Does Formal Political Involvement Increase Political Efficacy?

Participatory theorists maintain that participation is beneficial, and may foster for example political efficacy and satisfaction with democracy. Our purpose here is to examine if this assumption is valid for individuals who, for the first time, are elected to a formal political commission in local government. We do this by employing a panel design, following 122 newcomers and a control group of 493 experienced politicians through the first two years of the 2014–2018 electoral term. We used seven indicators to capture political efficacy/self-competence, and two indicators to capture satisfaction with decision-making structures. Our results show that political efficacy is not strengthened after a two-year experience of being formally involved in local politics. Rather, the opposite is observed: efficacy is weakened. However, the loss in efficacy is not isolated to newcomers. It is also found, and in some instances, is also more pronounced, among the more experienced politicians. We conclude the paper with a discussion on why such counter-intuitive results are found.