Deliberative democracy and trust in political institutions at the local level: evidence from participatory budgeting experiment in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

Deliberative democracy assumes that management decisions based on open voluntary and fair procedures are rational and just. This article presents arguments that deliberative democracy can bolster trust in democratic institutions. Moreover, deliberative practices can increase citizens’ level of political trust not only in stable democracies but also in hybrid regimes. This is demonstrated through an examination of participatory budgeting in Ukraine, with the use of data from a field experiment in 2015–2016 (with 740 participants).

KEYWORDS:

• Deliberative democracy
• participatory budgeting
• political trust
• Ukraine

Acknowledgements

I sincerely value the suggestions of Dr Sergiu Gherghina from the University of Glasgow for his reviews and valuable comments. His thorough assessment and kind ideas helped to improve the general description of the experiment.

I am indebted to the Open Society Foundation as the deliberative experiment was partially financed by its generous grants (grant numbers IN2013-08541, IN2014-15554) and to the Graduate School for Social Research for enabling the accomplishing of my research.

Moreover, I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their many insightful comments and suggestions.

Finally, I would like to thank the Head of the Bucovinian Agency for Regional Development, not only for helping me to undertake the survey in Chernivtsi, but also for giving me the opportunity to attend various public meetings during participatory budgeting and meet so many interesting people.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dmytro Volodin, PhD is a Postgraduate researcher at Graduate School for Social Research (Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland). Moreover, he is a main specialist at the Centre of European Projects under the Ministry of Investment and Economic Development of Poland. His main research interests are democratic innovations, cross-border cooperation and democratic transition.

Notes

1. Such regime combines democratic characters with autocratic ones. For example, frequent and direct elections may be accompanied by political repression or controlled mass media (Morlino, 2009).

2. See Norris 2000.

3. Bucovinian Agency for Regional Development (BARD). BARD is a regional think tank specializing in various civil projects and opinion surveys. When in 2015 my research has received specific grant from Open Society Foundation (grant number IN2014-15554), I involved this organization into my project. BARD was responsible for survey procedure, analysis of observations, organization of deliberative events, cooperation with local authorities.

4. Minimal requirements for the process based on Habermas’ approach. For more details see Habermas, 1994, (Strandberg and Gronlund in Geissel & Joas, 2013, p. 145).

5. This commission consists of representatives of the city council, local NGOs and community leaders. The main function of the commission is to review submitted projects for compliance with technical and financial criteria. Only approved projects can be admitted to further voting.

6. BARD representative was a member of this committee; therefore, I have used her observations.

7. I thank anonymous reviewer #1 for this valuable comment.

Additional information

Funding

I am indebted to the Open Society Foundation as the deliberative experiment was partially financed by its generous grants [grant numbers: IN2013-08541, IN2014-15554].