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Hva kjennetegner velgere med høy lokalpolitisk tillit?
Abstract
Why do some citizens trust in local political actors and institutions while others do not? With data from the Norwegian Local Election Survey 2019, we examine characteristics of citizens with high and low local political trust. The analyses indicate that trust in the different political actors and institutions is closely linked. For example, those who report high trust in the mayor also report high trust in politicians in general, in the municipal council, and in the municipal administration. In other words, people tend to have either high or low trust in the entire local political system. Furthermore, we find that trust in local political systems and actors is associated with a number of individual and contextual factors including the sense of belonging to the municipality, the use of municipal services, and political participation. Trust also seems to be linked to being on the winning team: those who voted for parties that won the election are more trustful than those who voted for parties that that did not win the election.
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Political scientists frequently interpret the results of conjoint experiments as reflective of majority preferences. In this article, we show that the target estimand of conjoint experiments, the average marginal component effect (AMCE), is not well defined in these terms. Even with individually rational experimental subjects, the AMCE can indicate the opposite of the true preference of the majority. To show this, we characterize the preference aggregation rule implied by the AMCE and demonstrate its several undesirable properties. With this result, we provide a method for placing bounds on the proportion of experimental subjects who prefer a given candidate feature. We describe conditions under which the AMCE corresponds in sign with the majority preference. Finally, we offer a structural interpretation of the AMCE and highlight that the problem we describe persists even when a model of voting is imposed.
This article reports on two sets of field experiments testing text messaging (SMS) among native Norwegian voters and live phone calls among young voters eligible to vote in their first election. The two sets of experiments are done in both local and national elections. Most previous studies of election salience and voter mobilization use data from countries with generally lower levels of turnout than in Northern Europe (including Norway). This article addresses how the effectiveness of voter mobilization varies by election salience, in a generally high-salience political context. We find the two experiments to be more effective in low/middle salience elections, with turnout around 60 percent, than in high salience elections with turnout higher than 75 percent.
The well-known “high-choice news avoidance thesis” and the alternative “network structure perspective” stipulate somewhat conflicting expectations about news consumption in today’s digital media systems. Based on annual survey data from Norway, the article examines news avoidance from 1997–2016, a period when digitalization processes transformed the media environment. Results show that news avoidance increased only marginally. The decrease in use of traditional media is largely compensated for by online news. However, news avoidance is increasingly polarized along educational lines, and it is unclear to what degree online news consumption equals traditional news media consumption in qualitative terms.
The 2019 local and regional elections in Norway took place against the backdrop of a historical local and regional amalgamation reform initiated by the Conservative-led government in 2014. We find six key outcomes from these elections. (1) The 2019 election witnessed an increase in turnout of 4.5 percentage points compared with the 2015 elections. This is the highest voter turnout in local and regional elections since 1991. (2) The four parties in government all suffered substantial losses. (3) The winner of the election was the Centre Party, which surged in the peripheral areas (4) The 2019 election results for the Labour Party are yet another confirmation of a long-term decline in electoral strength. (5) The emergence of a new political list, The People's Action Against Toll Fees (FNB). (6) In the urban areas, the Greens and Socialist Left Party mobilized younger voters, securing both parties an increase in electoral support.
The article analyses the impact of preference votes on the gender balance in municipal councils in Norway, and to what extent this impact varies with candidates’ age, party and local context. We compare actual representation with a hypothetical closed-list outcome. The analyses show that both local political representation and the impact of preference votes are characterised by a gender-generation gap. Older women are underrepresented, while young women are represented on equal terms with young men. Young female candidates benefit from preference voting in larger municipalities, whereas the older generation of women loses out in both large and small municipalities. In conclusion, we argue that an intersectionality approach should pay more attention to variables other than ethnicity, including age and local context. Moreover, research on gender and political representation should take into account a gender-generation perspective.
This paper reports on a randomized field experiment testing three direct mail mobilization appeals among immigrants in the 2015 Norwegian Local Elections. The three letters all included a general encouragement to vote in addition to practical information about voting. One paragraph was varied to present different mobilization messages. They were: 1) a message guaranteeing ballot secrecy. 2) a message with consistent prescriptive and descriptive norms emphasizing the importance of immigrant participation and that participation has been increasing. 3) a message with inconsistent prescriptive and descriptive norms emphasizing the importance of immigrant participation, but noting immigrant participation has been low.
All three letters increased turnout among both first time voters and previously eligible voters. The effect is strongest, 5.8 percentage points, among those who were eligible to vote for the first time. Control group turnout was 20.9 percent. Among previously eligible immigrant voters there is an average treatment effect of 3.3 percentage point from a baseline of 40.2 percent turnout. In comparison to previous GOTV mail studies, these are very strong effects, far exceeding the typical response among low propensity voters. GOTV letters can therefore be an effective way to mobilize immigrant voters to participate in host country elections.
Sending text messages reminding people to vote has only been examined as a mobilization tool in three studies, two of them done in the United States. The results from these studies are mixed. We investigate this tool’s effectiveness using a field experiment in a different context, municipal elections in Norway. We find strong mobilization effects among groups traditionally low in participation (immigrants and youth voters). Young native Norwegians show an intent-to-treat (ITT) effect of 4.58% points, foreign nationals who have recently established Norwegian residency show an ITT effect of 2.93% points, and among immigrants who have lived in Norway for 7 years or more the treatment effect is 2.7% points. Even among native Norwegian voters over 30, with a baseline turnout of 73%, text messages generate a 0.96% points increase in turnout.
Party organizations are often said to integrate the territorial levels in a political system. This article analyses how party organizations handled a specific issue – municipal amalgamations initiated by the state – in a unitary state – Norway. Two types of organizational linkage are explored. First, bottom-up influence: to what extent did party branches attempt to influence national party policy? Second, top-down coordination and control: to what extent were party branches tools for implementing national party policy? Based on qualitative interviews in five Norwegian parties, the analyses show that party organizations provided linkage in different ways. In the most united parties, low levels of internal disagreement enabled the parties – at all levels – to promote their national policies. In divided parties, the party organization became an arena for competition between opposing views. These parties chose to emphasize local self-determination. Accordingly, they had less of a national policy to implement.
Lokale partilag og lister har en viktig portvokterfunksjon når de velger ut kandidater som velgerne kan stemme på til lokalvalg. Slik har partiene innvirkning på kjønnsfordelingen blant de folkevalgte. I denne artikkelen belyser vi hvorvidt lokale partilag og lister betrakter lav kvinnerepresentasjon som et demokratisk problem. Vi undersøker dels hvordan de forholder seg til kjønnsbalanse som en demokratisk verdi, og dels hvorvidt de arbeider for å oppnå kjønnsbalanse når de nominerer kandidater til kommunestyrevalg. Med data fra partilag og lister i 43 norske kommuner som skiller seg ut ved å ha lav kvinnerepresentasjon og som deltok i et prosjekt for å sette kvinner og politikk på den lokale dagsordenen, studerer vi partipolitiske likheter og forskjeller. I likhet med tidligere studier med mer representative utvalg, viser også våre funn partiforskjeller: Partier ytterst til høyre – her FrP – er minst likestillingsorienterte og minst opptatt av kjønnsrepresentasjon. Funnet etterlater et hvorfor-spørsmål: Handler det bare om ideologi og holdninger, eller handler det (også) om praktiske og konkrete forhold som setter begrensninger for hva som er mulig?
Kvinneandelen i norske kommunestyrer har flatet ut de siste tjue åra. På landsbasis har andelen aldri kommet over 40 prosent, men gjennomsnittet dekker over store variasjoner. Valgforskere har studert hvordan partiene og velgerne påvirker kommunestyrenes sammensetting, men har i mindre grad vært opptatt av kvinners kollektive mobilisering. Kvinner har imidlertid aksjonert kollektivt for å få valgt inn flere kvinner siden stemmeretten ble innført; gjennom opplysningskampanjer, velgeraksjoner og systematisk arbeid i forhold til de politiske partiene. Denne artikkelen setter fokus på kvinnevalgkampanjene fra 1967. Den gir et historisk riss av kjønns(u)balanse og valgordning; deretter diskuterer den etablert forskning om partienes og velgeres strategiske bruk av valgordningen: Hvilken betydning partienes valglister har hatt i forhold til velgernes listerettinger for kvinnerepresentasjonen i kommunestyrene. Hovedanliggende er likevel å sette søkelyset på aksjoner og kampanjer for å få valgt inn flere kvinner – fra den første aksjonen på Utsira i 1925 til de mange kvinnepolitiske aksjonene fra 1967 og utover. Disse kampanjene er verdt større oppmerksomhet fordi de belyser kvinnebevegelsens rolle i relasjon til valg, gir interessant empiri til diskusjoner om den politiske betydningen av kjønn/kvinner, og setter partienes og velgernes handlinger inn i en bredere kulturell ramme.
Because of its capacity to facilitate consensus, trust in government is vital to the functioning of democracies. And yet those interested in the concept continue to struggle with the sheer number and ambiguity of available definitions. This paper confronts theoretical notions of trust with available empirical evidence, and ultimately defines “trust in government” as the willingness to bear the immediate or expected material and ideological costs that arise from compliance with government action. This definition is useful because it keeps up with recent empirical findings, involves a particular channel of effect, and distinguishes trust in government from the positive perceptions and attitudes which are commonly confused with trust.
In this study, we explore the media exposure of digital native first-time voters and test for its mobilizing potential for their campaign participation. We compare first-time voters’ and experienced voters’ exposure to political information on social network sites, non-social online media and offline media. Using a unique research design that involves a smartphone-based diary study, we assess voters’ (n = 1108) media exposure every other day of the Danish parliamentary election campaign in 2015. We distinguish between different content types that first-time voters receive on social media and test for variation in the mobilizing potential of these content types. Findings show that social media platforms play a superior role in the media diet of digital native voters and can foster campaign participation. First-time voters are more exposed to direct communication from political actors than experienced voters while content from news media on social media plays an equal role in both groups’ media diet. Results suggest that a digital media environment potentially socializes young voters into polarized information environments that nevertheless may increase their involvement in an upcoming election.
This thematic issue sets out to explore the power relationships between journalism and social media. The articles here examine these relationships as intersections between journalistic actors and their audiences, and between news media, their content, and the functions of social media platforms. As the articles in this issue show, the emergence of social media and their adoption by news media and other social actors have brought about a series of changes which have had an impact on how news is produced, how information is shared, how audiences consume news, and how publics are formed. In this introduction, we highlight the work in this issue in order to reflect on the emergence of social media as one which has been accompanied by shifts in power in journalism and its ancillary fields, shifts which have in turn surfaced new questions for scholars to confront.
While often treated as distinct, both politics and journalism share in their histories a need for a public that is not naturally assembled and needs instead to be ‘constructed’. In earlier times the role of mediating politics to publics often fell to news media, which were also dependent on constructing a ‘public’ for their own viability. It is hardly notable to say this has changed in a digital age, and in the way social media have allowed politicians and political movements to speak to their own publics bypassing news voices is a clear example of this. We show how both established politics and emerging political movements now activate and intensify certain publics through their media messages, and how this differs in the UK, Spain and the Netherlands. When considering journalism and social media, emphasis on their prominence can mask more complex shifts they ushered in, including cross-national differences, where they have pushed journalism towards social media to communicate news, and where political actors now use these spaces for their own communicative ends. Building upon this research, this article revisits conceptualizations of the ways political actors construct publics and argues that we see processes of disintermediation taking place in political actors’ social networks on Twitter.
In the wake of the increasing use of deliberative citizen assemblies in the public sphere, this article studies how traditional policy actors receive a mini-public as ‘newcomer’ in political decision-making, despite its reliance on a fundamentally different vision of policy-making and that it substantially alters existing power distributions. Survey data collected before and after a typical mini-public case, the Citizen Climate Parliament, shows that most politicians and stakeholders welcome this ‘newcomer’ as long as it remains consultative. A typological discourse analysis of 28 semi-structured interviews with these politicians and stakeholders suggests that this attitude comes with four different views of mini-publics’ place in political decision-making: an elitist-, expert-, (re)connection- and reinvention view. Given that an important correlate of these views was the extent to which actors agreed with the recommendations of the mini-public, it shows that their views were driven both by actors’ interests in the outcome on a micro-level and by their general ideas about political decision-making on a macro-level. The findings illustrate that mini-publics may encounter opposition from both political actors and stakeholders once they aim to take a place in political decision-making that goes beyond occasional and consultative uses. At the same time, these results show that the use of mini-publics does not leave traditional representative institutions unaffected as it prompts them to think about the place that citizen deliberation should take in the political system.
We elicit citizens' preferences over hypothetical candidates by applying conjoint survey experiments within a probability-based online panel of the Norwegian electorate. Our experimental treatments differ in whether citizens receive information about candidates' social characteristics only, candidates' issue positions only, or both. From this, we identify whether citizens are able to infer substantive policy positions from the descriptive characteristics of potential representatives and use that information to make candidate choices that achieve substantive representation. We find that candidate choice is driven more by knowledge about candidates' issue positions than by knowledge about their social characteristics and that citizens value substantive representation more robustly than descriptive representation. Importantly, while the direct experimental test of whether voters use the information they obtain from descriptive markers to choose a candidate that gives them substantive representation is inconclusive, we find that voters form beliefs about candidates' issue positions based solely on candidates’ social characteristics.
Ireland has become something of a trail-blazer in the use of deliberative methods in the process of constitutional review. It is the first case in which the process has been employed a second time: the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2016–18) followed upon the Convention on the Constitution (2012–14). The creation of two mini-publics in quick succession and their significant role in supporting key referendums for constitutional change that followed (marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018) suggests a degree of ‘systemization’ of deliberation in the Irish process of constitutional review. This report sets out the basic details of the most recent Citizens’ Assembly – how it was set up, its agenda, its manner of operation, and its outcomes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the recent Irish experience of constitutional mini-publics and the degree to which they speak to a process of systematizing deliberation in the Irish policy process.
Det er en god stund igjen til kommunestyre-og fylkestingsvalget den 9. september 2019, men i mange partier er forberedelsene godt i gang. Nominasjonskomiteer er oppnevnt og flere av komiteene har spurt representantene i kommunestyrer og fylkesting om de stiller til gjenvalg. Noen representanter-både unge og erfarne-har takket nei til gjenvalg, mens andre har svart at de gjerne vil fortsette en periode til. Atter andre er i tvil og har bedt om forlenget betenkningstid. I neste omgang skal nominasjonskomiteene finne fram til nye kandidater før de setter opp forslag til valglister. Til slutt er det lokalpartienes medlemmer og utsendinger til fylkespartienes nominasjonsmøter som skal bestemme hvilke kandidater partiene skal satse på, og hvor på listene de ulike kandidatene skal plasseres. I denne prosessen skal man finne kandidater som ikke bare er dyktige. Begge kjønn og ulike alders-og yrkesgrupper bør bli godt representert, og det bør vaere kandidater fra ulike deler av kommunen. I de nye sammenslåtte kommunene er nok det siste ekstra viktig denne gangen. Personer som har et stort kontaktnett i frivillige organisasjoner og idrettslag, kan det også vaere godt å ha med på listene. Det er en stor kabal partiene skal legge, men hvor viktige er nå egentlig disse kandidatene? Hva er det som betyr mest når valget av parti skal avgjøres?
Municipal amalgamation reforms have been advocated as ways to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance capacity in local government service provision. Research on the consequences of amalgamations has reached maturity in terms of theories, research designs and methods, justifying a systematic survey of results. This article provides a synthesis of the empirical literature published over the last 20 years, organizing the effects of amalgamations into three categories: economic efficiency and cost savings, managerial implications, and democratic outcomes. Despite the significant variation across countries and reforms, some regularities emerge: cost savings being primarily limited to general administration expenditures (wages, office supplies, and so on), few changes in the quality of local services, and the diminished quality of local democracy. Several studies point to amalgamation reforms experiencing a trade-off between efficiency and democracy.
In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position. In reflecting what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues – that is, the media may set the "agenda" of the campaign.
Despite some prominent critics, deliberative democrats tend to be optimistic about the potential of deliberative mini-publics. However, the problem with current practices is that mini-publics are typically used by officials on an ad hoc basis and that their policy impacts remain vague. Mini-publics seem especially hard to integrate into representative decision making. There are a number of reasons for this, especially prevailing ideas of representation and accountability as well as the contestatory character of representative politics. This article argues that deliberative mini-publics should be regarded as one possible way of improving the epistemic quality of representative decision making and explores different institutional designs through which deliberative mini-publics could be better integrated into representative institutions. The article considers arrangements which institutionalise the use of mini-publics; involve representatives in deliberations; motivate public interactions between mini-publics and representatives; and provide opportunities to ex post scrutiny or suspensive veto powers for mini-publics. The article analyses prospects and problems of these measures, and considers their applicability in different contexts of representative politics.
The Citizens’ Assembly pilots on local democracy and devolution were the first of their kind in the United Kingdom. Organised by Democracy Matters — an alliance of university researchers and civil society organisations led by Professor Matthew Flinders — and funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, the Assemblies took place in Southampton and Sheffield towards the end of 2015.
Gender has always helped shape personal and family relationships, as well as governance processes, market structures, and religious practice. Political science, which is one of many academic disciplines in the world, is gendered and shaped by the social norms on sex and sexuality. This book aims to explain the gendered nature of political science and why it is important. It introduces the gender and politics scholarship, which is closely related to the practice of politics, particularly feminism, and discusses several key concepts, including some of the methods and methodologies that are currently available in the field. The book then shifts to a study of body politics, which involves the political importance of sexuality, reproduction, violence, and the body. From there, the focus turns to political economy, and the various forms and contexts of gendered organizing by men and women. The latter half of the book explores the relationship of gender to more traditional political institutions and the gendered nature of policy making, governance, and the state. Finally, the book addresses the arguments and puzzles surrounding equality, citizenship, multiculturalism, identity, security, and nations.
Föreliggande artikel analyserar den rumsliga variationen i kvinnorepresentationen på kommunal nivå i Norge under perioden 1947–2007. Artikeln utgår från att den strukturella kontexten i kommunerna (socioekonomisk struktur och religiositet) påverkar dels synen på kön vilket styr efterfrågan på kvinnliga politiker, dels kvinnors politiska engagemang vilket styr tillgången på kvinnliga kandidater. I analysen testas den strukturella kontextens effekt på kvinnorepresentationen mot de politiska institutionernas effekt. Statistisk analys visar att den strukturella kontexten har en relativt stark förklaringskraft till 1980-talet. En mer moderniserad kontext har således över tid varit gynnsam för kvinnorepresentationen, även om också politiska institutioner såsom partiideologi har en viss förklaringskraft. I början av 2000-talet har dock både den strukturella kontexten och de politiska institutionerna en begränsad effekt på kvinnorepresentationen. En poolad tidsserieanalys styrker resultatet att den strukturella kontexten är viktig för att förklara varför kvinnorepresentationen varierar mellan de norska kommunerna under efterkrigstiden.
There is widespread concern that the growth of the Internet is exacerbating inequalities between the information rich and poor. Digital Divide examines access and use of the Internet in 179 nations world-wide. A global divide is evident between industrialized and developing societies. A social divide is apparent between rich and poor within each nation. Within the online community, evidence for a democratic divide is emerging between those who do and do not use Internet resources to engage and participate in public life. Part I outlines the theoretical debate between cyber-optimists who see the Internet as the great leveler. Part II examines the virtual political system and the way that representative institutions have responded to new opportunities on the Internet. Part III analyzes how the public has responded to these opportunities in Europe and the United States and develops the civic engagement model to explain patterns of participation via the Internet.
Many European countries are changing political boundaries at the local government level. Reforms consolidating local jurisdictions have recently been implemented in a number of countries, and more mergers/amalgamations are ongoing. We examine whether citizens' attachment to their local political unit is affected when municipal maps are redrawn. Our study is based on a dataset from Danish local governments with survey data from before and after a major reform of municipal mergers, and the traditional endogeneity problems are thereby circumvented. Drawing on Scannell and Gifford's tripartite model of person, place and process, we find that person characteristics affect local territorial attachment as well as the intersection between places of residence and the processes leading to the new jurisdiction. It is not an increase in the absolute size of the municipality (i.e., place) or the amalgamation as such (i.e., process) that affects the level of attachment, but rather the relative size of the former municipality compared to the new municipality and thereby the specifics of the redrawing of boundaries. When smaller municipalities are amalgamated with larger municipalities, the local territorial attachment decreases among citizens living in the smaller municipalities but not among citizens living in the larger municipalities.
Cambridge Core - American Studies - Multilevel Democracy - by Jefferey M. Sellers
Since the terrorist attacks in Norway in July 2011, there has been a general rise in political participation among young Norwegians. This was evident just a few weeks after the attack, when turnout among first-time voters (the age group 18–21) went up by 11 percentage points in the local elections (to 46%). In those September 2011 elections, the voting age was lowered from 18 to 16 in a selected group of 20 municipalities. Turnout was also quite high among 16- and 17-year olds (58%). This level of participation has remained stable among young voters in later elections. Relying on quantitative data on turnout by age, membership in political youth parties and qualitative interviews with first-time voters, the chapter discusses how three different mechanisms—life cycle, generational and period effects—may explain this mobilization. The authors find strong life-cycle effects which account for stable differences between age groups.
Public sector reforms often take place in heterogeneous reform environments. Key political, administrative and societal actors often advocate different definitions of problems and solutions. A major leadership challenge is to choose a reform strategy that ensures the requisite level of support, even when the initial conflict structure is highly complex. Using cleavage theory, we develop assumptions about how the reform leader’s assessment of the initial conflict affects the leader’s choice between three distinct reform strategies. These assumptions are applied to a case study of a complex and contested public sector reform, Norway’s national local government reform. We show how the government’s choice of a reform strategy can be understood in light of cleavage theory and discuss the implications of these findings for further theory development.
Consultative referendums may provide crucial information about public opinion but have received little attention in the literature compared with their binding counterparts. In this article, we analyse 221 Norwegian local consultative referendums on municipal amalgamation using the Venice Commission’s code on referendums. Much of the referendum literature suggests that consultative referendums are in fact binding. The municipal councils followed the outcomes of the referendums in most cases, but 14% chose to go against it. While the overall impression is that the outcomes of consultative referendums are seen as binding, the data indicate that ballot design may affect voters’ choice as well as council decisions. Although many democratic standards were met, the wording of questions and alternatives on the ballot paper were problematic in a number of cases – reducing the democratic value of the citizens’ advice.
Being on the winning or the losing side in elections has important consequences for voters’ perceptions of democracy. This article contributes to the existing literature by showing that being on the losing side has persistent effects over a surprisingly long time. Based on a dataset that measures voters’ satisfaction with democracy three years after elections were held, it first shows that losers are significantly more dissatisfied with democracy than winners on both input and output side measures of perceptions of democracy. Furthermore, the article shows that turning from winning to losing has significant negative effects on voters’ satisfaction, and that this finding is robust across a number of different specifications. These results are remarkable given that the data used is from Denmark – a country that constitutes a least‐likely case for finding effects of being on the winning or the losing side.
The study utilizes evidence from the Danish 2007 municipal reform to inquire into the relationship between municipal amalgamations and voter turnout, that is, the classical discussion on size and democracy. The Danish municipal reform is particularly suited for investigating the relationship as a large number of units were merged due to reasons thought to be unrelated with the democratic performance while others were left unchanged. This allows us to investigate the relationship in a quasi-experimental setup. The study finds some evidence of a short-term positive effect on turnout and only limited evidence of a medium- to long-term negative effect when comparing amalgamated and non-amalgamated municipalities. However, stronger indications of negative effects on turnout are found when considering the intensity of the amalgamations.
Democracy requires a connection to the “will of the people.” What does that mean in a world of “fake news,” relentless advocacy, dialogue mostly among the like-minded, and massive spending to manipulate public opinion? What kind of opinion can the public have under such conditions? What would democracy be like if the people were really thinking in depth about the policies they must live with? This book argues that “deliberative democracy” is not utopian. It is a practical solution to many of democracy’s ills. It can supplement existing institutions with practical reforms. It can apply at all levels of government and for many different kinds of policy choices. This book speaks to a recurring dilemma: listen to the people and get the angry voices of populism or rely on widely distrusted elites and get policies that seem out of touch with the public’s concerns. Instead, there are methods for getting a representative and thoughtful public voice that is really worth listening to. Democracy is under siege in most countries. Democratic institutions have low approval and face a resurgent threat from authoritarian regimes. Deliberative democracy can provide an antidote. It can reinvigorate our democratic politics. This book draws on the author’s research with many collaborators on “Deliberative Polling”-a process he has conducted in twenty-seven countries on six continents. It contributes both to political theory and to the empirical study of public opinion and participation, and should interest anyone concerned about the future of democracy and how it can be revitalized. © James S. Fishkin 2018 and Part III, Section 2: James S. Fishkin, Thad Kousser, Robert C. Luskin, and Alice Siu and Part III, Section 4: James S. Fishkin, Roy William Mayega, Lynn Atuyambe, Nathan Tumuhamye, Julius Ssentongo, Alice Siu, and William Bazeyo and Part III, Section 5: James S. Fishkin, Robert C. Luskin, and Alice Siu.
In this paper, we evaluate the effect of municipal amalgamations on election turnout in local elections. Following recent studies, we argue that municipal mergers can lead to less information about the election being made available to citizens and less influence for individual voters. That is, while citizens in the local context usually rely on their own direct contacts in local offices and among political candidates, the subsequent increase in population size due to a merger reduces opportunities for establishing such contacts and for having decisive influence on political decisions. Consequently, voters are less informed and less engaged, resulting in lower levels of electoral turnout in local elections. We test our argument empirically by using aggregate level data from the municipal level from the 2010 and 2015 local elections in Styria, Austria, which followed the amalgamation of some, but not all, municipalities in January 2015. The empirical results support our argument.
Party identification may shape interpretations of election integrity and vote counting. We use a nationally representative survey experiment to not only test this expectation but, more importantly, to assess the broader political conditions that accentuate or attenuate partisanship’s influence. Consistent with hypotheses, partisans’ views of election results are significantly moderated by whether their party won or lost. However, we also find that messages from a nonpartisan advisory commission play an important role in shaping beliefs. In addition, we ask if Independents have a perceptual screen—not unlike a partisan bias—of their own. The findings have implications for political communication, electoral legitimacy, and citizen competence.
Governments have turned to public deliberation as a way to engage citizens in governance with the goal of rebuilding faith in government institutions and authority as well as to provide quality inputs into governance. This article offers a systematic analysis of the literature on the effects of deliberative events on participants’ political efficacy and trust. The systematic review contextualizes the results from a 6-day deliberative event. This case study is distinctive in highlighting the long-term impacts on participants’ political trust and efficacy as key outcomes of the deliberative process unfold, that is, City Council receives then responds to the participants’ recommendations report. Using four-wave panel data spanning 2.5 years and three public opinion polls (control groups), the study demonstrates that participants in deliberative events are more efficacious and trusting prior to and after the deliberative event. Despite the case study’s evidence and the systematic review of existing literature, questions remain about whether enhanced opportunities for citizen engagement in governance can ameliorate low levels of political trust and efficacy observed in Western democracies.
Local independent lists are a general phenomenon on the local level in many European countries – in established Western countries as well as in new democracies in Middle and Eastern Europe. The research is linked to the much-discussed phenomenon of the growing disenchantment with political parties and the sceptical evaluation of political parties on the local level. Typically, these lists understand themselves as non-parties or anti-parties and therefore assume a contra position in the local party system. The edited book aims first at developing a theoretical and conceptual framework for these non-partisan lists. Second, the contributions describe and analyse for the first time comparatively presence, success, organisational structure, behaviour and performance of these local actors in twelve West and East European countries.
In the last decades, municipal mergers have been one major element of local government reforms in Switzerland and beyond. In this article, we describe and analyze the political effects of this development. We use a quasi-experimental setting to test the impact of municipal mergers on electoral participation. We find that in merged municipalities, the decrease in turnout is significantly stronger than in non-merged municipalities. Further, the effect is more pronounced in relatively small localities. There is a temporal dimension to this effect—that is, turnout drops mainly in the first election after the first merger, but not so much after the second or third merger. Hence, the study provides a skeptical yet differentiated perspective on the democratic consequences of municipal mergers and points to further research avenues to develop a more comprehensive understanding of local government consolidation.
What does it mean to "trust?" What makes us feel secure enough to place our confidence-even at times our welfare-in the hands of other people? Is it possible to "trust" an institution? What exactly do people mean when they claim to "distrust" their governments? As difficult as it may be to define, trust is essential to the formation and maintenance of a civil society. In Trust and Trustworthiness political scientist Russell Hardin addresses the standard theories of trust and articulates his own new and compelling idea: that much of what we call trust can be best described as "encapsulated interest." Research into the roles of trust in our society has offered a broad range of often conflicting theories. Some theorists maintain that trust is a social virtue that cannot be reduced to strategic self-interest; others claim that trusting another person is ultimately a rational calculation based on information about that person and his or her incentives and motivations. Hardin argues that we place our trust in persons whom we believe to have strong reasons to act in our best interests. He claims that we are correct when we assume that the main incentive of those whom we trust is to maintain a relationship with us-whether it be for reasons of economic benefit or for love and friendship. Hardin articulates his theory using examples from a broad array of personal and social relationships, paying particular attention to explanations of the development of trusting relationships. He also examines trustworthiness and seeks to understand why people may behave in ways that violate their own self-interest in order to honor commitments they have made to others. The book also draws important distinctions between vernacular uses of "trust" and "trustworthiness," contrasting, for example, the type of trust (or distrust) we place in individuals with the trust we place in institutions Trust and Trustworthiness represents the culmination of important new research into the roles of trust in our society; it offers a challenging new voice in the current discourse about the origins of cooperative behavior and its consequences for social and civic life.