The devil is in the detail: What do citizens mean when they support stealth or participatory democracy?
| Author | José Luis Fernández-Martínez,Joan Font Fábregas |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717741799 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717741799
Politics
2018, Vol. 38(4) 458 –479
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0263395717741799
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The devil is in the detail:
What do citizens mean
when they support stealth or
participatory democracy?
José Luis Fernández-Martínez
Universidad de Granada, Spain; Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados – Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas (IESA – CSIC), Spain
Joan Font Fábregas
Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IESA – CSIC),
Spain
Abstract
Recent research on citizen process preferences has highlighted three different models of decision
making: representation, participation and stealth democracy. However, the meanings of the two
alternatives to the prevailing representative model have not been fully explored. What do citizens
have in mind when distinguishing between participatory and stealth models of democracy? Using
survey data from several Western European countries, the article explores one distinction within
preferences for each of the models: the preference for more referendum-based versus dynamic
responsiveness-based solutions on the participatory side and for expert-based versus business-
based solutions on the stealth side. The article ends by exploring the impact of left-right ideology
and education upon these preferences. The explanatory power of the variables is greater for
understanding the internal distinction of the stealth model than the participatory one.
Keywords
education, ideology, participatory democracy, process preferences, stealth democracy
Received: 19th January 2017; Revised version received: 22nd August 2017; Accepted: 1st September 2017
Which type of political decision making processes do citizens prefer? Most recent
research has pointed towards the existence of three main perceived models: representa-
tion, participation and stealth democracy. The first of these models mostly reflects the
institutional arrangements prevalent in liberal democracies. As such, we have considera-
bly richer information about citizen preferences regarding its processes and features as
Corresponding author:
José Luis Fernández-Martínez, Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados – Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Científicas (IESA – CSIC), Campo Santo de los Mártires, 7 14004, Córdoba, Spain.
Email: jlfernandez@iesa.csic.es
741799POL0010.1177/0263395717741799PoliticsFernández-Martínez and Font Fábregas
research-article2018
Article
Fernández-Martínez and Font Fábregas 459
well as the main values and institutions that citizens have in mind when they evaluate it.1
On the other hand, while decision making processes associated with participatory and
stealth democracy have gained ground in recent decades they continue to be less familiar
to most citizens. As a result, asking ‘what do citizens specifically mean when they show
support for these processes?’ is an important question, which has started to emerge in the
empirical literature (Allen and Birch, 2015; Webb, 2013).
The goal of this article is twofold. First, it aims to discuss the existing nuances in pro-
cess preferences for participatory and stealth democracy. In both cases, we show that a
part of the citizens that support these different general models of democracy are only
enthusiastic about some specific variations within them. Second, the article aims to shed
some light on the question of why this happens. With this goal in mind we focus mainly
on the role that the variables of left-right ideology and education (shown as crucial by
previous research) play in shaping these different process preferences.
To address the diversity on the participatory side, the analysis relies on the 2012
European Social Survey (ESS), which included a battery of questions on understandings
and evaluations of democracy. In order to analyse the distinctions within the stealth
model, we are the first to make use of the evidence from four Western European countries
(Finland, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom) with available national data on
this issue.
Our cross-national analysis shows that supporters of these two models are internally
diverse. Both participatory and stealth models include exclusive groups of supporters of
different variants within each one. We analyse the role played by our two central explana-
tory variables to understand these different preferences. Findings show that the explana-
tory power of these variables is greater for understanding the internal distinction in the
stealth model than it is for the participatory one.
The article proceeds as follows. First, we develop our theoretical arguments. Second,
we present the data showing that different groups of people support, and that prefer-
ences also vary internally within, each model. Third, once these groups have been
described, we begin to explain their existence by developing hypotheses on why ideol-
ogy and education matter. We then proceed to explain our findings on the participatory
and stealth models. The concluding section discusses the most important findings and
their implications.
Nuances in political processes preferences I: Theory
There is a broad agreement – in the existing research on how citizens want political deci-
sions to be made – around the idea that most of the public distinguishes between three
main models: representation, participation, and stealth democracy. The main distinction
between the first two lies on how often the voice of citizens should be heard. The repre-
sentative model provides less continuous opportunities for citizens to influence policy
making than the participatory model2 which provides more. On the other hand, Hibbing
and Theiss-Morse (2002: 194) argue that what citizens really want is for ‘decisions to be
made efficiently, objectively and without commotion and disagreement’. This involves a
decision-making process where technical criteria related to efficiency and objectivity are
more important than value preferences – the model they call ‘Stealth Democracy’. The
specific institutional characteristics of each of these models is not entirely clear, but the
stealth model is based on a business-like style of decision making as well as the greater
use of experts, with less time afforded to political debate.
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