Popular Support for Direct Democracy in Europe

Direct democracy often is portrayed as a remedy to a decline in trust in institutions and actors of politics. As citizens remain committed to democratic norms and principles part of the rise in discontent can potentially be explained by increased expectations of ‘critical citizens’ demanding more participatory opportunities. Previous studies on popular support for direct democracy contrasting a ‘new politics’ with a ‘political disaffection’ explanation found stronger evidence for the latter. As the disaffected tend to participate less this raises doubts whether their support indicates true commitment to more participation. However, a lack of participatory opportunities might also be a reason for disaffection and thereby support for direct democracy. Yet, this may not be the case for ‘stealth democrats’ who are dissatisfied with representative democracy, want it to function better but without the need for (more) citizen involvement. Studies in Finland, the UK and the Netherlands found that predictors for support for direct democracy also predict support for ‘stealth democracy.’ However, reluctance to participate is only one aspect of ‘stealth democrats.’ So far, only two studies have considered multiple countries but have analyzed the country-data separately. I use the ESS Round 6 to bring together citizens’ democratic ideals with their evaluations of actual institutional arrangements, combining it with data on the institutionalization and use of direct democracy in the covered countries. This allows me to analyze how citizens’ evaluations of participatory opportunities inform their democratic aspirations and whether these relate to the actual institutional settings they experience. Prior research has found individual level relationships to vary in strengths and even direction between countries, for which differences in direct democratic institutions are an explanation. Preliminary results indicate that support for direct democracy increases in its perceived availability and suggests that citizens value it for its legitimatory rather than its participatory potential.