Do Critical Citizens Foster Better Governance? A Comparative Study

Abstract

Both critical citizens and governance are attracting increasing interest in political science. Strangely enough, however, the two strands of research are rarely combined. This article sheds light on the relation between governance and political criticism by focusing on Europe. The article discusses and examines whether the level of political criticism expressed by a state's citizenry correlates with or even affects the quality of governance. In contrast to the conventional ‘translation’ of criticism as discontentment, this article scrutinises ‘normative critical attentiveness’, which is explained in detail (data: International Social Survey Program 2004, module: Citizenship). Legitimate and effective governance, as measured by the World Bank indices, correlates positively with critical attentiveness: states with citizenries that regard attentiveness as a civic duty provide more legitimate and effective governance than states with less attentive citizenries. These correlations remain significant when controlled for economic development. The cause of direction is not uniform, but must be differentiated for different characteristics.

Notes

1. According to most definitions, content democrats support the idea of democracy (‘democracy may have its problems, but it is better than any other form of government’) and are content with the performance of the democracy in their states (‘the way democracy works’).

2. Some studies provide evidence for a certain affinity of critical citizens for democratic principles (for Peru Seligson and Carrion 2002: 58 ff.; for Germany Westle 1997; for the USA Sniderman 1981).

3. In fact, the concept of the ‘monitorial citizen’ does not fit with the empirical findings – at least not in the North European context (Hooge and Dejaeghere 2007).

4. Question: ‘There are different opinions as to what it takes to be a good citizen. As far as you are concerned personally on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is not at all important and 7 is very important, how important is it: … to keep watch on the actions of government?’

5. The influence of gender and years of education is negligible (r = .03). In contrast, age influences the level of attentiveness significantly (r = .14). Young people regard political attentiveness as less important than older people.

6. ‘Here are different forms of political and social action that people can take. Please indicate for each one whether you have done any of these things in the past year, whether you have done it in the more distant past, whether you have not done it but might do it or have not done it and would never, at any circumstances, do it … attended a political meeting or rally, took part in demonstrations, are members of political parties and signed petitions.’

7. ‘How interested would you say you personally are in politics?’ (very interested, very interested, not very interested, not at all interested).

8. Political contentment was measured by the question: How well does democracy work in (COUNTRY) today?’ (0 = very poorly to 10 = very well).

9. In contrast, analysis of efficiency focuses on the cost–benefit principle. A procedure is considered efficient when high returns are achieved at little expense.

10. Some indices for measuring the quality of democracy would also be applicable, e.g. Diamond and Morlino 2005; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Lauth 2004: 238ff; Dalton et al. 2003; Jaggers and Gurr 1995; http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/11.0.html (accessed Jan. 2007).

11. As Berg-Schlosser (2004: 39) demonstrated, the indices correlate significantly and strongly with all other well-known indices of democracy.

12. Voice and accountability, government effectiveness, control of corruption, political stability, regulatory quality, rule of law.

13. For details on the data and methodology used to construct the indicator see Kaufmann et al. (2005); the data used is available in World Bank Governance Indicators 1996–2004.

14. According to the World Bank, the ‘purchasing power parity’ (PPP) conversion factors take differences in the relative prices of – particularly non-tradable – goods and services into account and therefore provide a better overall measure of the real value of output produced by an economy as compared with other economies. PPP GNP is measured in current international dollars which, in principle, have the same purchasing power as a dollar spent on GNP in the US economy. See http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS/0,,contentMDK:20399244∼menuPK:1504474∼pagePK:64133150∼piPK:64133175∼theSitePK:239419,00.html (accessed Sept. 2006), and http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GNIPC.pdf (accessed Feb. 2007). For the 2005 GNP data for East and West Germany, see: Statistische Ämter der Länder, Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnung der Länder. Bruttoinlandsprodukt, Bruttowertschöpfung in den Ländern und Ost-West-Großraumregionen Deutschlands 1991 bis 2005, vol. 1 (preliminary draft), Aug. 2006.

15. National political attentiveness and the GNP_PPP correlate significantly and positively (r = .490; sig.: .000):