Attitudes vs. actions? Direct-democratic preferences and participation of populist citizens

Abstract

Direct-democratic instruments are often seen as a cure for the current disenchantment with representative democracy. While research has begun to investigate whether direct-democratic instruments match the procedural preferences of populist citizens, it is an under-researched question whether populist citizens and populist voters would actually participate in direct-democratic voting. This study advances existing research by focussing both on direct-democratic preferences and effective direct-democratic participation of different types of populist citizens in Germany—populist voters on the right and left and citizens with general populist attitudes. Analyses based on survey data from 2018 show that while populist citizens and right-wing populist voters display strong attitudinal sympathy for direct-democratic instruments, especially right-wing populist voters fail effectively to participate in direct-democratic voting. Those who strongly participate in direct-democratic procedures are sophisticated and postmaterialist citizens whose preferences hardly align with those of right-wing populist voters and citizens, widening rather than closing the ‘representation gap’.