Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea? How Preferences for Democratic Processes Shape the Willingness to Deliberate

Previous research has established that citizens have different conceptions of the ideal democratic process (Bengtsson 2012; Coffé and Michels 2014). Furthermore, these preferences influence how people engage in political activities (Webb 2013; Bengtsson & Christensen 2014). The way in which process preferences are linked to the willingness to engage in public and private political discussions is however less clear. In this paper, we therefore set out to study how citizens’ preferences for democracy are related to their willingness to deliberate political matters with others. Drawing on previous research by Neblo et al (2010) and Mutz (2002) we examine the link between three conceptions of democracy and the willingness to participate in political discussions. We use the Finnish national election study from 2011 since this material includes appropriate indicators for the main concepts.