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Emerging literature shows that citizens in established democracies do not unconditionally support central democratic principles when asked to weigh them against co-partisanship or favored policy positions. However, these studies are conducted in highly polarized contexts, and it remains unclear whether the underlying mechanisms also operate in more consensual contexts. Furthermore, it is unclear whether "critical citizens" or satisfied democrats are more eager to support democratic principles. We study these questions with evidence from a conjoint experiment conducted in Finland ( n = 1030), an established democracy with high levels of democratic satisfaction and a consensual political culture. We examine how transgressions of two central democratic norms, the legitimacy of political opposition and the independence of the judiciary, affect leader favorability. We also explore how these differ across ideological and policy congruence and across levels of political disaffection. Our results show that some segments of the Finnish population are willing to condone authoritarian behavior if this brings them political benefits. Furthermore, we find that satisfied rather than "critical" citizens are more likely to sanction such behavior. These findings suggest that dangers of democratic deconsolidation may appear even in consensus democracies with relatively low levels of political polarization.

Previous studies show consistent differences in how people evaluate future consequences and implications of this for a variety of phenomena. The implications for the individual propensity for taking part in different forms of political participation have received limited scholarly attention, however. This is unfortunate since it affects how people voice their concerns over future problems and thereby also whether and how decision-makers become aware of these concerns. We here examine this in a cross-sectional study conducted in Finland (N = 1,673). We apply the Considerations of Future Consequences (CFC) framework as a measure of individuals' future orientation and distinguish between considerations of future consequences (CFC-future) and considerations of immediate consequences (CFC-Immediate). We study the direct associations with institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation and the moderating role of political trust in shaping these associations. Our results show CFC-future has a positive association with both institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation, while CFC-immediate has a negative association with participation. Political trust moderates the association with non-institutionalized political participation since the association is stronger for citizens with low political trust. This may suggest that citizens use particular participatory avenues to communicate their worries over future problems, and to which decision-makers must be attentive.

AbstractPrevious studies have been unable to establish the link between corruption perceptions and political participation. This is partly due to a disregard of different types of political participation, ignoring gender differences in how corruption perceptions affect political participation, and overlooking the importance of context. We therefore here examine gender differences in the links between corruption perceptions and three types of political participation: voting, institutionalized participation between elections, and noninstitutionalized participation between elections. We also examine how the context in the form of the national level of corruption affects these linkages. The data come from International Social Survey Program Citizenship II and includes 31 democracies, analyzed with multilevel regression models. Our results show that women become more likely to vote when faced with corruption, whereas men become more likely to engage in elite‐challenging forms of participation when faced with corruption while women remain unaffected.Related ArticlesCaillier, James. 2010. "Citizen Trust, Political Corruption, and Voting Behavior: Connecting the Dots." Politics & Policy 38 (5): 1015‐1035. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00267Lagunes, Paul F. 2012. "Corruption's Challenge to Democracy: A Review of the Issues." Politics & Policy 40 (5): 802‐826. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2012.00384McNally, Darragh. 2016. "Norms, Corruption, and Voting for Berlusconi." Politics & Policy 44 (5): 976‐1008. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12173

Several studies have examined whether attitudinal factors make people more willing to accept political elites violating basic democratic norms. However, the role of more basic socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, remains underexplored. This may be a mistake, as studies suggest that these influence the evaluation of democratic transgressions. We focus on the role of gender in evaluations of democratic transgressions and re-examine data from two conjoint experiments conducted in Finland. We examine whether the gender of the politician violating democratic norms matters, whether the gender of the person judging the democratic violations matters, and whether it matters for the evaluation of the democratic violation when both the candidate and the respondent are of the same gender. Our results indicate that gender plays at best a limited role, as we find no evidence that candidate gender or the gender of the respondent matters for the evaluations.

AbstractMost representative democracies seem to experience dwindling levels of legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. Nevertheless, it remains unclear what people want from parliamentary decision-making. In this study, we test the impact of outcome favourability, actor involvement and justifications on the perceived legitimacy of a parliamentary decision-making process on euthanasia in Finland. We do so with the help of a survey experiment (n = 1243), where respondents were exposed to a vignette where the treatments varied randomly. The results suggest that outcome favourability is of primary importance, but the involvement of experts and citizens also boost legitimacy in the eyes of citizens. Justifications, or presenting arguments for the decisions, does not enhance legitimacy and may even cause a backfire mechanism where the difference between getting and not getting the preferred outcome is amplified.

Democratic innovations are often considered a solution to the widespread citizen disengagement from politics at both national and local levels of government. However, it is still not clear what forms of engagement citizens prefer and whether the innovations can help sustain popular involvement in times of political turmoil. In this study, we examine whether inhabitants consider democratic innovations to be an important way to sustain citizen engagement after a municipal merger and whether introducing new ways of involvement can help mobilise otherwise disengaged groups of citizens. The data come from a survey answered by 2000 respondents in 14 current municipalities in the Turku region of Southwest Finland. The 14 municipalities are all currently involved in plans for a municipal merger to create a larger municipality. In the survey, we ask the respondents about their attitudes towards the use of various democratic innovations in the case of a municipal merger. The results suggest that citizens consider democratic innovations as important for creating a functioning democracy after a municipal merger. However, it is unlikely that democratic innovations will mobilise people not already involved in politics, regardless of the characteristics of the previous municipality.

Various deliberative practices have been argued to constitute viable supplements to traditional representative decision making. At the same time, doubts have been raised as to whether ordinary citizens want to be involved in such demanding forms of political participation. This question has been difficult to resolve since few citizens have had the chance to take part in genuine deliberative practices. For this reason, we examine how participation in a deliberative mini-public affected attitudes towards discursive participation as a supplement to representative decision making. Moreover, we investigate how group composition and individual-level factors affect these developments. Our data come from an experimental deliberative forum on the issue of immigration arranged in Finland in 2012. The results suggest that the participants grew more positive towards the use of deliberative practices regardless of individual socio-demographic resources, whereas the effects of prior political engagement depend on the composition of the group the participants were assigned to.

Democratic innovations are often considered a solution to the widespread citizen disengagement from politics at both national and local levels of government. However, it is still not clear what forms of engagement citizens prefer and whether the innovations can help sustain popular involvement in times of political turmoil. In this study, we examine whether inhabitants consider democratic innovations to be an important way to sustain citizen engagement after a municipal merger and whether introducing new ways of involvement can help mobilise otherwise disengaged groups of citizens. The data come from a survey answered by 2000 respondents in 14 current municipalities in the Turku region of Southwest Finland. The 14 municipalities are all currently involved in plans for a municipal merger to create a larger municipality. In the survey, we ask the respondents about their attitudes towards the use of various democratic innovations in the case of a municipal merger. The results suggest that citizens consider democratic innovations as important for creating a functioning democracy after a municipal merger. However, it is unlikely that democratic innovations will mobilise people not already involved in politics, regardless of the characteristics of the previous municipality.