Public Opinion towards Citizen Participation in Policy-making

Citizens may be involved in policy-making in a variety of ways, from written consultations to more deliberative processes. Some have praised the latter for improving the quality of policy-making while others have argued that citizens are happy to be bystanders of democracy. We examine public attitudes towards different forms of citizen engagement. We expect citizens to judge policy-making processes more positively (1) the stronger the deliberative component, (2) the more citizens participate, and (3) when the policy outcomes reflect the position of the citizens participating as well as 4) the position of the majority of the public. We conducted a survey experiment with a random sample of 3,000 Danish citizens who are presented with a description of a fictitious policy-making scenario. Our findings present a sobering view of the potential of citizen engagement to boost legitimacy. Citizens generally do not care whether and which participatory elements are used. Instead, their assessments of legitimacy are affected by whether decision-makers act in line with the positions of the public and the participating citizens. The results reveal a view of representation that places less emphasis on participatory democracy but which still shows a strong concern for whether politicians represent the views of the participating citizens and the wider public.