Perceived Dysfunctioning of Political Representation and Process Preferences

"What drives citizens desire for more direct involvement in political decision-making? According to most studies, citizens’ discontent with current democratic practices lies at the heart of their support for more citizen involvement in the political process (e.g. Bowler, Donovan, & Karp, 2007; Gherghina & Geissel, 2019). Yet, it remains largely unclear what kind of dissatisfaction makes citizens want alternative procedural arrangements (Werner, Marien, & Felicetti, 2019). In this study, we aim to contribute to this debate by examining the role of discontent with the quality of representation in explaining attitudes towards democratic innovations. Notably, survey research indicates widespread popular perceptions of a gap between the public and politicians – that is, citizens indicate politicians and politics to be ‘out of touch’, ‘remote’ or ‘disconnected’ from public life (Huber & Ruth, 2017; Neblo, Esterling, & Lazer, 2018; Schuck & de Vreese, 2015). This gap, we argue, is both relational (symbolic) and instrumental (substantive). We theorise that discontent with representative practices leads to demands for citizen involvement in political decision-making because it is seen as a way to force politicians or political parties to listen to the public. Yet, we foresee the substantive and symbolic dimensions of representation to do so in a different way. With regards to symbolic representation, citizens could be supportive of democratic innovations when they are frustrated with politicians not caring about them because these procedural arrangements are a tool to make them respect and recognise the importance of the public. With regards to substantive representation, citizens could be favourable towards democratic innovations when they are frustrated with politicians or parties not being attentive to their opinions and interests because it is a way to pressure or ensure that citizens’ policy preferences are translated into political decisions – especially when the process has a binding character (Budge, 2012; Leininger, 2015). This draws on previous research showing that citizens’ process preferences are instrumentally driven – that is, citizens appear to desire the procedural arrangements that deliver their preferred outputs (Landwehr & Harms, 2019; Marien & Kern, 2018; Werner, 2019). We further investigate whether substantive and symbolic dissatisfaction results in support for different kinds of participatory processes, such as advisory and binding referendums or participatory budgeting. What processes can tackle what deficit of representation in the eyes of citizens? We study the relationship between different dissatisfactions with representative practices and preferences for participatory processes using Survey data that is gathered in Spring 2020 as part of the Belgian Election Study (N=2000). Preliminary analysis from a previous wave of the survey indicates the importance of dissatisfaction with symbolic representation in shaping demand for participatory processes. "