1. Beyond parliamentarism: How do citizens want to decide on divisive policies?
- Author
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Vittori, Davide, Rojon, Sebastien, and Pilet, Jean-Benoit
- Subjects
DIRECT democracy ,CITIZENS ,ITALIANS ,TECHNOCRACY ,SATISFACTION ,CITIZEN satisfaction - Abstract
Europeans, on average, are distrustful toward representative institutions. In recent decades, to restore confidence in political institutions, several countries have implemented alternative decision-making processes. The literature has analyzed preferences for these alternatives, such as direct democracy or technocracy, and their drivers. However, these analyses often treated these preferences in isolation, without considering that citizens might have more complex preferences involving multiple actors in the decision-making process. We test whether this complexity exists in a novel survey experiment where citizens are exposed to two different vignettes about divisive policies in Italy. Our results indicate that, more than anything else, Italian citizens prefer having their fellow citizens decide alone in referendums. However, they also favor consulting experts before Parliament's decision. Furthermore, we demonstrate that while instrumentality is still crucial in evaluating the fairness of the processes, certain decision-making processes make losers of the policy outcome as satisfied as specific groups winners. These findings hold significant implications for citizens' policy evaluations, highlighting that the decision-making process might influence their overall satisfaction with policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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