Henrik Serup Christensen

THE POLITICAL COMPETENCE OF INTERNET PARTICIPANTS

The role of the Internet in promoting active and efficacious citizenship has been debated. After initial excitement over the possibilities of the Internet, scholars have increasingly grown more cautious. Not only has it been doubted that the Internet is able to mobilize new segments of the citizenry, the abilities of those virtually active to navigate the political system have also been called into question. Hence, the problem concerns a quantitative aspect, involving the willingness to participate, and a qualitative aspect, that is, the political competences of Internet participants. This paper examines the extent to which the Internet in Finland mobilizes citizens who are both willing and able to participate in political matters, but just happens to prefer alternative outlets for their political preferences. The data used are the Finnish National Election Study 2007, which makes it possible to gauge both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of political participation via the Internet. The results suggest that a substantial part of the Finnish adult population is only politically active via the Internet. Furthermore, these virtual citizens are at least as politically competent as traditional activists, and on most accounts even more so. Accordingly, it seems the Internet may well play an important role in vitalizing the citizenries of the established democracies.

Trust and Openness: Prerequisites for Democratic Engagement?

The impact of political trust on political participation is still contested, especially considering the variety of political expressions citizens use as political tools. A further complication is added by the substantial differences in the context under which participation take place and the contextual impact on the link between political trust and participation. We here examine how political trust affects institutionalised and non-institutionalised forms of political participation. Furthermore, we examine how these linkages are affected by the institutional openness of the political system, since this constitutes a central element of the context of participation. These research questions are examined using data from the fourth round of the European Social Survey from 2008 including 26 democratic countries and a total of 49,979 respondents. The results suggest that political trust promotes institutionalised participation and has a negative impact on non-institutionalised participation. Furthermore, the institutional context mediates the effect of political trust on political participation meaning that institutional openness strengthens the effect of political trust on institutionalised participation whereas it weakens the effect of political distrust on non-institutionalised participation.

Does Deliberation Breed an Appetite for Discursive Participation? Assessing the Impact of First-Hand Experience:

Various deliberative practices have been argued to constitute viable supplements to traditional representative decision making. At the same time, doubts have been raised as to whether ordinary citizens want to be involved in such demanding forms of political participation. This question has been difficult to resolve since few citizens have had the chance to take part in genuine deliberative practices. For this reason, we examine how participation in a deliberative mini-public affected attitudes towards discursive participation as a supplement to representative decision making. Moreover, we investigate how group composition and individual-level factors affect these developments. Our data come from an experimental deliberative forum on the issue of immigration arranged in Finland in 2012. The results suggest that the participants grew more positive towards the use of deliberative practices regardless of individual socio-demographic resources, whereas the effects of prior political engagement depend on the composition of the group the participants were assigned to.

When trust matters—a multilevel analysis of the effect of generalized trust on political participation in 25 European democracies

ABSTRACT Generalized social trust has been argued to have positive effects for both individuals and society, but despite solid theoretical arguments in favour of different contextual effects, the empirical evidence remains scant. We here examine whether and how the effect of generalized trust on the propensity to become politically active is moderated by the level of generalized trust in society. We inspect two different causal mechanisms: The rainmaker effect, which entails that the effect of generalized trust is weaker at the individual level when there is a high level of generalized trust in society; and the sunmaker effect, which entails that the effect of generalized trust is strengthened by a high level of generalized trust in society. We examine the links for three forms of political participation: voting, institutionalized participation, and non-institutionalized participation. The data come from the fourth round of the European Social Survey from 2008 [European Social Survey. (2008). Data file edition 4.0. Norwegian Social Science Data Services, Norway—Data Archive and distributor of ESS data], and we include 47,489 respondents in 25 democratic countries. The results from a series of multilevel logistic regressions suggest that the effect of generalized trust varies depending on the level of generalized trust in the surrounding community but the causal mechanisms differ for different kinds of political participation.

Democratic Innovations to the Rescue? Political Trust and Attitudes Toward Democratic Innovations in Southwest Finland

ABSTRACT It is difficult to govern when citizens are unsupportive of the political system. This problem is relevant for municipalities formed through municipal mergers since new political entities need to build political trust. Democratic innovations provide possible solutions to increase citizens’ confidence, but it is unclear whether distrusting citizens demand these opportunities for involvement. This study examines the link between political trust and support for democratic innovations in Southwest Finland with a survey of 2000 respondents in 14 municipalities. The results suggest that distrusting citizens are less supportive of democratic innovations; hence it is unlikely that they increase political trust.

Power Sharing and Political Dissatisfaction: A Multilevel Analysis of the Link Between Power-Sharing Institutions and Kinds of Political Dissatisfaction in 24 European Democracies

Abstract Institutional engineering offers a solution to the increasing political dissatisfaction in several representative democracies, since studies suggest that introducing elements of institutional power sharing may decrease negative attitudes. However, it may be important to distinguish different mixes of political attitudes since these can have different implications for the functioning of democracy. This article therefore examines the link between horizontal and vertical institutional power sharing and four citizen profiles differing on the extent of political support and subjective political empowerment. The data come from the fourth round of the European Social Survey [ESS (2008) European Social Survey Round 4 Data. Data File Edition 4 (Norway: Norwegian Social Science Data Services)] and comprise 39,376 respondents from 24 democracies. The links between institutional power sharing and kinds of political dissatisfaction are examined with multinomial logistic regression analysis to examine the connections between horizontal and vertical power sharing and different attitudinal profiles to establish the possibilities for institutional engineering. The results suggest that horizontal power sharing is connected to a higher extent of satisfied citizens, but also certain kinds of dissatisfaction. Furthermore, vertical power sharing is connected to a lower probability of satisfied citizens. The effects of power sharing are therefore more intricate than what has previously been assumed when taking into account the multidimensional nature of political attitudes.

Knowing and distrusting: how political trust and knowledge shape direct-democratic participation

ABSTRACT This article examines how factual political knowledge and political trust shape direct-democratic involvement in the form of supporting citizens’ initiatives in Finland. Previous studies have debated the relative merits of cognitive mobilization and political dissatisfaction as predictors of support for direct democracy. This study builds on these efforts, but it extends the scope of analysis to examine reported participation in rather than support for direct democracy. The study relies on data from the most recent round of the Finnish National Election Study from 2015 (FNES2015) to study these questions with binary logistic regression analyses. The results suggest that both factual political knowledge and political trust have the expected relationships with direct-democratic involvement. However, their effects are stronger when they interact and pull in the same direction to shape the propensity of involvement. This indicates that proposals for citizens’ initiatives are generally the work of knowledgeable, but critical, citizens.