Political Participation, Diffused Governance, and the Transformation of Democracy

Patterns of Change

Yvette Peters

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781315294476
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Although democratic governments have introduced a number of institutional reforms in part intended to increase citizens' political involvement, studies show a continued decline in regular political engagement. This book examines different forms of political participation in democracies, and in what way the delegation of public responsibilities—or, the diffusion of politics—has affected patterns of participation since the 1980s.

The book addresses this paradox by directly investigating the impact of institutional changes on citizens' political participation empirically. It re-analyses patterns of political participation in contemporary democracies, providing an in-depth time series cross-sectional analysis that helps develop a better understanding of how variation in political participation can be explained, both between countries and over time. As such, it develops an institutional theoretical framework which can help to explain levels of participation and shows that, instead of displaying more political apathy, citizens have reallocated or displaced their activities to a broader array of forms of participation.

This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, democratization, political participation and electoral politics.

Part 1
The changing democratic system

1
Patterns of change

This book is about different forms of political participation in democracies, and in what ways the delegation of public responsibilities – or, the diffusion of politics – has affected patterns of participation since the 1980s. Over the past decades, democratic governments have seen a number of institutional reforms, in part intended to increase citizens’ political involvement, and often as a result of pressures from citizens for greater access to political decision-making. Yet, studies of political participation show a continued decline in regular political engagement. This book addresses this paradox by directly investigating the impact of institutional changes on citizens’ political participation empirically. It re-analyzes patterns of political participation in contemporary democracies. Whereas many commentators fear a decline of political participation and the rise of apathy and alienation, this study provides an in-depth time series cross-sectional analysis that shows that citizens have not become more apathetic. Instead, they have reallocated or displaced their activities to a broader array of forms of participation. Moreover, this displacement has come about as a result of governments’ increasing tendency to diffuse their activities to private, sub-national and supra- or inter-governmental areas of governance. As such, the book attempts to initiate a more unstrained dialogue between neo-institutionalism and behavioural approaches to the study of politics. Moreover, the book re-analyzes in what way changed political behaviour and changed institutional structures affect democracy: while the change in patterns of political participation does not imply popular apathy, do they suggest democracy is doing all right?

The fall of the Berlin Wall has boosted research on democracies. With the spread of democracy throughout the world, and its main competitors slowly disappearing, democracy has moved from being just one other regime-type to a main focus of political scientists (Mair, 2008c). Nowadays we can distinguish between several different types of democracy, and democracies are increasingly compared to each other. Democracy seems to be flourishing. However, a number of scholars have claimed that the health of democracy is nonetheless under threat, and that this threat specifically comes from within. Especially the change in its role and function seems to be important in this perspective, as well as the specific attitudes of people. Parties, it has been argued, increasingly fail to mobilize people’s preferences, while at the same time they still aspire to be in government. There appears to be an increasing gap between the state and civil society, where people are less and less actively involved (voter turnout and party membership has been declining), and appear to be losing their trust in the numerous institutions of the political system (e.g. parliament, government, political parties, police, etc.). Thus, people seem to be detaching themselves from their political system, something that could be viewed as problematic for democracies especially. On the other hand, several studies have shown that other forms of participation, such as boycotting or protesting, are actually used more now than some decades ago. This could be seen as a signal that people are still interested in politics and are also willing to be active in it. Moreover, direct democracy seems to be on the rise, and could also be used as an alternative way to influence politics.

Whether these increasing trends ‘solve’ the problem with democracy is debatable, but the trends that appear in so many democracies are striking and puzzling. The primary objective of this research is therefore to understand better why these developments have occurred, linking them to other systemic changes within democracies. The book thus aims to better understand to what extent political institutions affect the citizens’ political involvement. The structure of political systems is important, and it is crucial to better understand its effects. The focus of explanation in this study is on the level of inclusiveness and competence diffusion of the political system, and I put forward a broad institutional framework to partly account for changes in patterns of participation. Three institutional elements are considered: horizontal and vertical diffusion of responsibilities, and direct involvement structures. These represent changes in the authoritative role of the central government. The question central to this study is therefore: how can political structures explain patterns of political participation across time and space?

Participation and democracy

There has been an increasing scholarly interest in the concept and practice of democracy (see Mair, 2008c). Even though democracy has been studied before, this was mostly done in such a way that democratic regimes were compared with non-democratic regimes, mostly in order to be able to say something about the differences between these types of systems. With this, democracy was taken more or less for granted as a system, and evaluated mostly as inherently ‘good’. More recently, this focus has shifted towards research and evaluations of democracy as such. Scholars now compare democracies with democracies, and have consequently found differences in the type and quality of democracy. Democratic regimes can, consequently, be categorised among themselves, based on their level or type.¹ Especially the studies by Lijphart (1999) and Powell (2000) concerning the typology and evaluations of democracy have been influential in this perspective. Thus, besides an occurring interest in measuring levels of democracy, or on what a ‘good’ democracy is (e.g. Berg-Schlosser, 2004; Morlino, 2004; Gerardo L. Munck, 2009; Gerardo L. Munck and Verkuilen, 2002), some studies have rather focused on different types or categories of democracies (e.g. Lijphart, 1999; O’Donnell, 1993; Powell, 2000; Zakaria, 1997; Zittel and Fuchs, 2007). The interest in the concept and practice of democracy appears to have heightened, and this interest concerns both the actual practice of democracy (forms, types, performance), and normative notions of democracy (such as the responsive, participa-tory, and deliberative ideals of democracy, as discussed by e.g. Teorell, 2006)

Moreover, democracy has spread continuously throughout the world (Doorenspleet, 2000; Huntington, 1991)² increasing the number of democracies previously inconceivable (Mair, 2008c). This, besides offering new opportunities for democracy-comparisons, seems to be cause for great optimism about the future of democracy. Especially the recent wave of democratisation creating a broadened democratic space in Europe has been seen as such. Moreover, Schmitter and Trechsel (2004) have connected the increase of participating members in the Council of Europe and the European Union as indicators of a never-equalled effort to “promote and protect the quality of their democracy” (pp. 3). O’Donnell (2007) further points out that nowadays also non-democratic regimes want to appear democratic to gain international and popular legitimacy, indicating the value given to the concept of democracy. Moreover, it has been argued that the main alternatives to democracy, such as communism, fascism, and hereditary aristocracy have virtually disappeared as realistic competitors to democracy (Dahl, 1998; Linz, 2000). In short, prospects for the future of democracy are good given these considerations.

Some scholars (e.g. Linz, 2000; Mair, 2005; Pharr, Putnam, and Dalton, 2000) are less optimistic, maybe even pessimistic, about this future, however. Even though external risks or threats to democracy seem less imminent,³ internal developments have been argued to pose a threat to democracy. The main cause for concern seems to be the attitude and behaviour of citizens in democratic states: people’s confidence in key political institutions has declined (e.g. Armingeon and Guthmann, 2014; Pharr and Putnam, 2000; Putnam, 2000; Torcal, 2014), and people are increasingly reluctant to participate in the political process as indicated by the decline in voter turnout, party membership, and other mainstream political activity (Dahl, 2000; Dalton and Wattenberg, 2000; Li and Marsh, 2008; Mair, 2005). These developments suggest that a growing dissatisfaction with general processes, practices, and institutions related to representative democracy has taken place.⁴ People do not seem to be very satisfied with their democracies, and they seem less willing to put in the effort to sustain it by partaking in it.

The involvement of citizens in politics is, however, important for democracy to the extent that democracy cannot be called that if people are not part of the political process. No democracy can survive over time unless the people in these democracies understand that it is a struggle to sustain democracy (Ostrom, 2000), and that it takes some effort. People have to engage politically, organise themselves in political parties or other associations, participate in civic groups, neighbourhood organisations, and NGOs (Ostrom, 2000; Van Deth, 1997), but should also have equal opportunities to participate, and with that influence policy-outcome equally. Citizens have to act in order to sustain a (healthy) democracy (Dahl, 1971; Ostrom, 2000, 281). By participating politically, they communicate information to policy-makers, and at the same time provide incentives for them to respond (Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, 2012). This communication is indeed necessary for decision-makers to know what people want, so that they can translate these preferences into policies. Democracy means the rule of the people, and their opinion and political actions are important for the functioning of democracy (Anderson, 1998; Glynn, Herbst, O’Keefe, Shapiro, and Lindeman, 2004; Norris, 1999; Welzel and Ingle-hart, 2008). If citizens do not perceive their system as a well-working democratic system, and if they have doubts about the democratic principles of their country, legitimacy problems will eventually arise (Anderson, 1998). Ultimately, the survival of democracies depends on the approval, satisfaction, and happiness of their citizens (Schmitter and Trechsel, 2004).

Because people seem increasingly dissatisfied with their political system, and because they seem less involved in the political process, it has been argued that democracy is heading towards, or maybe already is, in crisis. People are increasingly taking themselves out of the democratic equation, which is leading to “a notion of democracy that is being steadily stripped of its popular component – a notion of democracy without a demos”, as argued by Mair (2006, 25).

Following this argument, the notion that democracy is suffering is based on the observation that people’s attitudes and behaviour have changed. People’s attitudes and (non-)actions can be seen as a sign or signal that democracy is not doing well, even though democracy is promoted and implemented throughout the world. The suggestion that people are taking themselves out of the democratic equation highlights a severe democratic problem. However, their inactivity may not altogether be surprising, as they might have simply responded to a changing environment. I argue that people’s behaviour is in part the result of something more structural, something related to the structure of the democracy in which they live. In other words, while citizens’ behaviour is a cause for concern, they are perhaps not to ‘blame’: with their behaviour, they simply reflect democracy’s health. Citizens react to a changing structural environment that offers them certain political opportunities or constraints. Even though citizens are the key, and their behaviour is crucial to democracy, they live within a framework that allows them to a varying degree to actually be ‘good’ democratic citizens; within a democracy, there should be opportunities and incentives for citizens so they can sustain a healthy democracy. Therefore, in understanding people’s attitudes and actions, the structure of the democratic system should be examined.

Furthermore, the literature concerning the health of democracy seems to be centred on a form of political participation that is related to representative democracy and in particular elections and political parties. Political parties in particular seem to play an important role in facilitating citizen participation, as outlined above. However, there are also other, different, ways for people to voice their preferences and to aim to influence policies. The next section elaborates further on the various forms of participation that people can engage in. It outlines in what ways participation has changed over time, in opposite directions, posing a behavioural puzzle to the study of participation and democracy. With that, it also indicates that citizens might be less apathetic than is sometimes suggested, calling for a re-analysis of patterns of participation.

Behavioural puzzle

Declining levels of satisfaction with core democratic institutions, the apparent withdrawal of people from the political process, and the disappearing popular component of democracy through political parties are arguably signs of a democratic problem. After all, for a democracy to work, people need to be able to trust and support their government, and they need to be actively involved in the democratic process. However, a sole focus on representative forms of participation shows only a part of the full picture. In examining the literature, it appears that there are in fact different trends in political participation, some declining and some increasing. These trends are puzzling by and of themselves, but are intriguing even more so in combination with each other. The trends in participation are embodied by three different types of participation: representative participation, extra-representative participation, and direct participation. In the following sections, I briefly discuss these trends, and further elaborate on them in chapter 2.

Declining levels of political participation

Following the discussion above, some of the more traditional forms of participation have declined over time. One of these, involvement in political parties, seems particularly important in this respect and may be considered the core of ‘conventional’ political participation.⁵ Political parties have traditionally been seen as an important aspect of democracy, sometimes even as the most important aspect and the essential link between citizens and the state (see e.g. Dalton, 2000; Katz and Mair, 1995, 7; Mair, 2005; Schmitter, 2001). Political parties link citizens to the state, and are “… undoubtedly the most important vehicles for organizing members of the mass public and bringing them into politics …” (Schlozman et al., 2012; 248). However, during the past decades, studies have argued that the role of political parties is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• PART 1 The changing democratic system
• PART 2 Patterns of participation: the impact of competence diffusion
• PART 3 Democracy at the crossroads? Some conclusions
• Appendix 1. Operationalisation and data
• Appendix 2. Full models
• References
• Index