In light of this evidence
we expect the hypothesized relationships to be stronger for prospective participation.
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Figure 7: The Types of Prospective Political Participation
Note: N differs across types of participation between 3,287 and 3,888.
The analysis presented in the following section was organized in two phases. First, we use
correlations to identify bivariate relationships between the three conceptions of democracy
and types of political participation. The empirical evidence may indicate to what extent there
is preliminary support for the three main hypotheses. In a second phase we run an ordinal
regression analysis with the types of political participation as dependent variables to indicate
the extent to which conceptions of democracy have explanatory power when included in a
model with the variables from the secondary hypotheses and with control variables.
Analysis (Correlations and regressions)
Each of the three conceptions of democracy were correlated with types of political
participation, both retrospective and prospective. Partly as a result of the small variation
(see the previous section), the correlations are quite weak but empirical evidence goes in the
hypothesized directions. The coefficients in Table 2 indicate that people with a conception of
representative democracy voted more than the others (0.08, statistically significant at 0.01)
and were less likely to be involved in types of political participation oriented towards
citizens: ‐0.05, statistically significant at 0.05 with respect to the participation in
referendums and ‐0.07, statistically significant at 0.0 regarding deliberations. Among the
forms that involve citizens the least rejected was the protest where politicians were partly
targeted and citizens have limited decision‐making power (‐0.02). The values of the
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correlation coefficients between conceptions of democracy and prospective political
participation are fairly similar. The only exception is the loss of statistical significance and
lower coefficient (‐0.02) for referendums, but it is still negative and support the
hypothesized relationship.
Respondents with a conception of citizen democracy are more likely to participate in
citizen oriented types of political participation (referendums, protests, deliberation) and less
likely to participate in voting (‐0.04, statistically significant at 0.05). It is important to note
that the correlations become stronger for prospective political participation for all the citizen
oriented types of participation. For example, the coefficient for referendums increases from
0.03 (no significant) to 0.05 (significant at 0.01), while the most spectacular increase is
observed in the case of deliberations where the coefficient is 0.06 for retrospective
participation and 0.11 for prospective, both significant at 0.01.
Table 2: Correlations between conceptions of democracy and political participation
Representative democracy Citizen democracy Expert democracy
Retrospective
Voting 0.08** ‐0.04* 0.01
Referendum ‐0.05* 0.03 ‐0.04*
Protests ‐0.02 0.07** ‐0.04*
Deliberations ‐0.07** 0.06** ‐0.07**
Prospective
Voting 0.07** ‐0.04* 0.07**
Referendum ‐0.02 0.05** 0.05**
Protests ‐0.03 0.08** ‐0.01
Deliberations ‐0.07** 0.11** ‐0.03
Note: The number of respondents for correlations is between 3,014 and 3,604.
** Significant at p > 0.01, * Significant at p > 0.05
The empirical evidence for people with a conception of expert democracy indicates a
mixture between the representative and the citizen conceptions. More precisely, these
respondents have a similar reaction to those favoring representative democracy in rejecting
the citizen‐oriented forms of participation: ‐0.04 for referendums and protests and ‐0.07 for
deliberations. At the same time, their participatory behavior does not appear to favor voting
16
since the correlation is almost inexistent (0.01, not significant). These mixed attitudes can be
also observed when referring to prospective participation where they are more likely to
participate in voting and some types that involve citizens (referendum, public decision), but
not in others (deliberation, protest). This may be explained by the fact that they consider
elections and referendums to have experts behind the citizens’ actions and citizens do not
have the last word to say about policy. As expected, there is a nuanced negative attitude
towards citizen‐oriented types of participation in the prospective question. In particular, it
must be noted the turn taken by these respondents when asked about previous
participation (negative) and willingness to participate in referendums (positive).
These results provide weak empirical evidence in favor of the hypothesized
relationships. Given the low variation on most types of participation, the coefficients
indicate that there is a consistent relationship between the conceptions of democracy and
types of participation, both retrospective and prospective. On the one hand, respondents
who favor representative democracy engage in voting and reject forms in which citizens
have a word to say (H1). On the other hand, respondents who embrace a citizen conception
of democracy are oriented to participate in direct, deliberative, or protest forms and less in
voting (H2). The respondents favoring expert democracy display mixed attitudes towards
forms of participation (H3) being closer to the representative conception in retrospective
and somewhat closer to citizens in prospective participation.
Let us now include the conceptions of democracy in a regression model next to other
variables.1 The four models in Table 3 present the results of the ordered logistic regression
for the retrospective forms of participation. The values of Pseudo R2 indicate a relatively
weak fit of the model to the presented data with best estimation for voting (also with the
higher number of respondents). The odds‐ratios indicate support for H1: respondents with a
conception of representative democracy are 1.36 times more likely to vote than the other
respondents and 0.63 times, 0.84 times, and 0.57 times less likely to have participated in
referendums, protests, respectively deliberations. The multivariate analysis strengthens the
conclusions of the bivariate relationships and indicates that respondents with a conception
of expert democracy have mixed feelings and there is no effect on voting and protests but
1 We ran a collinearity test among the predictor variables. The results indicate there is no strong correlation between any of the independent variables. In addition, when running the ordered logistic regression we have asked STATA to drop collinear variables during analysis and they were all included.
17
strongly oppose referendums and deliberations (H3). In three out of the four models
presented there is almost no empirical support for H2. The citizen conception of democracy
has no effect on referendums and deliberations – the most obvious forms of citizen
involvement. Instead, these respondents are 1.21 times more likely to engage in protests
compared to the others (not statistically significant) and this contrasts sharply with the
attitudes of respondents with representative democracy.2
Table 3: Ordered Logistic Regression for retrospective political participation
Voting Referendum Protests Deliberations
Representative democracy 1.36*
(0.19)
0.63**
(0.07)
0.84
(0.09)
0.57**
(0.07)
Citizen democracy 1.06
(0.14)
0.98
(0.11)
1.21
(0.14)
1.01
(0.12)
Expert democracy 1.01
(0.13)
0.78*
(0.08)
0.95
(0.10)
0.70**
(0.08)
Civic engagement 1.41**
(0.11)
1.25**
(0.07)
1.71**
(0.09)
1.60**
(0.09)
Interest in politics 2.26**
(0.14)
1.32**
(0.06)
1.55**
(0.07)
1.43**
(0.07)
Media consumption 1.05
(0.04)
1.03
(0.03)
0.93*
(0.03)
0.97
(0.04)
Income 1.40**
(0.07)
1.14**
(0.04)
1.12**
(0.04)
1.07
(0.05)
Age 2.03**
(0.11)
1.21**
(0.05)
1.11*
(0.05)
1.12*
(0.05)
Education 1.75**
(0.12)
0.95
(0.05)
1.39**
(0.07)
0.79**
(0.05)
N 2,920 2,436 2,753 2,486
LR Chi2 777.94 172.72 413.79 211.16
Pseudo R2 0.14 0.02 0.05 0.04
Note: Coefficients are odds‐ratios (standard errors in brackets)
** Significant at p > 0.01, * Significant at p > 0.05
2 In interpreting the results of the ordered logistic regression we refer both to the strength and the statistical significance of coefficients. In spite of arguments in favor of interpretations limited strictly to statistical significance, we consider that the strength of effects provides important insights for our arguments.
18
All other variables – with the exception of media consumption (H6) – have a relatively
strong and consistent effect across all four types of political participation; there is strong
empirical support for the secondary hypotheses H4 and H5. For example, individuals with
interest in politics are 2.26 times more likely to vote, 1.32 times more likely to participate in
referendums, 1.55 times to be engaged in protests, and 1.43 times to participate in
deliberative processes; all coefficients are statistically significant at the 0.01 level. In the
context of this paper it is relevant to note that most of the supplementary and control
variables have a similar effect on the types of participation. As illustrated in the example
above, people who bear interest in politics are more likely to participate, irrespective of the
type. This holds for civically engaged individuals, those with higher income, and older
people. It is true that the strength of effect varies but all effects go in the same direction.3
The consistency of effects across types of political participation increases the value of the
observation related to the conceptions of democracy where effects – although weak –
clearly differ.
The results in Table 4 refer to prospective political participation and tell a similar
story to the one above. There is empirical support for the hypotheses formulated about
conceptions of representative and expert democracy and only partial support when it comes
to citizen democracy. The individuals with such a conception have a consistent positive
attitude towards all types of political participation. While there is strong and statistically
significant at 0.01 on the willingness to participate in referendums and in deliberations, such
a conception of democracy also has positive effects on the likelihood of voting and
protesting (both significant at 0.05).
Similarly to retrospective participation, there is no empirical support for H5 as media
consumption appears to make a small difference only in the case of protests. Instead, there
is strong and robust empirical evidence to support H5 and H6. Income and age do no longer
have a consistent effect across all types of political participation and appear to make no
difference in protests and deliberations. Education is also somewhat different compared
with the retrospective models: it has no effect on deliberations and strong positive effects
on the remaining three types.
3 Education is an outlier and indicates that less educated people are likely to particiate in deliberations, more educated people in voting and protests and has almost no effect in referendums.
19
Table 4: Ordered Logistic Regression for prospective political participation
Voting Referendum Protests Deliberations
Retrospective
Representative democracy 1.74**
(0.23)
0.87
(0.09)
0.87
(0.09)
0.70**
(0.08)
Citizen democracy 1.33*
(0.17)
1.57**
(0.17)
1.29*
(0.14)
1.33**
(1.15)
Expert democracy 1.60**
(0.20)
1.32**
(0.14)
1.02
(0.10)
0.86
(0.09)
Civic engagement 1.30**
(0.10)
1.11*
(0.06)
1.56**
(0.08)
1.45**
(0.08)
Interest in politics 2.00**
(0.12)
1.78**
(0.08)
1.50**
(0.06)
1.62**
(0.07)
Media consumption 0.98
(0.04)
0.99
(0.03)
0.94*
(0.03)
0.94
(0.03)
Income 1.24**
(0.06)
1.09*
(0.04)
1.04
(0.04)
1.01
(0.04)
Age 1.39**
(0.07)
1.15**
(0.05)
0.97
(0.04)
1.02
(0.04)
Education 1.71**
(0.11)
1.50**
(0.08)
1.40**
(0.07)
1.04
(0.05)
N 2,918 2,779 2,774 2,474
LR Chi2 511.28 387.39 346.85 266.99
Pseudo R2 0.09 0.05 0.04 0.03
Note: Coefficients are odds‐ratios (standard errors in brackets)
** Significant at p > 0.01, * Significant at p > 0.05
Conclusions
This paper aimed to identify the way in which preferences of German citizens for types of
democracy influence their retrospective and prospective involvement in politics. Similar to
previous results for the Finish population (Bengtsson & Christensen 2014) we found that
citizens have different ideas about how a democracy should look like. Most citizens prefer a
mixture of representative, citizen‐oriented, and expert democracy with different
prioritizations. More important, there is a correlation between citizens’ perception of
20
democracy and their intentions for political behavior. We found empirical evidence for most
of our (primary) hypotheses. Citizens favoring representative democracy are less inclined to
take part in participatory devices, whereas citizens favoring a citizen‐oriented concept of
democracy are more willing to get involved in them. Those citizens who favor a more expert
oriented democracy, show mixed participation intentions. Looking at our regression analyses
these findings hold. However, not all of our secondary hypotheses and control variables
turned out to be explanatory. The SES was kind of a “mixed bag” and did not show clear
patterns; furthermore, there is no empirical support for the hypothesis about media
consumption. The other two factors (civic engagement and interest in politics) turned out to
have an effect on participation. There is a difference between retrospective and prospective
participation that can be interpreted in the light of availability of tools.
Our findings bear theoretical and empirical implications that move beyond the
investigated single‐case study. First, in the German case, the correlation between
conceptions of democracy and political participation was stronger for prospective intentions
then for retrospective behavior. Respondents favoring citizen‐oriented democracy are more
inclined to participate in the future than they did up to now. Accounting for theoretical
approaches aimed at understanding the relation between normative disposition, intention
and activity, our findings suggest, that availability is an important dimension. If participatory
devices are available citizens use them; if they are not available citizen can just formulate
their intention to apply them. However, this implication is preliminary. Since we have no
information about whether forms of participation were available within the respondents’
areas/municipalities the implication can be more regarded as a hunch. Further research is
necessary to show whether this assumption can be grounded empirically.
The second implication refers to the concept of democracy and the self‐conception of
citizens. In particular, the concept of expert democracy is relevant. Citizens favoring an
expert democracy do not necessarily want to rely on professional experts. Quite on the
contrary and they show an intention to be more involved in political matters at least in the
future. We might conclude that their preference for expert democracy does not necessarily
mean they favor professional experts. At least partly they consider themselves as experts
and want to be taken into account in political will formation and decision making.
Our study has shown that research on the linkage between citizens’ conception of
democracy and participation is fruitful and will probably be even more fruitful in the
21
following period because new models of democracy proliferate around the world with
citizens asking for more say in political will formation and decision making. This development
has to be accompanied by empirical research in at least two directions. On the one hand, it
will be instructive to empirically assess our idea about the importance of availability. To test
our assumption whether the availability of participatory options plays a role for political
involvement and how big this role is, options for political participation and participation at
local level should be correlated. While this is not easy due to scarce data about participation
provisions, research in this field would contribute significantly to our knowledge about
participation and democracy. On the other hand, we need in‐depth research to identify the
determinants of the relationship between conceptions and participation, i.e. a broader
framework with several explanatory factors. While we have shown the existence of a linkage
between normative beliefs and activity, the causal mechanisms require careful investigation.
22
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