Promoting or Controlling Political Decisions? Citizen Preferences for Direct-Democratic Institutions in Germany

Abstract

After the 2017 Bundestag election, the relaunched government coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD announced in its coalition treaty to consider introducing ‘elements of direct democracy’ at the federal level, no doubt with the intent to address citizens dissatisfied with German representative democracy. However, it remains unclear which direct-democratic institutions citizens support. We explore this question by arguing that voter preferences for distinct forms of direct democracy differ according to the parties they sympathise with. More concretely, citizens seeking to introduce specific issues more actively support agenda initiatives that promote political decisions. In the German context, this group is mostly found among voters for the Greens and The Left, parties that have long advocated the expansion of democratic participation. In contrast, citizens feeling alienated from representative democracy prefer decision-controlling procedures in the form of mandatory referendums, which divert power away from elected politicians and direct them to the people. Politically, this group supports the AfD, a party that propagates direct democracy as a fundamental alternative to parliamentary democracy. The empirical study based on data derived from an internet panel survey confirms our argument. These findings have important implications for the current debate in Germany and the comparative study of participatory reforms.