Abstract
Many studies have examined whether citizens prefer direct or stealth democracy, or participatory democratic processes. This study adds to the emerging literature that instead examines the temporal aspect of citizens’ process preferences. We use a survey with a probabilistic sample of the Finnish voting-age population (n = 1,906), which includes a measure of the extent to which citizens think democratic decision-making should maximize welfare today or ensure future well-being. Calling this dimension of democratic process preferences future-oriented political thinking, we demonstrate that people hold different but consistent views regarding the extent to which democratic politics should balance between present and future benefits. We find that future-oriented political thinking is linked to general time orientation, but the linkage varies across respondent groups. Politically sophisticated individuals are less future-oriented, suggesting that intense cognitive engagement with politics is linked with a focus on present-day politics rather than political investment in the future.
Highlights
In the complex contemporary world, many of the most acute political problems have consequences that extend far into the future and cannot be discussed and decided upon in terms of the present alone
What factors could be associated with individual differences in future-oriented political thinking? We suggest three different explanatory pathways for why people feel differently about the temporal aspect in democratic decision-making
Several valuable efforts by scholars representing a diversity of research fields, such as economics, psychology and policy sciences, have focused on the temporal aspect of democratic politics from different analytical angles, such as rationality, risk-taking, cognitive biases and policy preferences
Summary
In the complex contemporary world, many of the most acute political problems have consequences that extend far into the future and cannot be discussed and decided upon in terms of the present alone. To the more specific literature on temporal political preferences, we wish to make more particular contribution by suggesting that in addition to policy-specific preferences, it is valuable to address the more general process preferences To this end, we utilize a question battery designed for measuring the extent to which people think democratic decision-making should focus on the present versus the future and examine individual-level determinants of that preference. People who follow politics closely, do not rely as much on general time perceptions to form their future-oriented political thinking We interpret this as indicating that politically interested individuals hold well developed and nuanced political attitudes, which they (to some degree) keep separate from their attitudes in other realms. Our interpretation is that the two are close, but separate concepts and that the temporal aspect of democratic process preferences cannot be adequately captured through a measure of general time orientation
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