Don’t Good Democracies Need “Good” Citizens? Citizen Dispositions and the Study of Democratic Quality - Pols EBP 2

The title of this article by Quinton Mayne and Brigitte Geißel had me expecting something entirely different to what I read. I thought it implied ‘good’ citizens would hold a certain, morally related, ideology. I must admit I was a little disappointed to find a less objectionable exploration of what is still a great topic.The article explores an often disregarded, or perhaps not often thought of, aspect of democracy - the importance of citizen power and behaviour, not only the importance of institutions. The authors explore the idea of three citizen related components - democratic commitments, political capacity, and political participation and how these are directly linked to democratic quality. It is important when reading this article to note that it is in the context of politics throughout the world, meaning it considers many forms of democracy which are weaker than that in New Zealand.

The famous british philosopher, John Stuart Mill, is drawn on in their discussion of citizen commitment, showing that this is not by any means a new idea in relation to democracy. Democratic commitment is described as the political beliefs which someone believes in. These commitments exist in two different ways, one in which an individual prefers democracy over non-democracy, and more specifically which ideologies within politics an individual supports. It is self explanatory that in order for a strong democracy to exist, citizens must support the general idea of democracy over non-democracy. Who the leaders are, and how they are decided, are two points which are integral to democratic strength leads on to discussion of three types of democracy; minimal elitist which is a democracy in which citizens commit to electing parties and politicians, but requiring few checks and balances once elected; liberal pluralist’s, which similarly supports elected representatives but also supports the idea of these representatives having checks and balances on their power; and participatory democracy in which citizens contribute to political happenings between elections, rather than electing politicians and leaving them to rule. Some examples the article alludes to, in order to explain citizen contribution in participatory democracy is jury service, referendums and lobby groups affecting policy decisions. The participatory model also relies on politicians actively seeking the opinions of citizens.

The article goes on to discuss what they refer to as ‘political capacity’ which basically means how able a citizen is to vote in their best interests. This is, again, broken down into three types labelled as the capacity to know, the capacity to choose, and capacity to influence. These are said to be correlated with the three levels of commitment described in the paragraph above. The capacity to know is required for minimal elitist democracy and means that citizens are able to know what political ideologies they believe in, which enables them to select one of the political parties proposed to them at election time. Liberal pluralist requires the further capacity to weigh up benefits and consequences, and think about the effects on other citizens in order to reach a voting decision. On top of these, good citizens in participatory democracy must be able to continue to be somewhat politically engaged in order to support lobby groups, NGO’s etc in defending their interests.

There are some issues with the way that this discussion is outlined, not the least of which is that under this system, educated (and therefore likely privileged in other ways - particularly socioeconomically) citizens are favourable and considered to be able to make better political decisions. This also holds the implication that in order to have a ‘good’ democracy, you must be a ‘good’ citizen which requires things that unengaged (often as the result of being a part of a suppressed minority) citizens do not hold. This is touched on later, but not clarified or posed as a wider issue that detracts from the discussion made.

Throughout the article the important link between institutions and people is reiterated. Having a citizenry which supports the democracy type used is described as an essential part of a good democracy. The article draws on data from several countries which shows citizen support for direct democracy compared to the type of democracy which operates in said country. From this data, the relative strength of democracies can be established. Data on the correlation between support of referendums and the proportion of citizens who say they are interested in politics. From this data, only Germany, Denmark and Switzerland had over 60% support for referendums and interest in politics. Though it isn’t discussed, these countries have civics education which is likely to be a reason behind this.

This article does a good job of succinctly summing up a topic which is quite unexplored in academia. Given the blatant importance of citizens in democracy, given that political figures should be representing them, it would be great to see further exploration of the role of citizens in democracy.