Citizen Competence and Different Conceptions of Democracy

There is an energetic debate among scholars, and also outside the academia, about whether the current mode of representative, party-based democracy should be reformed. The debaters represent two opposite sides that promote two profoundly different models of democracy. Some support more participatory forms of democracy, which call for increased citizen involvement than what is now typically the case in Western democracies. Others support the opposite alternative, a more elite-driven democracy with less citizen engagement. Previous research has shown that public opinion in the matter is marked by some degree of hesitation as well as confusion. Firstly, it is not clear whether ordinary citizens prefer more or less participation opportunities, or if they are happy with the way things are. Secondly, the views they do hold are not always consistent. This study wishes to contribute to the growing literature on this subject by emphasizing political competence as a theoretically relevant predictor of democracy attitudes. The analysis is anchored in the debates in democratic theory, which deal with the relationship between citizen involvement and citizen competence. Various models of democracy differ from one another in this respect; participatory models of democracy expect and encourage extensive citizen involvement, while elitist models of democracy give decision-making power to either political or technical experts. From this theoretical standpoint, this study examines whether people’s preferences for who should rule correspond with different models of democracy. It poses two questions: 1) Do more competent individuals support more participatory democracy, while the less competent support elite models of democracy? 2) Does attitude consistency toward different models of democracy depend on a person’s political competence? The analysis uses the 2011 Finnish National Election Study (FNES) to answer these questions. Both the theoretical and practical implications of the results will be discussed.