An extensive body of literature discusses the disaffection of citizens with representative democracy and highlights increasing citizens’ preferences for political decision-makers beyond elected politicians. But so far, little research has been conducted to analyse the relations between citizens’ respective preferences and their political behaviour. To address this void in the literature, our article investigates the extent to which citizens’ preferences for certain political decision-makers (politicians, citizens or expert) have an impact on their retrospective and prospective political participation. Our analysis draws on data from a survey conducted in autumn of 2014 on a probability representative sample in Germany. Results indicate that respondents favouring politicians as decision-makers focus mainly on voting. Those who favour citizens as decision-makers are more willing to get involved in participatory procedures, while those inclined towards expert decision-making show mixed participation.

Published by Palgrave Macmillan since 2005, EPS: European Political Science is a journal of the European Consortium for Political Research. European Political Science (EPS) is an international journal devoted to publishing contributions by and for the political science community. Its interpretation of 'political science' is wide and encompasses comparative politics, political economy, international relations, public administration, political theory, European studies and related disciplines.

The study of clientelism has pointed in the direction of a pyramid structure in which selective benefits are distributed with the help of brokers to individuals or groups in exchange for political support. This approach treats the resources aimed to enhance electoral mobilization as endogenous and fails to explain what happens when brokers have very low capacity. To address these problems this article proposes a bi-dimensional model of clientelism that emphasizes the role of exogenous resources. Accordingly, the vertical linkage between political parties and the electorate is complemented by a horizontal nexus between parties and private contributors. In an environment characterized by low internal resources, parties involve external actors to get the necessary money. To illustrate how this mechanism works we focus on Romania between 2008 and 2012, a crucial case for the study of clientelism.

The models of direct and deliberative democracy are broadly considered the major alternatives to representative democracy. So far, the two models have been merged under the broad umbrella of participatory democracy and thus little is known about why citizens support direct democracy and/or deliberation. They are distinct procedures, driven by different logics and outcomes and this makes it likely that the preference for them rest on different premises. This article fills this gap in the literature and distinguishes between the models proposing two central arguments. First, we expect that several general determinants have a positive impact on the support for both direct democracy and deliberation because they are different from representative democracy. Second, we test the effect of specific determinants that drive people towards supporting more one of the two alternative models of democracy. We use individual level data from an original survey conducted in December 2018 on a representative sample of 1094 respondents in the UK. The results indicate that the supporters of direct democracy differ from those of deliberative democracy in several ways.

While much research focuses on the causes and consequences of direct democracy and regime legitimacy, little attention has been paid to the potential relationship between them. In an attempt to fill this void, this paper focuses on the legal provisions for direct democracy and its use. The key argument is that possibilities for the public’s direct involvement reflect high importance given to citizens, openness of the regime towards different modes of decision-making, and ways to avoid unpopular institutions. Consequently, citizens are likely to accept and support the regime, improving or maintaining its legitimacy. The cross-national analysis includes 38 European countries ranging from transition countries to established democracies. It uses bivariate statistical analysis and country-level data collected from legislation, secondary sources, and aggregate surveys.

Extensive scholarly attention is devoted to citizens’ preferences for alternative models of political decision-making. However, few efforts were made to identify who these citizens are and why they display a certain preference. To address this void in the literature, our article analyzes the determinants of preferences for citizens as decision-makers. It uses individual-level data from a 2014 survey on a probability representative sample in Germany and tests the effects of political attitudes toward institutions of representative democracy, interest in politics, and civic involvement. It controls for consumption of political news, education, and age.