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Åsa Bengtsson and Henrik Christensen*
Ideals and Actions: Do Citizens’Patterns
of Political Participation Correspond to
their Conceptions of Democracy?
The interest in procedures for political decision-making has grown tremendously
during recent decades. Given the intense scholarly debate and the implementa-
tion of greater opportunities for citizen participation in many democracies, there
has been surprisingly little interest in citizens’conceptions of democracy under-
stood as their preferences concerning the processes by which the political system
works. Some recent attempts do, however, suggest that it is important to expand
the study of public opinion from policy output to decision-making processes,
and that there are coherent patterns in citizens’expectations of the way in which
political decisions come about. What is not clear, though, is whether citizens’
different conceptions of democracy have repercussions for how they engage in
politics. Using the Finnish National Election Study of 2011 (Borg and Grönlund
2011), this article explores the relationship between citizens’conceptions of
democracy and patterns of political participation. Results demonstrate a distinct
association between citizens’ideals and the actions they take.
DECREASING LEVELS OF ELECTORAL TURNOUT AND PARTY MEMBERSHIP
as well as more severe criticism directed towards politicians and
parties have caused intense scholarly activity throughout the last
decades (Dalton 2004; Norris 1999). A large part of this research has
been oriented towards various mechanisms by which the people can
be brought back into politics. Political theorists have called for more
participatory forms of democracy and scholars as well as policymakers
have pursued an array of projects that engage citizens in participatory
and deliberative participation (Michels and de Graaf 2010; Scarrow
2001, 2004; Setälä 2009).
* Åsa Bengtsson is Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Political
Science at Åbo Akademi University and Professor in Political Science at Mid Sweden
University. Contact email: asa.bengtsson@abo.fi.
Henrik Christensen is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political
Science at Åbo Akademi University. Contact email: henrik.christensen@abo.fi.
Government and Opposition, page 1 of 27, 2014
doi:10.1017/gov.2014.29
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
While research on democratic processes has flourished from many
perspectives, citizens’preferences concerning procedures for poli-
tical decision-making were left untouched for a long time. Some
recent attempts to expand knowledge on this topic have been made,
however, and they indicate that the preferences held by citizens are
far from uniform (Bengtsson 2012; Font and Alarcon 2011; Hibbing
and Theiss-Morse 2001; Neblo et al. 2010). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it
seems that citizens have different conceptions of how a democracy
ought to work. While some favour high levels of citizen involvement
in the political sphere, others are more inclined to leave political
decisions in the hands of those thought to be more capable. What is
less clear is whether these different views also have repercussions
for the behaviour of citizens. Do they act in accordance with their
beliefs or are they largely irrelevant for predicting behaviour?
Recent research by, for example, Webb (2013) and Neblo et al.
(2010) indicate that certain attitudes concerning political processes
affect how citizens engage in politics. Nevertheless, despite the
valuable input provided by these studies, it is still not clear whether
citizens consistently act in accordance with their ideal conception of
democracy.
For this reason, the aim of this article is to study whether
and how citizens’conceptions of democracy are related to the way
they engage in politics. The data analysed are from the Finnish
National Election Study 2011 (Borg and Grönlund 2011), a post-
election study that includes a rich selection of survey items on
political processes with specific focus on the actors involved in
political decision-making. We examine the link between three
conceptions of democracy (representation, participation, expertise)
and the propensity to participate in electoral, institutionalized
and non-institutionalized politics. The results demonstrate a clear
association between citizens’democratic ideals and their political
actions.
The article is structured as follows. The first section provides an
introduction to different concepts of democracy and their bases in
theoretical as well as empirical literature, and to the current state of
research on citizens’preferences for political decision-making. In the
next section the hypotheses are outlined, alongside a more general
presentation of the research design applied. This is followed by the
empirical analyses and a concluding discussion of the results and
their implications.
2GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
CONCEPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
The study of citizens’preferences for political decision-making proce-
dures was for a long time not very prominent in political science.
From a theoretical perspective, there has been a prevailing assump-
tion that processes are subordinate to outcomes and that citizens
would tolerate most procedures as long as they produce favourable
results (Fiorina 1981; Popkin 1991).
1
Hence, the bulk of research on
public opinion has studied preferences for policy output rather
than the processes by which this outcome is obtained (Hibbing and
Theiss-Morse 2001). From a methodological perspective, there has
been an implicit assumption at least that most people lack the ability
to form opinions on complex issues such as procedures for political
decision-making (see Carman 2007)
2
and that these complex issues
are difficult to translate into crude survey questions (Bengtsson
2012). Finally, from a more pragmatic perspective, the issue has not
been considered topical, since it has been hard to envisage drastic
changes to the model of representative democracy found in most
countries –with the main exception of Switzerland, where direct
democratic procedures have long been the norm.
However, these views have been challenged in recent years; there
has been an increasing interest in what citizens prefer when it comes
to alternative processes for political decision-making (see Bengtsson
and Mattila 2009; Esaiasson et al. 2012; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse
2001, 2002; Webb 2013). For the most established line of literature
concerning citizens’attitudes towards the use of direct democratic
procedures, it is by now well-established that citizens generally have a
positive perception of the use of referendums (Anderson and
Goodyear-Grant 2010; Bowler et al. 2007; Dalton et al. 2001; Donovan
and Karp 2006). Other studies suggest that the willingness to use
public deliberation to reach decisions is relatively widespread (Neblo
et al. 2010). Although this line of research has been criticized for not
providing a balanced picture of the public’s preferences (Hibbing
and Theiss-Morse 2002), it clearly indicates that citizens are able to
express their preferences for political processes, not just the outputs.
Moreover, a recent study by Bengtsson (2012) based on Finnish data
demonstrates that it is possible to detect coherent dimensions in the
way people respond to questions on political processes. We here refer
to the three dimensions found in the Finnish study –representation,
expertise and participation –as conceptions of democracy, since they
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 3
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
correspond well with established ideas in political theory and the
overall impression from previous empirical studies.
The first dimension we refer to as representation since this concept
is focused on representative democratic procedures, where elections
are used to select representatives with a mandate to govern on behalf
of the citizenry, and democracy is above all considered to be a
method for leadership selection (Dahl 1956; Riker 1982; Sartori 1987;
Schumpeter 1942). The second dimension we refer to as expertise,
since this idea accentuates the role of experts rather than elected
representatives. This is related to the stealth democracy-ideal identi-
fied by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) in the US. Historically, the
role of experts and neutral bureaucrats has been emphasized by a
number of scholars (Keane 2009: 571–2; see also Rosanvallon 2011:
43–50). The third dimension we refer to as participation, since it
involves a participatory conception of democracy which has been
prevalent in the academic debate over the last decades. According to
this ideal, participation by citizens is a vital element of democracy
(Barber 1984; Pateman 1970).
In this study, we use these three conceptions of democracy
as our point of departure and explore how they relate to patterns of
political participation, which are important in helping us understand
the consequences they have for society. Presenting logical connec-
tions between ideals and actual behaviour also supports the usefulness
of examining preferences in the complicated political processes. As
Citrin (1974: 978–9) reminds us, the validity of attitudinal constructs
depends in part on their ability to predict differences in behaviour
adequately.
The assumption that attitudes towards the political system and
its actors should influence patterns of participation is not new.
In a relatively recent article by Paul Webb (2013), the willingness
and actual participation of dissatisfied and ‘stealth’democrats is
compared, showing that the latter are less willing to participate than
the former.
3
Similarly, Neblo and colleagues (2010) demonstrate that
different attitudes towards democratic practices –which they present
as ‘stealth’and ‘sunshine’democracy –increase willingness to par-
ticipate in deliberative sessions.
4
However, both of these studies differ
from the current study in terms of their scope and the applied
methodological approach. Here we aim to provide a more complete
picture, by means of both alternative conceptions of democracy and
forms of participation included in the study.
4GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Apart from previous empirical indications, there are also valid theo-
retical reasons to expect citizens’conceptions of democracy to have
implications for their political behaviour since there are distinct beliefs
about how the ideal citizen ought to behave embedded in different
models of democracy. Based on social psychology theory, we know that
many people have a pronounced need for structure and closure in life
(Cohen et al. 1955; Leone et al. 1999), which can be expected to lead
to coherency between expressed ideals and actual behaviour.
We examine the link between conceptions of democracy and the
propensity to become politically active to settle the link between
ideals and actions when it comes to political decision-making. In
doing this, it is necessary to consider the variety of political activities
citizens have at their disposal. Voting is a central form of involvement
in representative democracies, but this is complemented by citizen
involvement between elections, varying from traditional or institutio-
nalized activities orchestrated on the premises of the political system to
more bottom-up and elite-challenging forms of non-institutionalized
political activities (Esaiasson and Narud 2013; Kaase 1999; Marien et al.
2010). Institutionalized activities occur in conjunction with the formal
political system and function according to principles defined by
the political system, whereas non-institutionalized activities are not
formally connected to the political system and operate according to
principles defined by the participants (Christensen 2013: 104).
The involvement of citizens in these activities is likely to differ,
depending on their conceptions of democracy outlined above.
Representation emphasizes the role of elected representatives. We
anticipate that citizens who support representation are particularly
active in elections, since this is envisaged as the central channel for
citizen involvement. Between elections, the political engagement
of these respondents is expected to be limited, especially when it
comes to non-institutionalized forms of political participation since
involvement in such activities reflects responsibility-taking on behalf
of citizens (Micheletti and McFarland 2011), which contradicts the
elitist foundations of this ideal. However, some involvement in insti-
tutionalized activities can be expected, since this includes activities in
connection with election campaigns that may be considered an
extension of electoral participation beyond the act of voting, since
they support the functioning of the representative system (Dalton
2006: 43; Verba et al. 1995). Even if it is likely that fewer people are
routinely involved in these activities since they are more demanding
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 5
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
than casting a vote, we may nonetheless expect the adherents of
representation to be more active than the general population.
The second dimension, called expertise, stresses that the role of
expertise is connected to a technocratic view of politics, where citizens
prefer to let experts decide. As in the representative view, this ideal
involves a belief that citizens are not capable of contributing to political
decision-making, as well as questioning whether citizens want to be
involved in political matters except under extraordinary circumstances.
This involves an engineer-view of politics which is focused on finding
optimal solutions rather than representing diverse interests. This
ideal also entails scepticism towards political representation, since the
representatives are considered inapt guardians of the interest of the
general public and more inclined to cater to special interests. This
style of decision-making is today often associated with the European
Union and in particular the European Commission (see Majone 2002;
Wallace and Smith 1995). As a consequence of these considerations,
we expect citizens who share the expertise conception of democracy to
be less likely to engage in political activities, regardless of the form of
participation.
Participation is the third conception, which provides a distinct alter-
native to the previous two, where the proponents emphasize popular
involvement as the optimal way to structure political decision-making.
This pluralist ideal of democracy advocates greater involvement
of citizens, since giving everyone affected by the decisions a say in
decision-making benefits the political legitimacy of the final results and
promotes essential civic attributes such as knowledge and efficacy
(Pateman 1970). For this reason, we expect those who support this
ideal to see political participation as an inherent part of being a
democratic citizen. They are likely to vote, since this is a central act of
participation which also expresses a belief in the functioning of the
political system (Dalton 2006: 38–42; Verba et al. 1995). However, the
involvement is not confined to voting, since this would be considered
an inadequate form of involvement (Inglehart 1997; Norris 1999). We
therefore expect those who share the participatory conception of
democracy to engage in a wide range of political activities between
elections, both institutionalized participation and non-institutionalized
participation.
In Table 1 we compile the arguments concerning the differences
between the three conceptions of democracy and the expected
relationships with political activity.
6GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Table 1
Three Conceptions of Democracy
Representation Expertise Participation
Political ideal Elitist Technocratic Pluralistic
Process preference Elected representatives should
make political decisions
independently of citizens
Experts should make
decisions, efficiency is
stressed
Citizens should be actively
involved in decision-making
and express opinions
Central democratic
value Accountability Output quality Legitimacy
Perception of citizen
engagement Citizens elect representatives and
assign accountability in
elections
Citizens participate only when
necessary Extensive participation
guarantees multitude and
legitimacy
Political activity Voting, conventional political
activities Lower-level engagement in all
forms of participation Extensive engagement in all
forms of participation
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 7
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
RESEARCH DESIGN
Based on the theoretical review, we expect the following patterns to
exist for the behaviour of citizens:
Hypothesis 1: Adhering to a representative conception of democracy leads to
higher engagement in voting and institutionalized political participation.
Hypothesis 2: Adhering to a conception of democracy in which expertise is
emphasized leads to lower engagement in voting, institutionalized and non-
institutionalized participation.
Hypothesis 3: Adhering to a participatory conception of democracy leads to
higher engagement in voting, institutionalized and non-institutionalized
participation.
To test these three hypotheses we use the most recent round
of the Finnish National Electoral Study from 2011, a cross-sectional post-
election survey performed in two stages, including face-to-face interviews
and a self-administered questionnaire (Borg and Grönlund 2011).
5
This
Finnish Election Study offers a rare opportunity to examine these
questions since it contains a wide set of indicators of various procedures
of political decision-making and political participation as well as
appropriate indicators on well-established control variables. The survey
forms part of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and
includes 1,298 respondents. However, since most of the questions on
political processes were asked in a self-administered questionnaire filled
in by 806 participants, this study is restricted to these respondents.
Restricting the study to the Finnish context means that the general-
izability of any findings is limited. However, Finland may be considered a
crucial ‘most-likely case’(Eckstein 1975) –thatis,acasewherewewould
expect to find the relationships under scrutiny.
6
Finland has traditionally
been a predominantly representative democracy with limited use of
referendums, which suggests that there would be strong support for the
representative view. There are also reasons to expect that a significant
share of the population will emphasize the role of expertise in politics,
in particular Finland’s geopolitical position, including the historically
sensitive foreign relations with the Soviet Union (and later Russia)
and the tradition of oversized coalition governments, contributing to
a consensus-striving political culture with low transparency. At the
same time, there is also a relatively strong tradition of political
participation, which indicates that participatory decision-making also
8GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
has support in Finland. Although Finland has experienced a drop in
turnout since the 1980s (Wass 2007), the level is not among the
lowest in Europe. Moreover, Finns are relatively active in different
forms of political participation, in particular more traditional forms,
but new forms such as internet activities have also become common
(Christensen and Bengtsson 2011). These different observations
suggest that Finns have diverging perceptions as well as patterns of
participation, which ought to be considered favourable conditions
for studying the relationships between these factors.
The central independent variables of the study are the views on
political processes, and by using the same data we here build on
the previous work of Bengtsson (2012). The data include seven
questions that probe concepts of democracy by examining what the
respondents feel is the best way to make political decisions and what
actors should be involved. The first three questions are statements
with ‘agree/disagree’response alternatives to the involvement of
citizens, representatives and experts in political decision-making.
The four other questions are alternative answers to a combined
question concerning the best way to make political decisions:
(1) Make it easier for people to participate and discuss important
political decisions; (2) Regularly ask citizens; (3) Let experts decide;
and (4) Let elected politicians make decisions. The four alternatives
are ranked on an 11-point continuum, where 0 represents the worst
and 10 the best way to make political decisions (later recoded to 0–1).
For more details, see the Appendix.
To construct indexes based on the answers to these questions, we
examined the dimensionality with exploratory factor analysis, apply-
ing oblimin rotation which allows for correlation between compo-
nents (results are presented in the Appendix). In line with the study
by Bengtsson (2012), three underlying and largely independent
7
dimensions are found, all of which emphasize different actors within
decision-making: participation,expertise and representation.
8
Based on
these results, we construct three sum indexes using the variables that
load strongly onto each dimension and recode them to vary between
0 and 1, with 1 indicating the highest extent of agreement with the
process view in question.
9
Table 2 displays descriptive information on
these three indexes.
Participation has strong support (mean 0.69) and only 15.5 per cent
are below the absolute mean of 0.5, and also has the lowest standard
deviation, which demonstrates that preferences are less dispersed
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 9
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
than for the other two dimensions. There is also a fair amount of
support for representation (mean 0.51), which is fairly evenly distributed.
Expertise is the least popular (mean 0.45), but it is by no means without
supporters since 43.4 per cent are above the absolute mean. The lower
response rate for these items does, however, indicate that they are
more difficult for respondents to relate to.
These indexes form the main independent variables in the analyses
of the extent to which citizens’conceptions of democracy influence
their actual patterns of political participation. The dependent variables
analysed are three modes of political participation. The Finnish
National Election Study includes items on a wide range of political
activities. In addition to whether or not they voted in the last election,
respondents were asked to indicate whether they performed a
number of political actions between the elections during the last four
years. Based on their answers, measures for three forms of political
participation are formed:
10
voting, institutionalized participation, and
non-institutionalized participation. All three indexes are coded to be
dichotomous to indicate whether the respondents participated or not.
The three modes of political activities are analysed using logistic
regression analysis and the use of two different models for each
mode; the first model including only the focal independent variables
of the study –that is, process perceptions –and a second model
including a number of control variables to ascertain the validity of the
findings.
11
The controls are restricted to central socio-demographic
characteristics known to affect both political attitudes and the pro-
pensity to be politically active (Marien et al. 2010; Verba et al. 1995).
Table 2
Descriptive Information on Indexes of Conceptions of Democracy
Process preference (0–1)
Representation Expert Participation
Mean score 0.51 0.45 0.69
St. dev. 0.23 0.22 0.17
Valid n 788 713 765
% Low scores (0–0.5) 49.3 56.6 15.5
% High scores (0.51–1) 50.7 43.4 84.5
Note: The conceptions of democracy are indexes measuring the extent to
which the respondent agrees with the process view in question. Consult the
Appendix for more on the coding.
10 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
We also control for objective political knowledge, since this has a
close relationship with political participation and may act as a proxy
for the civic competence of the respondents (Christensen and
Bengtsson 2011). We do not include controls for political attitudes
such as political interest. There are good reasons to expect a close
relationship between such political attitudes and conceptions of
democracy, since respondents who take a more activist view are
likely to be more interested in political matters. This relationship is,
however, more aptly considered formative rather than causal and it is
therefore inappropriate to control for these factors (see Burns et al.
2001: 46–8).
12
EMPIRICAL ANALYSES
We start the empirical analyses by showing differences in how many
performed each political activity to see whether there are systematic
differences between the three conceptions of democracy. In this
section we use an arithmetic divide of the indexes (below and above
0.5). It should be noted that the share of respondents in each group
deviates from one index to another (see Table 3).
An average of 90.1 per cent indicated they had voted in the last
election, which clearly exaggerates the true level of electoral parti-
cipation, since the official turnout was 70.5 per cent in the 2011
elections. This is most likely due to social pressures or forgetfulness.
13
Even if the reported levels should only be considered indicative of
the actual extent of participation, the differences between groups
are nonetheless relevant. The two other forms of participation are
less popular on average, since 37.6 per cent indicate they were
involved in institutionalized participation while 47.8 have performed
at least one act of non-institutionalized participation during the
last four years.
When comparing levels of participation among groups of different
conceptions of democracy, we find interesting variations which
on many accounts are in line with our outlined hypotheses. The
tendency to vote is, for example, close to 12 percentage points higher
among those who score high on the representation index (96.5 com-
pared with 84.6 per cent). However, contrary to what we expected,
this initial analysis also indicates that proponents of representative
decision-making procedures are more inclined to participate in
non-institutionalized activities, while no such effect is found for
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 11
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Table 3
Conceptions of Democracy and Percentages of Performed Political Activities
% Performed
Representation Expertise Participation
Form of participation Valid n Total Low (0.0–0.5) High (0.51–1.0) Low (0.0–0.5) High (0.51–1.0) Low (0.0–0.5) High (0.51–1.0)
Voted in last election 811 90.1 84.6 96.5 92.3 90.0 91.5 90.7
Performed institutionalized activity 799 37.6 37.9 37.8 45.5 31.3 23.1 41.1
Performed non-institutionalized activity 779 47.8 44.1 53.4 51.0 49.2 39.7 50.5
Note: The conceptions of democracy are indexes measuring the extent to which the respondent agrees with the process view in
question. Consult the Appendix for more on the coding.
12 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
institutionalized forms of political engagement. As expected, we
find that those who support the value of expertise are less active
in all forms of participation, with the strongest variation found
for participation in institutionalized forms. Among supporters of
processes based on active citizen participation,wefind higher rates of
involvement for two of the three activities, the exception being
voting, where the percentage of voters is slightly lower among the
strong supporters.
Although the differences between the high- and low-scoring indivi-
duals are generally in line with expectations, this is not necessarily the
case when considering the differences compared to the population
means. For example, there are 49.2 per cent active in non-
institutionalized activities among the strong supporters, compared
with a population percentage of 47.8. This seems to contradict our
expectations. However, the level of activity is affected by a host of
factors such as age, gender and education (Marien et al. 2010), which
are likely to affect the views on political processes as well. In order
to ascertain how the views on processes are related to the political
behaviour, we need to control for these factors.
To this end, we performed a series of logistic regression analyses.
For each type of participation we first run a model which only
includes the three indexes measuring conceptions of democracy,
followed by a model where we include the control variables. The
results are presented in Table 4.
For voting, representation has the expected strong positive effect,
even after controlling for confounding factors. Although the coeffi-
cient of 3.59 and the odds ratio of 36.2 suggest a very strong effect, it
seems likely that those who favour this form of decision-making
would be more likely to answer in the positive even when they did
not vote. Hence, the exact impact should be taken with some caution,
but there is little doubt that those who adhere to a representative
conception of democracy are more likely to vote in elections. The
coefficients have the expected directions for expertise and participation,
but the estimates are not significant.
For institutionalized participation, the coefficients for all three
views on representation have the expected directions in both
models. However, representation loses significance when controlling
for other factors. The instability in the effect of a representational
ideal on institutionalized participation is not surprising, given the
intellectual roots of this perspective being in the elitist model of
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 13
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Table 4
The Effect of Conceptions of Democracy on Political Participation (logistic regression)
Voting Institutionalized Non-institutionalized
b (s.e.) OR b (s.e.) OR b (s.e.) OR b (s.e.) OR b (s.e.) OR b (s.e.) OR
Representation 4.20 (0.72)*** 66.88 3.59 (0.72)*** 36.20 0.82 (0.38)* 2.28 0.59 (0.41) 1.81 0.84 (0.36)* 2.32 0.62 (0.41) 1.86
Expert −0.65 (0.56) 0.52 −0.29 (0.59) 0.75 −1.59 (0.41)*** 0.20 −1.55 (0.42)*** 0.21 −0.05 (0.38) 0.95 −0.15 (0.39) 0.86
Participation 0.79 (0.89) 2.21 0.91 (0.92) 2.47 2.54 (0.55)*** 12.78 2.58 (0.56)*** 13.16 1.66 (0.51)*** 5.27 1.82 (0.55)*** 6.15
Age 2.10 (0.71)** 8.20 0.24 (0.38) 1.27 −1.39 (0.39)*** 0.25
Gender (male) 0.12 (0.31) 1.13 0.04 (0.18) 1.04 −0.61 (0.18)*** 0.54
Education 0.94 (0.58) 2.56 0.70 (0.32)* 2.02 1.38 (0.33)*** 3.98
Political knowledge 2.31 (0.84)** 10.03 0.37 (0.46) 1.45 0.92 (0.47)* 2.51
Marital status 0.64 (0.31)* 1.90 0.06 (0.18) 1.06 0.54 (0.18)** 1.72
Urbanization 0.57 (0.51) 1.77 −0.25 (0.30) 0.98 0.02 (0.30) 1.03
Constant 0.35 (0.83) 1.42 −3.15 (1.09)** 0.04 −1.92 (0.52)*** 0.15 −2.64 (0.64)*** 0.07 −1.53 (0.49)** 0.22 −2.27 (0.65)*** 0.10
Pseudo R²0.10 0.19 0.05 0.06 0.01 0.09
Log pseudolikelihood −175.98 −159.15 −432.99 −429.13 −455.18 −419.20
N 685 685 676 676 664 664
Note: Entries are estimates from logistic regressions with standard errors in parentheses. All variables coded to vary between 0 and 1. ***p <0.001, **p <0.01,
*p <0.05.
14 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
democracy and its strong emphasis on elections. In this analysis
we also find that the somewhat confusing finding in Table 3, where
those scoring high on the expertise ideal stood out as more
active in institutionalized participation, transforms into the expected
pattern when taking into account the full variation and controlling
for other factors.
For non-institutionalized participation, the coefficients again have
the expected directions, but only the estimate for participation reaches
significance in both models. The effect is relatively strong and in line
with the ideals put forward by the participatory model of democracy,
which underlines the importance and positive effects of citizens
engaging in a wide range of political and social activities.
To facilitate the interpretation of the results found in Table 4,
Figures 1–4 show the developments in the predicted probabilities of
participation concerning the significant relationships. The predicted
probabilities are derived from the extended model and hold all other
factors included in the analyses constant at their mean values.
Figure 1 displays the effect of representation on voting, and the graph
clearly shows that while the likelihood of voting is relatively low at 0.8
(compared with the population average of 0.9) for those at the lower
end of the representation index, voting is virtually a given at the high
end. It should also be noted that the 95 per cent confidence intervals
Figure 1
Representative Conception of Democracy and Voting (estimated probabilities with 95% CIs)
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Voting
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Representation (index)
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 15
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
suggest that the effect is more certain as representation is valued more
highly, indicating that the propensity to vote is supported by a high
belief in representation as the best way to make decisions.
Figure 2
Expertise Conception of Democracy and Institutionalized Participation (estimated
probabilities with 95% CIs)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.5
0.3
0.1
Institutionalized participation
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Expertise (index)
Figure 3
Participatory Conception of Democracy and Institutionalized Participation (estimated
probabilities with 95% CIs)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0.9
0.7
0.5
0.3
0.1
Institutionalized participation
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Participation (index)
16 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Figure 2 presents the negative effect of the expertise ideal on the
propensity to become active in institutionalized activities. The pre-
dicted probability of engaging in these types of activities decreases
from 0.6 to 0.2 as the belief in this sort of decision-making increases
from its minimum to its maximum value.
Figure 3 also presents the variation in the predicted probability
for engaging in institutionalized participation, but for the belief
in participation as a decision-making method. Here the positive
effect indicates that those with the lowest belief only have a likeli-
hood of participation of 0.1 while those with the highest belief
have a predicted probability of participation of 0.6, thus showing
that belief in participation has important repercussions for this form of
involvement.
Figure 4 visualizes the impact of belief in participation on non-
institutionalized participation, and the positive effect here indicates
that those with the lowest belief in participation have a likelihood of
participation of 0.2 compared with 0.6 for those with the highest
belief. It is also worth noting that the confidence intervals decrease
with higher values, which shows that the credibility of the estimates
are stronger when the respondents are strong supporters of partici-
pation as a decision-making ideal.
Figure 4
Participatory Conception of Democracy and Non-institutionalized Participation (estimated
probabilities with 95% CIs)
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0.9
0.7
0.5
0.3
0.1
Non-institutionalized participation
00.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Participation (index)
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 17
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
CONCLUSIONS
In this study we have demonstrated that citizens have different
conceptions of democracy. While some citizens support a system with
vivid public engagement, others prefer purely representative proce-
dures or even a greater role for experts. More importantly, these
different conceptions of democracy are not just ideals without
substantial consequences. On the contrary, they have systematic
effects on the way and extent in which people choose to engage in
political activities.
In support of our first hypothesis, we find that those who believe
that political decisions ought to be made by elected representatives in
line with a representative ideal-model were more likely to vote in
elections and participate in institutionalized activities in close vicinity
to the formal political system, while there was no discernible effect on
non-institutionalized participation. Clearly, the formal representative
structures still have many supporters who are satisfied with choosing
their leaders on election day (Schumpeter 1942).
The second hypothesis held that those adhering to a conception
of democracy in which experts should have a prominent role should
be less likely to be active in all kinds of participation. The hypothesis
received some support. Citizens with high values on this index overall
reported lower levels of participation. Furthermore, a negative esti-
mate was found for all three forms of participation in the regression
analyses, albeit only significant for the institutionalized activities.
Hence, although we cannot establish the impact of this belief with
great certainty, the results indicate that some citizens are satisfied
to leave the decision-making to experts and have little desire to get
involved in politics on a more permanent basis (see Hibbing and
Theiss-Morse 2002).
Nevertheless, this is clearly only part of the truth, since the last
finding suggests that many citizens in Finland have a participatory
conception of democracy and are also actively involved in political
activities, which was in line with our third hypothesis. Findings
confirmed a positive effect on participation in institutionalized and
non-institutionalized activities, while the effect on voting was not
significant. The latter result can be seen as being in line with the
relatively low levels of enthusiasm for voting among proponents of
participatory democracy, since these citizens prefer more direct forms
of involvement (see Pateman 1970). It may, however, also be related to
18 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
systematic differences in over-reporting when it comes to voting. Those
who believe that citizens should be active in other activities may feel less
pressure to report that they voted, even if they did not, meaning that
the differences are evened out in the survey material.
Yet another interesting finding is that the three conceptions had
the most consistent impact on the institutionalized activities between
elections. While this may to some extent be due to the inherent
problems with measuring the two other modes of participation
adequately, it could also suggest that these activities at the centre of
the democratic process are more closely affected by how citizens
perceive the system ought to function (Dalton 2006: 43). In this
sense, these activities may still play a very central role in creating a
viable democratic system in the future, although concerns have been
raised over the lack of popularity of these activities (Mair 2006).
At a more general level, the findings presented here clearly
demonstrate why it has become a challenge to construct a system
of democratic decision-making that can satisfy large parts of the
population. The great diversity in citizens’conceptions of democracy
and the concurrent views on which actors should be involved in
the decision-making puts democratic decision-making under great
pressure. In this sense, the results support the idea that it is changes
in citizens’demands, rather than the democratic performance, that
cause the perceived lack of political support in many democratic
societies (Norris 2011). In this sense, the results cast doubt on the
potential for reviving democracy through institutional engineering
(see Zittel and Fuchs 2007). Since there is no uniform preference
among citizens for how the political decisions ought to be made, it is
virtually impossible to come up with an institutional solution that can
accommodate these varied demands.
Some of these results should be taken with caution. Due to the
limited variation in some of the central variables and problems with
measurement, it was not possible to establish all connections with great
certainty. It should also be recalled that Finland can be considered a
‘most likely case’for finding the expected patterns. Research from
other contexts is therefore necessary to establish how well the conclu-
sions drawn here apply to other settings. Nevertheless, this study
certainly suggests that citizens do act in accordance with their ideals in
politicalmatters,whichassuchcanbetakenasageneralconfirmation
of the fruitfulness of trying to comprehend citizens’conceptions of
democracy with the use of survey research.
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 19
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
APPENDIX
Table A1
Coding of Variables and Descriptive Statistics
Question and coding Valid n Mean St.dev. Min. Max. VIF
Dependent variables
Turnout Nowadays many people do not vote in elections for some reason or
other. Did you vote or not in these parliamentary elections? If
you did vote, did you vote in advance or on the election day?
Coded 0/1 where ‘voted in advance’and ‘voted on
election day’=1, otherwise =0.
806 0.90 0.30 0.00 1.00 N/A
Institutionalized
participation index Which of these have you done during the last four years?: Written
an opinion piece, contacted politicians, been active in a
political party. Coded 0/1 indicating having done at
least one of the activities.
794 0.38 0.49 0.00 1.00 N/A
Non-institutionalized
participation index Which of these have you done during the last four years?: Signed a
petition, taken part in a political buycott, taken part in a
boycott, taken part in a peaceful demonstration. Coded
0/1 indicating having done at least one of the activities.
771 0.77 0.42 0.00 1.00 N/A
Independent variables
Conceptions of democracy
Best way to make political
decisions: Elected
politicians
On a scale of 0 to 10 (where 0 =worst, 10 =best), how would you
rate the following approaches to political decision-making:
Letting elected politicians make the decisions
798 0.63 0.23 0.00 1.00 N/A
Important questions
determined by
referendums
Important national issues should more often be decided in a
referendum. Scored four-point scale: totally
disagree–totally agree, coded 0–1, 1 =strongly agree
800 0.61 0.34 0.00 1.00 N/A
Representation index Index based on two questions above; coded 0–1, 1 =highest
extent of agreement 784 0.51 0.23 0.00 1.00 1.233
Best way to make political
decisions: Regularly ask On a scale of 0 to 10 (where 0 =worst, 10 =best), how would you
rate the following approaches to political decision-making:
Regular investigation of public opinion. Coded 0–1, 1 =best
797 0.70 0.23 0.00 1.00 N/A
20 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Table A1: (Continued )
Question and coding Valid n Mean St.dev. Min. Max. VIF
Best way to make political
decisions: Easier to
participate
On a scale of 0 to 10 (where 0 =worst, 10 =best), how would you
rate the following approaches to political decision-making:
Promoting citizen participation in and discussion on important
political decisions. Coded 0–1, 1 =best
796 0.72 0.18 0.00 1.00 N/A
Debates to support
representative democracy To support representative democracy, public debates on policy issues
should be organized for ordinary people. Scored four-point
scale: totally disagree–totally agree, coded 0–1,
1=strongly agree
779 0.64 0.29 0.00 1.00 N/A
Participation index Index based on three questions above; coded 0–1,
1=highest extent of agreement 761 0.69 0.17 0.13 1.00 1.137
Best way to make political
decisions: Experts On a scale of 0 to 10 (where 0 =worst, 10 =best), how would you
rate the following approaches to political decision-making:
Letting experts in different fields make the decisions. Coded
0–1, 1 =best
793 0.57 0.24 0.00 1.00 N/A
Decisions better left to
experts Things would be better in Finland if independent experts made the
decisions instead of politicians and citizens. Scored four-point
scale: totally disagree–totally agree, coded 0–1,
1=strongly agree
721 0.33 0.29 0.00 1.00 N/A
Expert index Index based on two questions above; coded 0–1, 1 =highest
extent of agreement 711 0.44 0.22 0.00 1.00 1.044
Control variables
Age Age in years, recoded 0–1, 1 =highest 806 0.46 0.23 0.01 0.99 1.045
Gender Coded 0/1, 1 =male 806 0.49 0.50 0.00 1.00 1.116
Education Highest degree completed, coded 0–1, 1 =highest 806 0.54 0.29 0.00 1.00 1.143
Marital status Coded 0/1, 1 =married/cohabiting/registered partnership 806 0.59 0.49 0.00 1.00 1.076
Urbanization Level of urbanization where respondent live, coded 0–1,
1=city 806 0.60 0.29 0.00 1.00 1.064
Political knowledge Additive index of correct answers to seven questions about
political matters, divided by seven 811 0.67 0.21 0.00 1.00 1.240
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 21
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
Table A2
Exploratory Factor Analyses of Manifest Indicators of Conceptions of Democracy
Component
123
Public discussions for ordinary people should be organized in order to support representative democracy 0.525 −0.223 0.023
Important questions should be determined by referendums more often than today 0.284 −0.078 −0.669
Political decisions better left up to experts −0.137 0.793 −0.273
Best way to make political decisions: make it easier for people to participate and discuss important political decisions 0.827 0.074 0.103
Best way to make political decisions: regularly ask citizens 0.701 0.142 −0.331
Best way to make political decisions: let experts decide 0.131 0.802 0.347
Best way to make political decisions: let elected politicians make decisions 0.109 −0.025 0.859
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) 0,57
% Variance explained 28.14 18.79 16.94
Correlation between components 1 1.00 −0.122 −0.131
2 1.00 0.023
Note: The entries are loadings from a Principal Component Analysis with oblimin rotation and all components with an Eigenvalue larger than 1.0 extracted. Strong
loadings in bold font. Component 1: Participation; Component 2: Experts; Component 3: Representation.
22 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
NOTES
1
See, however, the prominent literature on procedural justice within social
psychology concerned with the effects of procedural fairness on the willingness to
accept authoritative decisions (for example, Esaiasson et al. 2013; Tyler 2006).
2
Considering people’s inability to form stable opinions on far more straightforward
issues (Tourangeau et al. 2000; Zaller and Feldman 1992), these expectations were
perhaps not surprising.
3
The concept of ‘stealth’democrats is taken from Hibbing and Theiss-Morse
(2002), where they provocatively state that Americans in general do not really want
to become personally more involved in politics, but would prefer to make
representative democracy more efficient. According to Hibbing and Theiss-Morse,
people would prefer democracy to function like a bomber applying the ‘stealth’
technique; most of the time it is not visible on the radar.
4
‘Sunshine’democracy is an index created by Neblo and colleagues (2010) with the
original idea of making the original ‘stealth’index by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse
(2002) more reliable and balanced in coding by using a positive rewording of the
original stealth items.
5
The Finnish National Election Survey is based on quota sampling (based on age,
gender and province of residence of the respondents). The face-to-face interviews
were conducted within five weeks of the election (18 April to 28 May 2011). The last
self-administered questionnaire was returned by 14 June 2012. The data are
weighted according to party choice in order to resemble the outcome of the
election. For more on data collection and access to the data, see www.fsd.uta.fi/en/
data/catalogue/FSD2653/meF2653e.html.
6
Case selection based on a ‘most likely’design can be applied for tests of theoretical
arguments based on the assumption that if the relation of interest does not occur
under the most likely, or favourable conditions, it is unlikely to occur in other cases
as well (Eckstein 1975).
7
The strongest correlation between components is −0.131, which is displayed in the
table in the Appendix.
8
The pattern found in the loadings of the manifest variables is in line with the
findings of Bengtsson (2012), even if the indicators used differ slightly. Three
variables load strongly onto the first component, which resembles the participation
dimension. Two variables load strongly onto the second dimension, which can be
interpreted as the dimension of expertise. The final two questions load onto the
third component. One of these clearly concerns the role of elected representatives,
which is in line with the outlined expectations. The other manifest variable
concerns the use of referendums, and the strong negative loading of this is at first
sight perplexing. However, considering the link to direct democracy, it makes sense
that those who support a representative process would have a strongly negative view
on this item. This component can therefore be interpreted as the representative
dimension.
9
The question on the use of referendums loading negatively onto the representative
dimensions was reversed before constructing the index.
IDEALS AND ACTIONS 23
© The Authors 2014. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press
10
An exploratory factor analysis suggests that the activities between elections load onto
two separate dimensions that correspond to the distinction between institutiona-
lized and non-institutionalized activities. Seven activities were included in this
analysis: write an opinion piece, contact politicians, sign a petition, be active in a
political party, participate in a political boycott, buy products out of political
concerns (buycott), participate in a peaceful demonstration. We excluded some
activities due to a lack of respondents having performed the activities (participated
in an illegal demonstration, used violence) or because of an unclear connotation in
relation to the distinction between institutionalized and non-institutionalized
activities (worked for other organization). We also exclude boycotts for environ-
mental reasons due to unclear political relevance.
11
The specific regression method is logistic regression, as is appropriate for
dichotomous dependent variables. The variable estimate obtained through a
logistic regression indicates the change in the logit for each unit change in the
independent variable when holding all other variables constant. Since all variables
are coded to vary between 0 and 1, this in our case means comparing the differences
between the lowest and highest categories. For ease of interpretation, we take the
exponential of central estimates to obtain the odds ratio.
12
We did examine the effects in tests and, as expected, the inclusion of various
political attitudes weakened the effects of the process views on participation.
However, the main conclusions were not affected.
13
This may also be an effect of the two-stage survey design used in the Finnish
National Election Study. The reported turnout rate in the first part of the study
(the face-to-face interviews) with 1,298 respondents was substantially lower, at 82.4
per cent. There is thus a slight bias in terms of who is willing to participate in the
self-administered part of the study in favour of politically engaged and interested
respondents (74.3 very or rather interested in the face-to-face interviews compared
with 80.0 among the participants in the questionnaire).
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IDEALS AND ACTIONS 27
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