Public trust in citizens’ juries when the people decide on policies: evidence from Switzerland
Journal
Policy Studies
ISSN
0144-2872
ISSN-Digital
1470-1006
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2023-06-26
Author(s)
Abstract
Facilitative political trust is the reduction in cognitive demand citizens experience when forming their opinions about political issues. This type of trust is important for generating legitimate democratic institutions in the eyes of politically uninvolved citizens. The article develops and validates an original direct measure of facilitative political trust among voters receiving a voting aid compiled by a Swiss municipal-level deliberative minipublic convening twenty citizens ahead of a federal popular initiative vote on expanding affordable housing policies. Based on perceiving the randomly selected group as competent and aligned with voters’ interests, we find a reliable and valid latent trust measure using confirmatory factor analyses among the same sample of voters within the municipality at two points during the campaign, ahead (N = 1159), and again around the time of the ballot (N = 472).
In subsequent multiple regressions, increases in facilitative trust sores are the main driver of readers’ ratings of both the voting aid’s usefulness for deciding how to vote and of how important they judge its information for their peers’ vote decisions.
In subsequent multiple regressions, increases in facilitative trust sores are the main driver of readers’ ratings of both the voting aid’s usefulness for deciding how to vote and of how important they judge its information for their peers’ vote decisions.
Language
English
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Taylor and Francis (United Kingdom)
Volume
44
Number
6
Start page
728
End page
747