Love at First Sight? Populism and Direct Democracy

Love at First Sight? Populism and Direct Democracy Steffen Mohrenberg*, Robert A. Huber●, and Tina Freyburg°, a *DemoSCOPE | ● ETH Zurich | °University of St.Gallen

Populist parties frequently call for direct involvement of the people in policy decision-making. Yet, they also claim to be the sole legitimate representative of the ‘authentic’ people, which should supersede any voting. Does this strategy resonate with citizens that share a populist ideology? We argue that this alleged contradiction is due to a conflation of populism and stealth democracy. While both reject elite rule, populists support direct democracy as a means to implement the volonté générale, whereas stealth democrats view it as holding politicians accountable for ineffective policy solutions. Turning to the demand-side of populism, our analysis of survey data in four European democracies reveals that, controlling for stealth democratic orientations, individuals with stronger populist attitudes support direct democracy more. This effect is observed using a measure combining the key dimensions of populism, namely anti-elitism and people-centrism, and another measure separating the feature shared with stealth democracy—anti-elitism—from the one unique to populism, people-centrism. Our finding supports that populistleaning citizens do indeed favour direct democracy more than other citizens. Albeit no call for active citizenship and participatory democracy, populist strategic call for (more) direct democracy may work in attracting voters with populist attitudes.

Keywords: populism, populist attitudes, people-centrism, anti-elitism, direct democracy

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Introduction The 2017 programme of the German party ‘Alternative for Germany’ (AfD) opens with the promise to introduce public referenda based on the Swiss model. The Austrian candidate for presidency of the Freedom Party (FPÖ), Norbert Hofer promoted more Swiss-style direct democracy. And, in Switzerland, the Swiss people’s party (SVP) portrays itself as “the only party that supports direct democracy unconditionally”. 1 These are just a few of the many examples of populist parties claiming to favour direct democracy, that is, political decisionmaking by referenda, popular initiative, and plebiscites (Canovan 1999, 2). At the same time, representatives of populist parties often “adopt a caretaker attitude [… and act] as if they have obtained a popular imperative mandate” (Müller 2014, 487). They portray themselves as strong leaders who solve problems, deliver what the people want, and get on with the task of governing (Rooduijn 2014). Hence, representatives of populist parties commonly advocate direct democracy but also “require […] voters to delegate authority to leaders who equate the general interest with a putative will of the people” (Caramani 2017, 54). Yet, what do citizens with populist attitudes actually prefer: Politics based on democracy or based on guardianship (cf. Dahl 1998, 69)? In this paper, we investigate whether the claim by populist parties for (more) direct democracy resonates with their potential voters, namely citizens with populist attitudes. Existing studies point to a similar tension when it comes to the preferences of individuals with populist attitudes. On the one hand, scholars note that populist support for direct democracy, especially of the popular initiative, reflects confidence in the virtuous character of ordinary people, in contrast to politicians, usually associated with more participatory democracy (Donovan and Karp 2006; Taggart 2004). On the other hand, citizens with populist attitudes are

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Wahlprogramm der Alternative für Deutschland für die Wahl zum Deutschen Bundestag am 24. September 2017, available at https://tinyurl.com/y9eepvs6; Lamparski, Nina (2016) Austria far-right eyes presidency on ‚day of reckoning’, Agence France Press, 4 December 2016; 2015 Party programme‚ ‘SVP – the party for Switzerland’, p. 9, available at https://tinyurl.com/yczwddov.

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portrayed as preferring to play an “essentially passive” role (Müller 2014, 486) and favouring a “responsive government, i.e. a government that implements policies that are in line with their wishes” (Mudde 2004, 558), rather than more participatory forms of democracy. We argue that this contradiction in studies of populism is due to a conflation of populist and “stealth democratic” attitudes (in the latter case, citizens prefer the democratic, i.e. controversial and compromise-ridden element in liberal politics to be ‘barely visible’ on a routine basis) (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002). While both political ideological orientations reject elite rule and would prefer (more) direct democracy (Stoker and Hay 2017; Webb 2013), their reasons for doing so differ fundamentally: stealth democrats judge good outcomes based on their promise to effectively solve the problem at hand; populists concentrate on whether outcomes correspond to the authentic will of the people. We therefore propose that populist attitudes are strongly associated with support for democracy, independent of stealth democratic orientations. This independent effect suggests that citizens with populist attitudes are susceptible to populist parties’ ‘plebiscitary version’ of direct democracy as an instrumental means to support their policy positions. In more detail, as a result of their frustration with the way representative democracy often works, both citizens with stealth democratic and those with populist attitudes are said to reject the liberal understanding of democracy. This state-of-the-art democracy model emphasizes political procedures and predetermines no particular political outcome. Instead, stealth democrats and populists alike are described as sharing an outcome-oriented understanding of democracy that unites them in their support for (more) direct democratic decision-making (Landwehr, Faas, and Harms 2017). Yet, citizens with stealth democratic attitudes appear to appreciate direct democracy primarily as an instrument of control. In normal circumstances, stealth democrats prefer a political system based on guardianship, which, instead of emphasizing direct citizen involvement, stresses efficiency, less debate and compromise, and more widespread use of 3

expert opinions in the political decision-making process. Experts are here seen as being nonelitist and non-self-interested (in contrast to a self-interested political elite) but rather as striving for the (allegedly unambiguous) common good without much unnecessary political conflict and compromise or too much direct input from citizens. Direct democratic procedures then allow them to react to ineffective policy solutions and to keep politicians (or any other decisionmakers, such as independent experts) in check (Bengtsson and Mattila 2009; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002; Mutz 2006; Neblo, Esterling, Kennedy, Altman, et al. 2010). Citizens with populist attitudes, in turn, view direct democracy primarily as a means to ensure participation through direct involvement in deciding upon policy choices, either complementing or substituting decision-making by representative institutions (Barr 2009, 44; Landwehr, Faas, and Harms 2017; Pauwels 2014). Nigel Farage, then leader of the United Kingdom (UK) Independence Party (UKIP), for instance, publicly declared that he views “direct democracy working as a valuable safety net when the political class have got too far out of touch with political opinion.” 2 Citizens that share such populist view are hence seen as assessing policy outcomes in light of the extent to which they correspond to the predetermined common will, making deliberation redundant (Kriesi 2018, 8). In other words, they are expected to be susceptive to populist strategy and to indeed support (more) direct democracy based on the assumption that it will produce the desired, predetermined outcome. We provide evidence for our argument by demonstrating that the association between populist attitudes and support for direct democracy is independent of the degree to which individuals share stealth democratic preferences. Using population-based survey data collected in late 2015 in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK (four Western European democracies experiencing an increase in the popularity of populists (NCCR Democracy 2016)), we show that, controlling for stealth democratic orientations, support for direct democracy increases with

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Wintour, Patrick (2014) Nigel Farage wants to give voters a greater voice by extending referendums, The Guardian, available at https://tinyurl.com/y88zm9yl.

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more pronounced populist attitudes. This effect is observed for a measure combining the key dimensions of populism, namely anti-elitism and people-centrism, and one separating the feature shared with stealth democracy—anti-elitism—from the one unique to populism, peoplecentrism. In what follows, we define key concepts, summarize our theoretical argument, and discuss the relevant literature. We then describe our research design, in particular the largescale national representative surveys, before turning to our findings. Finally, a conclusion puts our findings in perspective. Overall, we see the main contributions of this paper in the advocacy of conceptual clarity by distinguishing populist attitudes from stealth-democratic ones, in the empirical test of such distinction with regard to varying effects on (general and unconditional) support for direct democracy, and, as a result, in the resolution of the seeming ambiguity inherent in descriptions of populist claims: unmediated decision-making by ‘the people’, on the one hand, and strong leadership embodying the will of a rather passive people, on the other. Our findings have implications not only for how we regard the relationship between populism and direct democracy, but also for our understanding of populist strategies and their resonance with populist-leaning citizens. Populists, stealth democrats, and support for direct democracy Populism is commonly understood as a thin political ideology (Freeden 1998, 750; Mudde 2004, 20; but see Freeden 2017, 3). Taking a Manichaean approach to the political world, it “considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus the ‘corrupt elite’, and […] argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (i.e., the general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004, 543). The emerging consensus in studies of populism in Europe draws on this minimal definition and views populism as being predominantly composed of two dimensions: anti-elitism and people-

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centrism (Rooduijn 2014). We consider these two dimensions as key to defining populism as ideological construct from an ideational perspective. The core of this definition comprises: the existence of two homogenous groups, ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, the antagonistic relationship between the two (praising ‘the people’ while maligning ‘the elite’), and the idea of popular sovereignty. The people are therefore seen as a homogenous group united by one common will, whereas ‘people’ can refer to the sovereign, the nation, or a certain social class (Mény and Surel 2000). Populism does not only reject the liberal dimension of democracy (e.g., rule of law, minority rights, checks-andbalances) as curtailing the people’s sovereignty, as well as a pluralist understanding of society hold together by the quality of its social relations rather than an (exclusive) identity; it is also hostile to representative democracy by distrusting any intermediaries, especially political parties, and supports replacing the rule of ‘the corrupt elite’ with the direct rule by ‘the honest people’ (Kriesi 2014, 363). In short, populism as an ideology is based on the populist notion of democracy, according to which the people shall be directly involved in the formulation of a ‘common will’ that is to become directly translated into policies. Others view populism predominantly as a political strategy “through which a personalized leader seeks or exercises government power based on direct, unmediated, uninstitutionalized support from large numbers of mostly unorganized followers” (Weyland 2001, 14). This populist leader presents herself as challenging the established political elite to which she does not belong. She further claims to incarnate the demands and concerns of ‘the people’ and to act as “the spokesperson of the vox populi” (Kriesi 2014, 163 referring to Abts 2011), thereby establishing a direct quasi-personal link between ‘the people’ and policy decision-making. The followers identify with the leader who speaks in their name, as postulated by the slogan of the Austrian right populist leader Heinz Strache in the 2017 elections: ‘HE wants want WE want’ (‘ER will was WIR wollen’). From this perspective, populism views direct democracy merely as the aggregation procedure of the citizens’ more or less 6

homogenous, ready-made opinions. In contrast to ‘bottom-up’ mobilization where civil society actors initiate votes on controversial issues, in the populist ‘top-down’ version, a charismatic leader calls on the people to support his positions. Direct democratic procedures become utilized for the maintenance of a strong leadership that claims to solely represent the people (cf., Urbinati 2014; Kriesi 2018). Populist parties commonly promise to implement more direct democratic procedures to bring politics back to ‘the people’ and to increase responsiveness, that is, produce political decisions that match citizens’ preferences (Caramani 2017; Huber and Ruth 2017; Ruth and Welp 2013). This claim, however, appears primarily to be strategically motivated. First, by promoting direct democratic instruments, populist parties challenge the governing elite in order to gain political power for themselves. Their call for (more) direct democracy asserts that present-day politics is not only unresponsive but also that the governing ‘elite’ has lost touch with the people. As summarized by Kitschelt and McGann (1995, 160), “populism signifies the effort to destroy established institutions of interest intermediation and elite control and to put in their place some kind of ‘direct’ voice of the people, embodied in the leader of the populist party.” In fact, populist parties frequently manage to shift the power balance away from the people and toward the executive, which they control once in power (Albertazzi and Mueller 2013). Second, and related, since populist parties present themselves as embodying the volonté générale, they can publicly declare to give the sovereignty back to the people (Bowler, et al. 2017) but actually show no interest in learning about the people’s ‘true’ preferences. Eventually, this would be a risky approach given that referenda may reveal not one single general will, but a society strongly divided on core populist issues. The 2014 Swiss federal popular initiative ‘against mass immigration,’ or the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK, and

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their narrow majorities illustrate this point.3 That said, the populist promise to strengthen direct democratic instruments is “bias[ed] against public, highly pluralistic and group-organized deliberation, and [has] a tendency to manipulative use of the preferred decision-making instruments” (Barney and Laycock 1999, 320; cf. Müller 2014). Yet, strategic intent is a sine qua non of political conduct. What matters is whether populist proposals to strategically mobilize the people actually resonate with citizens that share a populist ideology, ergo potential voters (cf. Aslanidis 2015, 100). Therefore, and closely connected with our research question: is the promotion of direct democracy as a strategy to increase popularity among potential voters that share a populist ideology well-founded? In other words, does the call for (more) direct democracy resonate with the preferences of those who share populist attitudes? Existing studies document a positive association between support for direct democracy, on the one hand, and dissatisfaction with the political system or voting for populist parties, respectively, on the other. First, people with high levels of populist attitudes are more in favour of populist parties (Akkerman, Mudde, and Zaslove 2014; Van Hauwaert and Van Kessel 2018). They also participate more in politics, especially in non-institutionalized ways that challenge the current political elite, such as demonstrations (Schimpf, Van Hauwaert, and Huber 2018). Second, modern-day calls for (more) direct democratic procedures are commonly motivated by dissatisfaction with delegation or representation (Hawkins and Rovira Kaltwasser forthcoming). Individuals who are dissatisfied with representative “party democracy” (Caramani 2017) have been shown to demand more opportunities to directly engage themselves in the political process, thereby bypassing the ruling elite (Dalton 2004; Pauwels 2014). Yet, stealth democrats have also been argued to support direct democracy as a result of their frustration with representative political institutions and political outcomes, but to favour expert-

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See, e.g., The Irish Times on 23 June 2016, The Conversation on 25 June 2016, Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 20 February 2014, and Tages-Anzeiger on 10 February 2014.

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based, technocratic governance rather than rule by ‘the people’ (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002; Webb 2013). Since stealth democrats and populists resemble each other in their support for direct democracy on grounds of their dissatisfaction with purely representative democracy, previous studies tend to conflate populist and stealth democratic views. Webb (2013, 747), for example, describes “the populist nature of stealth democratic attitudes.” Others, notably Bowler et al. (2017), contend that voters of (radical right-wing) populist parties support direct democracy because of their stealth democratic orientation. In short, existing studies appear to propose, implicitly or explicitly, that stealth democratic orientation is the reason for which certain individuals love populism and support direct democracy. In other words, populists have been portrayed as favouring more direct democracy because they also share stealth democratic attitudes, which include preferences for direct democracy. In contrast to previous studies, we argue that populist and stealth democratic preferences for direct democracy are rooted in distinct motivations—and therefore need to be kept separate. Specifically, we distinguish between populist support for direct democracy based on the premise that the ‘true’ people’s will shall directly inform policy decision-making, and stealth democratic support for direct democracy, which should be understood as an output-focused instrument of control within representative democracy (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002, 1–2). Hence, caring primarily about outcomes, stealth democrats prefer strong reactive mechanisms to hold decision-makers—not only political elites but also experts and technocrats— accountable in case of governance failure.

Explaining support for direct democracy with populist attitudes Our general proposition is that, independently of stealth democratic preferences, individuals that evaluate populist ideology positively should share populist parties’ political demands, inter alia, regarding more direct democracy. Direct democracy is a form of democracy in which the 9

people decide on particular political issues (Coppedge et al. 2011, 253). In this paper, we only consider direct democratic procedures in contemporary democracies that have representative government, but also allow for direct involvement of citizens through direct democratic procedures (Gallagher 2013). Advocates of strong direct democratic elements argue that no constitutional boundaries should limit direct democratic instruments, such as bans on initiatives which have implications in terms of public spending, international treaties, or the protection of minorities (Barber 1988; Fung and Wright 2001; Pateman 2000). When exploring populist attitudes held by the citizens of a given society, we adopt the two-dimensional definition of populism. As Hawkins et al. (forthcoming) argue, so to classify an individual as having populist attitudes, both the dimensions ‘anti-elitism’ and ‘peoplecentrism’ need to be shared, albeit possibly to different degrees (cf. Castanho Silva et al. forthcoming). Only if an individual rejects the political elite as corrupt and self-serving (antielitism) and also perceives the people as homogeneous and morally superior (people-centrism), she can be called populist (cf. Rooduijn, de Lange, and Van Der Brug 2014, 567). We acknowledge this two-dimensionality and therefore use two measures of populist attitudes. The first measure combines the key dimensions of populism, namely anti-elitism and peoplecentrism, in one variable; The second measure separates the feature shared with stealth democracy—anti-elitism—from the one unique to populism, people-centrism, with one variable each. We further improve on earlier studies (Akkerman, Mudde, and Zaslove 2014; Hawkins, Riding, and Mudde 2012) by defining and operationalizing both ideological constructs, populism and stealth democracy in one survey. That is, we expect supporters of populist rule and stealth democracy alike to be more supportive of political decision-making through public referenda because they share anti-elitist sentiments. Individuals who strongly reject the political elite should generally welcome direct democracy as it allows them to be directly involved in deciding on policy issues and, in so doing, bypass or preclude political rule of the democratically elected but rejected elite. Direct 10

democratic institutions grant citizens the right to a formal and paradigmatic say on discrete policies on a continuous basis. Specifically, referendums register citizens’ preferences in a direct and decisive manner. Overall, if systems in which representatives administer day-to-day governance are complemented by direct democratic mechanisms, the citizens remain in a sovereign position to directly participate in the determination of policy outcomes but also to hold the allegedly self-serving and corrupt elite accountable. We further argue that anti-elitist sentiments should not only let people favour the introduction or expansion of direct democratic institutions but also reject any constitutional boundaries. Real-existing direct democracy is often limited in scope and some constitutional aspects of a polity are not changeable through direct-democratic measures. For example, German Basic Law contains both the obligatory, and the constitutive referendum at the federal level, but both types are authorized only in very specific and rare cases, namely the resolution on a new constitution (Art. 146) and alterations of (subnational) state territories (Art. 29). Furthermore, even if an altered German constitution allowed for a broader application of referendums, their scope would still be limited by the so-called eternity clause (Art. 79), which identifies a closed list of immutable constitutional principles (Beyme 2017). Anti-elitist individuals should seek the greatest possible participation in and control over all political decisions and, hence, prefer fewer safeguards for direct democracy. Against this, we formulate our first set of hypotheses regarding the pure effect of populist attitudes on the likelihood to support direct democracy, controlling for stealth democratic orientations:

H1.1. The stronger individuals exhibit populist attitudes, the more they support direct democracy (here: deciding on political issues via referendums), independent of the extent to which they share stealth democratic preferences.

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H1.2. The stronger individuals exhibit populist attitudes, the more they prefer lower constitutional boundaries to direct democratic instruments, independent of the extent to which they share stealth democratic preferences.

Drawing on the two-dimensional nature of populist ideology, we argue that the independent effect of populist attitudes is driven by the link between the second populist dimension, people-centrism, and support for direct democracy. Conceptually, populism shares with stealth democracy anti-elitism but not people-centrism; instead, stealth democracy describes people rather dismissively. Its followers question the readiness and capacity of ordinary citizens to decide on political issues and prefer decisions to be made by non-elected, independent experts rather than politicians elected in a representative democracy, or the people directly (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002, 107–128). In contrast, populists view the people extremely positively, notably as virtuous, wise, and community-oriented, and also as homogeneous in their general concerns and interests. They should support direct democracy for allowing a direct transposition of people’s wishes into actions. Moreover, in perceiving ‘the people’ as a monolithic community that is altogether good, honest, and upright, citizens with populist attitudes see the people as a coherent entity sharing the same values. In other words, they tend to over-estimate the number of fellow-citizens that actually share their beliefs and policy preferences (Koestner, et al. 1995; Ross, Greene, and House 1977). Populist individuals can therefore get the impression that there actually is a consensus among their fellow-‘people’ matching their own policy positions, the volonté générale. Given that individuals want their own preferences to be implemented in politics, those with populist attitudes expect that direct democracy can have such effect. We further argue that individuals perceiving the people as homogeneous and good also reject legal restrictions in the use of direct democratic instruments. Given these individuals’ perception of shared interests and values, constitutional boundaries to any democratic process should appear unnecessary. For some, such limitations may even be perceived as undemocratic 12

because they could hinder the translation of the people’s will into political action. Overall, these effects should be fostered by anti-elitists sentiments but exit independently. Based on these considerations, our second pair of hypotheses on the link between people-centrism and support for direct democracy read as follows:

H2.1 The more individuals perceive the people as ‘good’ and homogeneous, the more they support direct democracy (here: deciding on political issues via referendums), independent of the extent to which they reject the elite. H2.2 The more individuals perceive the people as ‘good’ and homogeneous, the more they prefer lower constitutional boundaries to direct democratic instruments, independent of the extent to which they reject the elite.

Research Design We test our hypotheses using data from four population-based national surveys of the resident population aged between 18 and 75 conducted in France, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK) (09-11.2015, via TNS Infratrest), and Switzerland (09.2015-01.2016, via MIS Trend) (NCCR Democracy 2016). 4 Respondents were recruited on a randomized basis by phone calls, but in Switzerland by letter. 5 4,033 respondents completed the survey including 1,031 from France (209 paper-based), 1,111 from Germany (151 paper-based), 924 from Switzerland (221 paperbased), and 977 from UK (15 paper-based). These sampling procedures, the possibility to complete the survey online and offline, as well as the sample sizes, result in high-quality samples suitable to infer from the respondents to the national adult resident populations of the four countries with a reasonably small statistical margin of error. Still, respondents in the

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Data and documentation, including questionnaire are available from the authors upon request.

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We used dual-frame sampling calling both landlines and mobile phones to ensure a representative sample. While the default option was to complete the interview online, a paper-based version of the survey was provided for respondents with no access to the internet.

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youngest age group (aged 18 to 26 years), those with lower education levels, and individuals living in single person households are underrepresented. We adjust each sample to the national target population by using individual sample weights for each respondent in our final estimations. We selected the four European democracies for mainly three reasons. First, along the lines of a most-dissimilar design, they represent different political systems, notably with respect to their extent of parliamentarianism, their voting systems, and their degree of federalism (Ismayr, Bohnefeld, and Fischer 2009). Our results will thus be more conclusive if we arrive at similar findings for individuals living in different political systems. Second, the countries differ in the extent to which direct democratic measures compliment an in its core representative democratic system. We will exploit this difference by carefully comparing results for Swiss citizens (who can regularly vote on new laws in referendums and initiatives with hardly any constitutional constraint) with results for citizens from the other countries with less direct democratic provisions in their constitutions. Finally, each of these countries harbours at least one clear-cut populist party with nation-wide importance (AFD and Die Linke in Germany, UKIP in the UK, Front National in France, and SVP as well as the Lega del Tecinesi in Switzerland, cf., Van Kessel 2015). Whether the supply side of direct democracy affects citizens’ stances towards direct democracy remains an empirical question, which we will assess through our empirical strategy. Our dependent variable is support for direct democracy, measured through two related questions. The first question concentrates on the importance that a respondent attributes to unmediated popular decision-making, notably referendums, based on their rating of the following statement: “Citizens have the final say on the most important political issues, e.g. through referendum.” We refer to this dependent variable as general support for direct democracy. Answers were given on an eleven-point scale ranging from not at all important (0)

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to extremely important (10). 6 We interpret higher values as stronger support for direct democracy. The second question captures respondents’ support for or rejection of constitutional boundaries limiting the scope of direct democratic measures. Each respondent was presented with two opposite statements and asked to report their level of (dis-)agreement with each one on an eleven-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (0) to “strongly agree” (10). While the first statement read “Citizens should have the right to vote on any constitutional clause, even if this leads to the abolishment or limitation of constitutional safeguards, such as certain minority rights”, the second statement took the opposite position, namely “The constitution should guarantee certain constitutional safeguards that cannot be abolished by a popular vote, such as certain minority rights.” We aggregate the given answers by subtracting the level of agreement with the second statement from the level of agreement with the first statement. Therefore, this variable ranges from minus to plus 10, with higher values indicating a stronger rejection of constitutional boundaries limiting the scope of direct democracy and, therefore, a stronger unconditional support for direct democracy. 7 Our main predictors are populism (that is, individuals’ populist attitudes combined in one variable, and populism’s two dimensions, anti-elitism and people-centrism, as two separate variables), and stealth democratic orientation. We measure the two dimensions of populist attitudes with six items from Schulz et al. (2017), see Table 1. 8 Responses to all items are given on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (“totally disagree”) to 5 (“totally agree”). We measure the

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The statement was part of a set of statements introduced as follows (here the UK version): “Now, we would like to ask you a general question about democracy. It is not about how democracy actually works in the United Kingdom but rather about what you think is important for democracy in general. There is no right or wrong answer, so please just indicate what you think. How important are the following aspects for a successful democracy?” The formulation of the statement is based on statement E8 as included in round 6 of the European Social Survey (2012). 7 See Online Appendix 1 for descriptive statistics. For all other survey items, ‘don’t know’ answers are coded as missing, if not reported differently. 8 Note that Schulz et al. (2017) include additional items capturing ‘people-sovereignty’ as a third dimension of populist attitudes. We disregard this dimension and the respective items for two reasons. First, we consider peoplesovereignty rather as a consequence of populism than one of its core components. Second, since they operationalize people-sovereignty by referring to direct democratic instruments, we would risk endogeneity when including it.

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first populist sub-dimension anti-elitism with the second out of two factors extracted from the six items with two items loading on this factor, that is, item AE.1 (“Politicians are not really interested in what people like me think”) and item AE.2 (“MPs in Parliament very quickly lose touch with ordinary people”). 9 Additionally, we measure the second sub-dimension peoplecentrism with the other factor on which the following four items load: PC.1 (“Ordinary people are of good and honest character”), PC.2 (“Ordinary people all pull together”), PC.3 (“The British are basically honest and upright”), and PC.4 (“The British are a coherent entity, rather than just a bunch of individuals”). In addition to using both sub-dimensions separately, we also construct a single measure of populism, which equals the geometric mean of the averages of a) the four people-centrism and b) the two anti-elitism items. We rescaled all items to a range from 0 to 4 before taking the two averages. We rescaled the geometric mean to a range from 0 to 1. By using the geometric mean of the two averages, both of which take values from 0 to 4, we ensure that the variable populism equals zero as soon as one of its two dimensions equals zero. This reflects our theoretical argument that only individuals with both, high levels of anti-elitism and high levels of people-centrism, are considered to hold strong populist attitudes.

[Table 1 about here]

Stealth democratic attitudes are measured using the original four items suggested by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002), which are (1) “Elected officials would help the country more if they stopped talking and just took action on important problems”; (2) “What people call ‘compromise’ in politics is really just selling out one’s principles”; (3) “Our government would run better if decisions were left up to successful business people”; and (4) “Our government

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We report the pattern (loading) matrix of this exploratory factor analysis and related statistics in Online Appendix 2.

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would run better if decisions were left up to non-elected, independent experts rather than politicians or the people.” Respondents could express their (dis-)agreement with each item on an eleven-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (10). We aggregate these items by taking the mean. Higher values imply a more pronounced stealth democratic attitude. As control variables, we include a person’s age (linearly and squared), gender, income, political interest, political ideology, belief in their political efficacy, education level, satisfaction with democracy, general support for a political party that lost or won the previous elections, that is, being a ‘election loser’ or ‘election winner’ 10, as well as country dummies referring to where an interview took place. We test our hypotheses by regressing the two dependent variables on the predictors using OLS linear regression. For all regression models reported in this paper, the appropriate sample weights were used to improve the sample’s match with the national target populations. In our baseline models (Models 1 and 2) with the variable populism as a single measure, we add squared versions of both populist and stealth democratic attitudes as well as the products (i.e. interaction effect) of these two variables to estimate more reliably (Beiser-McGrath and Beiser-McGrath 2017). We do the same for each of the populist sub-dimensions when we use separate measures for anti-elitism and people-centrism as covariates (Models 3 and 4). These setups allow us to explore whether populist attitudes are associated with our dependent variables, controlling for the effect of stealth democratic attitudes, and, if so, which component of populism drives this effect. Given the inclusion of said interaction effects and products of input variables in the regression equation, we refrain from interpreting individual variables’ regression estimates and standard errors and, instead, rely on the simulation of expected values of the dependent variables as well as first differences (Brambor, Clark, and

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Existing studies demonstrate that if a voter’s party wins the election or becomes part of a coalition government, she is more satisfied with the way democracy works than if her preferred party belongs to the losing camp (cf., Torcal and Trechsel 2016).

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Golder 2005; Choirat, Honaker, Imai, King, et al. 2016; Fox 2003; Imai, King, and Lau 2008; King, Tomz, and Wittenberg 2000).

Results Our empirical analysis reveals that citizens support direct democracy more if they adhere to stronger populist attitudes. Turning to our first finding (see Figure 1), a person’s stronger exhibition of populist attitudes predicts higher levels of their support for direct democracy in both specifications, that is, rating unmediated decision-making as more important (left; general support) and rejecting constitutional boundaries thereof to a larger extent (right; unconditional support). In other words, the higher a person’s level of populist attitudes, the more important they consider direct democratic instruments for a successful democracy (in line with Hypothesis H1.1), and the more strongly they reject constitutional limits to direct democratic means (supporting Hypothesis H1.2). We started our discussion of populism and direct democracy by pointing to the common conflation of populism and stealth democracy in the existing literature. The results summarized in the lower plots of Figure 1 back our argument that populist attitudes are associated with support for direct democracy, independent of stealth democratic attitudes. The plots illustrate how stealth democratic and populist attitudes interact. They show predicted values of both dependent variables (y-axis) given different levels of populist attitudes (x-axis) conditional on high or low values of stealth democratic orientation (blue lines (Q1, “low value”) and red lines (Q3, “high value”). The displayed information supports that the positive association of populist attitudes with both dependent variables is not conditional to an individual’s stealth democratic orientation.

[Figure 1 about here]

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That said, we aim, in a second step, to learn whether the effect of populist attitudes on support for direct democracy is driven by their perception of the people as homogeneous and morally superior (the sub-dimension of populism that they do not share with stealth democrats). 11 To this end, we study the individual effect of people-centrism, conditional on anti-elitism (see Figure 2). The plots support our expectation that people-centrism (and anti-elitism) are independently and positively associated with support for direct democracy. That is to say, people-centred (and anti-elitist) individuals consider direct democracy as more important, and reject constitutional boundaries limiting direct democracy’s scope to a larger extent. Hence, we consider our Hypotheses H2.1 and H2.1 supported as well.

[Figure 2 about here]

Where do these results leave us? We do find that individuals with a stronger exhibition of populist attitudes are more likely to be susceptible to claims for (more) direct democracy. This finding seems rather robust given that we present similar results for two different dependent variables that measure ‘support for direct democracy’, specifically its general and its unconditional support. Furthermore, this finding supports both our expectations as well as those of existing scholarly literature (see, for example, Bowler, et al. 2017). Furthermore, when we disentangle the effect of the two populist sub-dimensions in order to explain why populist attitudes and support for direct democracy are associated, independently of stealth democracy, we find positive associations of both dimensions, i.e. people-centrism and anti-elitism, with support for direct democracy. In other words, it appears that citizens with populist attitudes

11

Populism’s anti-elitism component and the stealth democratic attitude’s first two items correlate r(3434) = 0.46, p< 0.001.

19

support (more) direct democracy not only in order to call the elite to account but also to confirm the people’s will, as embodied by the populist ‘leader.’ Conclusion Prior to the 2017 National Council election in Austria, the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) made the expansion of direct democracy an ‘absolute coalition condition’12. While the coalition deal between the FPÖ and the Christian-democratic Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) indeed foresees to expand voter participation in legislative matters, their plans do not match up to the ‘Swiss model of direct democracy’ in the way the Freedom party had originally intended. The result is that successful referendums will be upgraded in the future; yet, the envisaged automatism that plebiscites can actually lead to referenda is postponed until the end of 2022 – and thus until the end of the regular legislative period if no new elections are called. 13 This anecdote supports the argument that populist parties’ claim to implement (more) direct democracy is primarily strategically motivated and unlikely to be implemented once in government. In this paper, we asked whether such a call for (more) direct democracy resonates with the preferences of potential voters, that is, citizens sharing populist ideology. The answer to this question is far from obvious since populist parties claim both unmediated decision-making by ‘the people’ and strong leadership embodying the will of a rather passive people. Our answer to this apparent ambiguity in descriptions of populists’ claims and their voters’ preferences lies in the advocacy of conceptual clarity and the systematic study of its empirical implications. Building on previous efforts to measure and explain populist attitudes among citizens (Akkerman, Mudde, and Zaslove 2014; Castanho Silva et al. forthcoming; Hawkins, Riding, and Mudde 2012; Schulz et al. 2017), we seek to refine our understanding of populist attitudes

12

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (2017) CETA: Hofer: Ausbau der direkten Demokratie ist Koalitionsbedingung, available at https://bit.ly/2Im79FQ. 13 Weissensteiner, Nina (2017) Direkte Demokratie: Hohe Hürden für Referenden bis nach 2022 garantiert, der Standard, available at http://bit.ly/2FKR67o.

20

by separating them from stealth democratic preferences. Additionally, based on survey data collected in four established European democracies, we investigated whether its two key dimensions, anti-elitism and people-centrism, can be linked with public support for (more) direct democracy. In essence, we found that individuals with more populist attitudes do also show more support for direct democracy. In line with our theoretical arguments, differences in anti-elitist and people-centrist attitudes can explain why some citizens favour direct-democratic measures and others not, and why some reject and other support constitutional boundaries delimiting what can be decided on by them. As expected, these relations are (statistically) independent of the positive association between stealth democratic attitudes and both measures of support for direct democracy. Our findings have implications for the relationship between populism and stealth democracy on the one hand, and the relationship between populism and liberal democracy on the other. First, we posit that populist attitudes should not be confounded with stealth democratic attitudes. Attitudes to both ideological constructs independently affect support for direct democracy (as our results show) and are far from being perfect predictors for each other. For populists, direct democracy presents a central instrument to implement the will of the people, which is beyond attributing a mere elite-controlling function to referendums and initiatives, as the stealth democratic perspective suggests. Second, our findings have implications for populism and its relationship with liberal democracy. While populism may catalyse the discussion on how contemporary democracy should work, it also often functions as a vehicle to undermine cornerstones of liberal democracy, notably the separation of powers through checks and balances and the protection of minority rights (Huber and Schimpf 2016; Papadopoulos 2002; Spittler 2018; Taggart 2002). While various authors explore positions for and against the constitutional safeguards at the party level (Akkerman 2012), we know little about citizens’ stances towards this issue. This paper 21

presents first empirical evidence that people with populist attitudes share the position of populist parties in this respect and reject constitutional safeguards. In closing, we suggest that future research should expand on this study in several ways. Regarding the relationship between populist and stealth democratic attitudes—having demonstrated that the two are conceptually different and empirically independent—it will be interesting to see whether citizens with populist attitudes differ in their personal traits, characteristics, and socioeconomic status, from those showing stealth democratic attitudes. For instance, do they diverge in their understanding of the political efficacy of the individual? Future studies may also zoom into the respective understandings of the elite. Do populists consider technocrats and experts part of the despised elite, while stealth democrats happily support the idea of taking decision-making power away from elected politicians and political parties and handing it over to experts and successful business people? Eventually, if technocrats are included in populists’ understanding of the elite but not in the one shared by stealth democrats, then the apparent overlap in populists’ and stealth democrats’ rejection of the elite disappears and stealth democracy turns into populism’s logical anti-thesis. Furthermore, it will also be interesting to juxtapose the voting behaviour of citizens with populist attitudes and those with stealth democratic preferences. Are stealth democrats also inclined to vote for populist parties and, if so, because of their promotion of (more) direct democratic procedures? On the relationship between populism and direct democracy, future research may explore the differences in the link between populist attitudes and support for direct democracy across countries. Across the four democracies in our sample, as expected, respondents from Switzerland rated referendums more important and are more opposed to constitutional boundaries than respondents from the other three countries. In contrast, respondents from Germany were most in favour of constitutional boundaries and rated direct democracy as least important (see Table A.1). Can these differences be explained by varying experiences with and possibilities for citizens to engage in direct democracy at the state level? 22

Moreover, it will be interesting to study the relationships in other contexts. For example, can the relationships be observed in citizens sympathizing with right-wing populism as well as with left-wing populism? Do we find similar differences between populist sentiments and stealth democratic preferences in countries where there are no populist parties? And do populist attitudes correlate as well with support for direct democracy in other European countries, notably those at the Southern periphery of Europe—and beyond?

23

Figures and Tables

Table 1. Two-dimensional populist attitude measure Question: “Now think about the current political situation in the United Kingdom and consider whether you would tend to agree or disagree with the following statements.”

Mean

SD

Anti-elitism (AE; mean of AE.1 and AE.2)

2.68

1.04

AE.1 “Politicians are not really interested in what people like me think”

2.57

1.18

AE.2 “MPs in Parliament very quickly lose touch with ordinary people”

2.78

1.09

People-centrism (PC; mean of PC.1 to PC.4)

1.84

0.99

PC.1 “Ordinary people are of good and honest character”

2.02

1.33

PC.2 “Ordinary people all pull together”

1.51

1.27

PC.3 “The British are basically honest and upright”

2.01

1.15

PC.4 “The British are a coherent entity, rather than just a bunch of individuals”

1.86

1.17

0.52

0.23

Populism

Note: Responses to the six single items range from “totally disagree” (= 0) to “totally agree” (= 4); subdimensions capture the mean of the respective items; the variable “populism”, that is, our overall populism score is the geometric mean of both sub-dimensions, rescaled to a range from 0 to 1. N= 4,033.

2 4

Figure 1. Predicting support for direct democracy with populist attitudes General support for direct democracy

Unconditional support for direct democracy

Note: Predicted values with 95% confidence intervals of rating direct democratic instruments, notably referendums, as more or less important (left; based on Model 1, see Appendix), and the rejection of constitutional boundaries limiting the scope of direct democratic measures (right; based on Model 2, see Appendix). Upper plots show the simulated differences in the predicted values of the respective dependent variable (5,000 simulations per panel) plus median and 2.5th and 97.5th percentile when input variables are, one by one, changed from a low value to a high value, e.g., from the 1st to the 3rd quartile (Q1–Q3) for metric variables, or from one category to another, e.g. from male to female sex; the remaining variables are held constant either at their mean or mode. Lower plots show predicted values of the respective dependent variable by different levels of populist and stealth democratic attitudes.

Figure 2. Predicting support for direct democracy with sub-dimensions of populist attitudes General support for direct democracy

Unconditional support for direct democracy

Note: The plots show the simulated differences in the predicted values of the respective dependent variable (5,000 simulations per panel) plus median and 2.5th and 97.5th percentile when input variables are, one by one, changed from a low value to a high value, e.g., from the 1st to the 3rd quartile (Q1–Q3) for metric variables, or from one category to another, e.g. from male to female sex; the remaining variables are held constant either at their mean or mode.

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APPENDIX Table A-1. Populist attitudes, stealth democratic attitudes, and support for direct democracy

Attitudes Populism

Model 1 General support for direct democracy

Model 2 Unconditional support for direct democracy

2.833*** (0.748)

5.934*** (1.353)

Model 3 Model 4 General support Unconditional for direct support for democracy direct democracy

People-centrism

0.353** (0.172) 0.983*** (0.310)

Anti-elitism

0.312* (0.182)

Stealth democracy

-0.128 (0.091)

0.843*** (0.165)

Populism x Stealth democracy

-0.196 (0.130)

-0.379 (0.234)

1.547*** (0.329)

-0.256** (0.117) 0.537** (0.212)

People-centrism x Stealth democracy

-0.039 (0.032)

-0.021 (0.058)

People-centrism x Anti-elitism

-0.491*** (0.130)

-0.400* (0.234)

Anti-elitism x Stealth democracy

0.020 (0.033)

-0.132** (0.059)

People-centrism x Anti-elitism x Stealth democracy

0.034 (0.024)

0.004 (0.044)

Anti-elitism squared

0.028 (0.062)

0.544*** (0.111)

People-centrism squared

0.054 (0.054)

-0.188* (0.097)

Populism squared

Stealth democracy squared

-0.490 (0.789)

0.065 (1.419)

0.032*** (0.010)

-0.037** (0.019) 0.031*** (0.011)

-0.030 (0.020)

Controls Satisfaction with democracy

-0.027 (0.021)

-0.348*** (0.038)

-0.286*** (0.040)

Age

0.032* (0.018) 0.069** (0.033)

Age squared

-0.0004* (0.0002)

-0.001* (0.0003) -0.0005** (0.0002)

-0.001** (0.0003)

Income

0.012 (0.018)

-0.050 (0.033)

0.013 (0.018)

-0.040 (0.033)

-2.282 (2.172)

3.255*** (0.996)

-3.192 (2.157)

hardly 0.902*** (0.327)

-1.073* (0.593)

0.865*** (0.325)

-1.220** (0.589)

quite 1.237*** (0.333)

-1.007* (0.602)

1.184*** (0.331)

-1.254** (0.599)

very 1.264*** (0.357)

-0.915 (0.645)

1.183*** (0.355)

-1.217* (0.642)

0.287*** (0.033)

-0.003 (0.018)

0.275*** (0.033)

Political interest (baseline: not at all) don't know 3.117*** (1.003)

Left-right self-placement

-0.006 (0.018)

0.005 (0.022)

0.042** (0.018) 0.072** (0.033)

Model 1 General support for direct democracy Election winner (baseline: winner) loser 0.665*** (0.126) not applicable 0.256** (0.118) Country (baseline: Switzerland) Germany -1.393*** (0.136) France -1.037*** (0.147) United Kingdom -1.056*** (0.143) Education (baseline: max. postsecondary) -1.366*** max. primary education (0.346) max. tertiary education -0.333*** (0.102)

Model 2 Unconditional support for direct democracy

Model 3 Model 4 General support Unconditional for direct support for democracy direct democracy

0.209 (0.228)

0.644*** (0.125)

0.267 (0.214)

0.235** (0.117) 0.209 (0.213)

-1.761*** (0.246)

-1.490*** (0.136)

-1.776*** (0.248)

-0.492* (0.269)

-1.212*** (0.150)

-0.695** (0.274)

-0.093 (0.259)

-1.108*** (0.143)

-0.208 (0.259)

0.264 (0.608)

-1.368*** (0.343)

0.171 (0.603)

-0.927*** (0.184)

-0.309*** (0.101)

-0.827*** (0.183)

0.168 (0.226)

Female (=1)

0.058 (0.091)

-0.480*** (0.166)

0.060 (0.091)

-0.439*** (0.165)

Political efficacy

0.073*** (0.027)

-0.047 (0.049)

0.071*** (0.027)

-0.036 (0.049)

-5.582*** (1.090)

6.117*** (0.618)

-2.476** (1.119)

Adjusted R2 0.078

0.227

0.095

0.241

N 3,026

2,955

3,026

2,955

Constant 4.909*** (0.602)

Note: Table entries are coefficients pertaining to linear estimations (sample weights applied), with standard errors in parentheses; * p