Political Leaders and Public Engagement: The Hidden World of Informal Elite–Citizen Interaction
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321718791370 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321718791370
Political Studies
2019, Vol. 67(3) 597 –617
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321718791370
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Political Leaders and Public
Engagement: The Hidden
World of Informal
Elite–Citizen Interaction
Carolyn M Hendriks1 and
Jennifer Lees-Marshment2
Abstract
To date, practical and scholarly work on participatory and deliberative governance has focused
on supply-side issues such as how to engage citizens in public policy. Yet little is known about the
demand for public engagement, particularly from those authorised to make collective decisions.
This article empirically examines how political leaders view and value public input. It draws on
51 in-depth interviews with senior national ministers from the United Kingdom, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada and the United States. The interviews reveal that leaders value public input
because it informs their decisions, connects them to everyday people and ‘tests’ advice from
other sources. Their support for participatory governing is, however, qualified; they find formal
consultation processes too staged and antagonistic to produce constructive interactions. Instead
leaders prefer informal, spontaneous conversations with individual citizens. This hidden world
of informal elite–citizen interaction has implications for the design and democratic aspirations of
public engagement.
Keywords
political leaders, elected officials, politicians, elites, public engagement, citizen engagement,
deliberative democracy, public deliberation, participatory governance
Accepted: 5 July 2018
Introduction
Worldwide, there is growing interest in providing opportunities for public engagement in
modern politics. Citizens and affected groups are increasingly being invited to ‘have their
say’ and ‘engage’ in governance matters to inform policy design and delivery, and to build
1Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
2School of Social Sciences, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Corresponding author:
Carolyn M Hendriks, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT,
Australia.
Email: carolyn.hendriks@anu.edu.au
791370PCX0010.1177/0032321718791370Political StudiesHendriks and Lees-Marshment
research-article2018
Article
598 Political Studies 67(3)
public legitimacy for reforms, for example, by participating in community meetings,
deliberative forums and online consultations (Fung and Wright, 2003; Nabatchi et al.,
2012).1 Alongside developments in practice, there is growing scholarly interest in partici-
patory and deliberative forms of governing, particularly on procedures aimed at engaging
everyday citizens (Gastil and Levine, 2005; Geissel and Newton, 2012; Grönlund et al.,
2014; Smith, 2009). While significant research has been conducted on the supply side of
participatory governance, for example how to bring citizens into governance, there is
limited understanding about the demand for public engagement, particularly by those
authorised to make collective decisions.
Remarkably little is known empirically about how political leaders view and value
public engagement. Both supporters and sceptics of participatory and deliberative gov-
erning make assumptions about why leaders might (or might not) value public input.
Advocates assume that public engagement produces policy inputs that are valuable to
decision-makers (e.g. Fishkin, 2009; Fung, 2006), despite research showing many partici-
patory forums have limited direct influence on political decisions (e.g. Goodin and
Dryzek, 2006; Hajer, 2009; Johnson, 2015; Michels, 2011).2 Contrasting assumptions are
made by sceptics of public engagement who contend that politicians are not interested in
interacting directly with citizens, unless it helps generate false legitimacy or wins votes
(e.g. Coleman, 2005; Lee et al., 2015). Others make assumptions on more pragmatic
grounds by suggesting that there is little or no space for public engagement in contempo-
rary governance because political leaders operate in ‘elite cocoons’ surrounded by tight
networks of policy advisors and experts (Rhodes, 2011; Torfing and Ansell, 2017).
This article injects empirical insights into this discussion by examining how political
leaders themselves view and value public engagement in their decision-making work. To
this end, we adopt an interpretive approach where the research focus is on understanding
how people make sense of their particular context or situation (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow,
2012: 46).3 The specific goal of our study was to examine how public engagement is
understood and interpreted by leaders in national governing roles. We conducted semi-
structured interviews with 51 senior ministers across five countries including the United
Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. In each interview,
political leaders were asked if and how they value public input when governing, how they
envisage an ‘ideal’ participatory process, what challenges public engagement poses to
them in practice and do how they work around these challenges.4
This is ground-breaking empirical research on a number of fronts. First, this is the first
comprehensive cross-national qualitative study of the views of senior political leaders on
public engagement. Our data are not limited to a specific case study or country, but draw
on the perspectives and experiences of over 50 political leaders across five countries.
Second, we offer rare insights into the participatory preferences of those governing at the
national level, who can be notoriously difficult to access (Richards, 1996). Third, our
study offers original and important findings on the kinds of public input political leaders
prefer when making decisions. We look beyond electoral and representative aspects of the
relationship between politicians and citizens (e.g. Crewe, 2015; Fenno, 1978) and explore
how those tasked with executive government view public engagement and what forms
they find most valuable.
We begin by surveying existing assertions in the relevant literature about why political
leaders might (or might not) value public engagement. Next, we present the findings of
our empirical research into what public input means for contemporary political leaders in
five different nations, and the forms they find most useful. We then discuss core themes
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