Direct Democracy and Political Trust: The Case of the Finnish Citizens’ Initiative

This paper examines how direct-democratic involvement in the form of signing citizens’ initiatives in Finland affected developments in political trust among Finnish citizens. Democratic innovations have been proposed as a solution to the problems that representative democracies all over the world confront. It is frequently stated that these participatory arrangements can help achieve several valuable democratic goals. However, their purported positive effects remain largely untested, and critical voices even maintain that they are unable to ensure the proper functioning of democracy. For this reason, there is good reason to examine whether and when such participatory practices can deliver on their promises. This paper contributes to this research agenda by examining how involvement in signing citizens’ initiatives affected developments in political trust as a central indicator for political support, which is beneficial for the proper functioning of political systems. The citizens’ initiative was introduced in Finland in 2012 in an attempt to enhance democratic legitimacy. While previous studies suggest that the Finnish population at large has welcomed this opportunity, the effects on those involved in supporting initiatives remain uncertain, especially considering that the initiative has only had a limited direct effect on legislation so far. The data for examining the research questions come from various surveys, including a cross-sectional survey representative of the Finnish population and various surveys that make it possible to assess developments over time among activists. The results suggest that involvement has had a negative effect on political support, thereby calling into question the purported positive effects in this regard.