After the Merger: Do Citizens Want Participation?

Transcription

1 After the Merger: Do Citizens Want Participation? Krister Lundell Åbo Akademi University Maija Karjalainen University of Turku Henrik Serup Christensen Åbo Akademi University Paper prepared for presentation at the ECPR General Conference Bordeaux, 4-7 September 2013 Section S12: Contemporary Challenges to Local Self-Government and Democracy Panel P198: Local Political Participation: What Difference Does it Make? 1

2 Introduction The purpose of this study is to explore the prospects of creating political legitimacy at the local level by means of democratic innovations in an enlarged political unit. Previous research has examined the differences between various forms of democratic innovations, where and to what extent they have been used, and how participants experience them (e.g. Smith 2009; Geissel & Newton 2012). However, there is a lack of research examining whether these innovations actually foster political legitimacy among the citizenry. Little attention has been paid to what citizens think about local democracy and democratic involvement in a situation where local government structures are under change. In this study, we explore whether democratic innovations may help create a viable political unit with sound democratic legitimacy. And if so, what forms of political involvement do citizens prefer? Do they want direct democracy, e-democracy or some other forms of participation and influence? Do the citizens want participatory innovations at all, or do they prefer traditional forms of democracy? These questions are examined in a specific context: at the prospect of a municipal merger. Thus, we explore the potential of democratic innovations to help sustain new enlarged political entities at the local level. Although citizens have become more and more critical of the traditional institutions of government and the way democracy works in practice, they are still committed to basic democratic values (Norris 2002). However, focus has shifted from traditional electoral democracy and centralized, bureaucratic parties to more direct and individualized forms of political expression involving social movements, community groups, ICT-based channels and various forms of unconventional participation (Newton 2012, 3-4). This trend is also evident in Finland, both at the national and the sub-national level. Recent findings indicate that citizens demand improved local democratic structures that enable more direct influence in the municipal decision-making process (Pekola-Sjöblom 2011). However, we do not know what particular forms of participation and influence citizens want in a new enlarged political unit, and whether democratic innovations actually may create political legitimacy? The preferences of citizens with regard to concrete plans rather than general opinions and experience of democratic innovations has not been studied before. This study is based on a recently conducted survey containing 2000 respondents in 14 municipalities in South Western Finland. The data makes it possible to examine how the introduction of democratic innovations affect the potential democratic legitimacy in a future enlarged political unit consisting of many former municipalities of varying size. The paper is structured as follows. After this introduction, the theoretical section contains a discussion on the link between citizen participation and democratic legitimacy, the relevance of polity size is discussed, and it is discussed how different forms of democratic innovations may help alleviate the potential problems with political legitimacy that follow from a municipal merger. Following this, we present the on-going local government reforms in Finland and in particular the Turku region in South Western Finland. Finally, we examine empirically whether democratic innovation may help alleviate the fears in the Turku region and if so, what forms of involvement the inhabitants prefer. We conclude by discussing the main implications of the results for the chances of sustaining democracy with the help of democratic innovations. 2

3 Citizen participation, political legitimacy and democratic innovations At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, when Western countries were developed into complex mass societies, representative democracy in which elected representatives make decisions became the most realistic option for modern societies and the dominating regime type in the Western world. However, during the last decades, many political analysts have argued that traditional party-based representative democracy is in a state of crisis and that modern democracies suffer from a democratic deficit. There has been a downward trend in turnout, party membership rates and party identification (e.g. Gray & Caul 2000; Wattenberg 2002). Citizens have become increasingly critical of politicians, parties, and political institutions, and there has been a widespread discontent with the system of party government (e.g. Dalton 1999; Dalton & Wattenberg 2000). Democratic innovations, notably participatory democracy and deliberative democracy, are regarded as means to cure the malaise of representative democracy, to improve democratic legitimacy and to foster more effective policies. Why is citizen participation assumed to enhance democratic legitimacy? First and foremost, participatory democracy aims at creating opportunities for all citizens to be part of the decisionmaking process. Through the organization of public meetings, citizen assemblies and local councils consisting of politicians as well as residents, citizens are offered the opportunity to influence public decision-making processes (Talpin 2012, 191). According to advocates of participatory and deliberative democracy, citizen participation has several positive effects on the quality of democracy. Participation has, among other things, an educative function. Through participation in political decision-making, citizens are given a more direct say, they learn about policy issues, and they improve skills such as meeting techniques and debating public issues. In short, citizens become politically more competent. Furthermore, participation plays an integrative role. It encourages public engagement, and as a result, citizens may feel more responsible for public decisions. Participation also contributes to producing rules that are acceptable to all, which should have a positive effect on the legitimacy of procedures and outcomes (Michels & De Graaf 2010, ; Michels 2011, ). Participatory innovations have great potential for generating democratic legitimacy and deepening the quality of democracy by supplementing and complementing the formal institutions of representative democracy. In municipal mergers, where central decision-making is brought away from the peripheral areas, democratic innovations may play an important role by giving citizens influence on local issues. The on-going nationwide reform in municipal structures in Finland has accentuated the need for enhancing the democratic legitimacy by complementing representative democracy with participatory and direct democratic methods. Municipal mergers are a challenge to the organization and institutions of local democracy, because political decisions become more distant to citizens, creating a perceived lack of influence that harms democratic legitimacy in the process (Rinne-Koski et al. 2012). Merging urban and rural municipalities also brings the center-periphery issue to the fore; it has different implications for people living in various parts of the new municipal unit. Those living on the periphery are more affected than those living in the urban center of the new enlarged political unit. 3

4 It is also a matter of complexity when several smaller units are merged into a larger entity. It has been argued that citizens tend to feel more competent to participate in politics in small jurisdictions where political discussions often concern specific questions and focus on the local community (Dahl & Tufte 1973; Verba & Nie 1972, 231). Through participation in small democratic units, individuals become responsible, informed and empowered democratic citizens (Larsen 2002, 320). Also, in small entities citizens wishes and needs may to a greater extent be taken into consideration, whereas it is more difficult for the government in large entities to represent everybody s interests (Mouritzen 1991, 491). According to Robert A. Dahl and Edward R. Tufte, there is a trade-off between citizen effectiveness and system capacity related to the size of a polity. Small units promote responsibility and competence among the citizenry, whereas large units develop capacity to fully respond to the collective preferences of the citizens (1973, 20). The research population of the present study consists of individuals in one large municipality and several small ones. According to these arguments, various forms of participatory democracy should have better prerequisites to work in the currently smaller units, whereas electoral and direct democracy that corresponds to the collective preferences of the citizens should be more attractive in the center of a future enlarged polity. To alleviate the problems with political legitimacy, the last few decades have witnessed a wave of democratic innovations around the world. For instance, the use of direct democracy at both the national and the local level has expanded in several advanced democracies (Donovan & Karp 2006). Evidence from Germany shows that participatory innovations indeed have the potential to cure some of the defects in representative democracy (Geissel 2009). Many innovations start as small-scale experiments in communities and neighborhoods, and if successful, they may rise to higher levels of government. Brigitte Geissel refers to democratic innovations as new practices consciously and purposefully introduced in order to improve the quality of democracy, independent of whether the innovation in question has already been tried out in another system (2009, 53). Democratic innovations are measures that involve deliberative action to introduce new ways of doing things; in this case, new methods of political participation and influence. According to the advocates, democratic innovations have the potential to re-enchant politics by including and engaging large sections of the citizenry. They may function as schools of political socialization where non-politicized individuals get public experience, enabling them to participate more effectively in the public sphere in the future (Newton 2012, 194). There are different typologies for classifying participatory inventions. Geissel (2009) identifies four main types of democratic innovations: direct democracy, consultative-discursive procedures, co- and network governance and electoral reforms. Kenneth Newton (2012, 8-9) distinguishes the same four categories, but adds a fifth one: e-democracy, which cuts across all categories but deserves special consideration since it attracts a great deal of attention and many believe that it has the power to transform the political world. For the purpose of this study, the category called electoral reforms (voting and elections in Newton s typology) is of lesser importance; it is concerned with increasing turnout and finding remedies to voter alienation, including measures such as reducing the voting age, compulsory voting, quota rules and race conscious re-districting. In the following, the other four types of democratic innovations are presented, using Newton s terminology: (1) direct democracy; (2) information, consultation and deliberation; (3) co-governance; (4) e-democracy. 4

5 Direct democracy implies that individuals can decide on a policy by popular vote or exercise power and authority without the mediating influence of the elected representatives or the government. A main purpose of democracy is to translate popular preferences into public policy, and it is hard to conceive of a more effective way to do this than allowing all citizens to vote on public policy according to their interests. The category of direct democracy includes institutional innovations such as referendums, initiatives, ballot propositions, direct legislations and direct participation in rulemaking (Newton 2012, 9; Budge 2012, 23). The category labelled information, consultation and deliberation includes innovative procedures where citizens discuss public policies and advice is given to the decision-making bodies. Political representatives and officials may participate but these forums lack decision-making power. A wide range of innovations belong to this category, for instance: town hall meetings, deliberative forums, consensus conferences, planning cells, scenario workshops, focus groups, citizen panels, deliberative polls and democracy kiosks. Those models where participants are selected using random sampling techniques are collectively termed 'mini-publics' (Goodin& Dryzek 2006; Newton 2012, 8). In the last few decades, deliberative democracy has become the most influential development within contemporary democratic theory. According to theories of deliberative democracy, the essence of democratic legitimacy is the ability of those affected by a collective decision to deliberate in the production of that decision (Dryzek & List 2003; Gastil & Levine 2005). Geissel points out that the impact of deliberative procedures has been relatively small and indirect, and they often pass without much attention from decison-making bodies. However, there is evidence that these procedures have a positive impact on citizens civic skills and knowledge (Geissel 2012, ). Co-governance combines elements of direct democracy and consultation; it involves direct citizen involvement in the decision-making and the activities of the state or the local community, and includes e.g. participatory budgeting, citizen assemblies, neighborhood development and local area councils (Newton 2012, 9). Co-governance institutions, like most democratic innovations but even more explicitly, stem from a critique of representative government (Talpin 2012, 191). The very meaning of representation is to let competent and enlightened people decide (Manin 1997), and cogovernance institutions should be seen as an expression of this desire. In co-governance bodies, citizens and public authorities share political power. The defining features that distinguish them from deliberative and other participatory innovations are, firstly, that they have some decision-making authority, secondly, they have some agenda setting power, and, thirdly, they are ongoing forms of engagement, with regular meetings over months or even years (Smith 2005; Talpin 2012, 184). Nevertheless, a clear element of deliberation is inherent in co-governance institutions as they require institutionalized and iterated public deliberation before decisions are taken. E-democracy concerns applying information and communication technology to increase and deepen citizen participation in political decision-making. Smith points out that authorities have mainly concentrated on two areas: service delivery and provision of information (2009, ). Consequently, the use of Internet in local democracy has mostly been a one-way communication. Although the potentials of ICT have not been fully utilized yet, new technology offered by the 5

6 Internet can be used to, among other things, conduct online surveys and preference polls, vote online for representatives, referendums, or on the passage of legislations, develop community dialogue, e.g. through 'real-time' town meetings online, provide feedback and citizen input, and organize local and neighborhood associations (Sisk 2001). Several of these designs build upon the face-to-face innovation devices described above, and therefore ICT-based solutions also cut across all the other categories of innovations. Previous research has examined the interplay between citizen involvement and political legitimacy. Ank Michels and Laurens De Graaf (2010, ) have studied the effects of citizen participation on some indicators of the quality of democracy with two case studies in Eindhoven and Groningen, where participatory policy-making has been practiced on a wide scale. The authors found that citizen involvement in policy making has a positive effect on public engagement; it makes people feel more responsible for public matters, and increases the legitimacy of decisions. In another study based upon a large number of existing evaluation studies (N=120), Michels (2011) analyzed the effects of four kinds of participation: participatory policy making, referendums, deliberative surveys and deliberative forums. Participatory policy making and referendums perform better at involving people and gives citizens a say in the policy-making to a greater extent, whereas deliberative forums and surveys are better at promoting the exchange of arguments and public reasoning. In Michels analysis, legitimacy is understood as the extent to which participants and other key actors support and accept the process and the outcome (2011, 289) in a specific case. With evidence from participatory policy making projects and deliberative forums, a dividing line runs between citizens who participate and those who do not participate. Involved citizens largely have positive attitudes towards the process and the outcome, whereas those who did not participate in the evaluation cases were less supportive. As for the benefits to democracy as a whole, the main problem is that large groups remain inactive. Concerning polity size, Lassen and Serritzlev (2011) point out that there is evidence, although not unequivocal, that smaller size is associated with higher level of democratic quality. For instance, participation rates tend to be higher, direct contact with politicians and officials is more frequent, and citizens attend meetings on local issues to a greater extent. In their own study, they find that citizens internal political efficacy is higher in smaller jurisdictions. Comparing small and large municipalities prior to a municipal merger in Denmark, Larsen (2002) finds that participation is higher in smaller municipalities, there is no difference with regard to citizens interest in and knowledge of local politics, and, contrary to previous research findings, municipality size does not affect citizens perception of local politicians and trust in local political decisions. Larsen concludes: Even from the perspective of participatory democracy the democratic consequences of municipal mergers appear manageable, since the integrative processes are not measurably inferior in large municipalities (2002, 331). Even if this study is not concerned with differences between small and large municipalities per se, the studies above have some relevance for our purposes, since we examine what forms of participation and influence citizens prefer in a new enlarged political unit. These studies make it likely that citizen involvement in decision making has positive consequences for the political legitimacy of a 6

7 new political unit created through municipal mergers. However, we do not know whether citizens actually want more opportunities for participation and what kinds of involvement they prefer in a situation where local government decision-making is becoming more distant from the citizens. Furthermore, although Dahl and Tufte (1973) suggest that small units offer better opportunities for citizen participation, we do not know whether there really are differences between various parts of a future enlarged political entity with regard to what kind of democratic engagement citizens want. Hence, these contributions leave questions unanswered. Can participatory innovations help create a viable political unit with sound democratic legitimacy? If so, what forms of democratic involvement do citizens prefer? Do they want direct democracy, e-democracy or some other forms of participation and influence? Do the citizens want more possibilities of participation or do they prefer traditional forms of political engagement? Are there differences in preferred methods between the future center of an enlarged political unit and the peripheral areas? These are the central questions we examine in the context of the Turku region in South Western Finland. The context of the study: Local government reforms in Finland and the Turku region This section introduces the context of the study and the Turku region in South Western Finland, where our data were collected. Finland is a highly decentralized country and it has long traditions of strong, autonomous municipalities (Larsen 2002; OECD 2012). The Finnish welfare state model was built during the 20 th century, and municipalities became the primary producers and providers of welfare services. In addition to health care, municipalities are responsible for a variety of other tasks such as children s day care, all education except universities, water and energy supply, waste management and development of public transportation. 1 Therefore, the welfare state in Finland as well as in other Nordic countries is also a welfare municipality (Larsen 2002). The municipal structures largely mimic the institutions of the Finnish state with some important exceptions. Municipal councils are elected every four years in proportional elections with open party lists. The councils also appoint the municipal managers, who are not elected officials, and select the local executives among their members. The tradition of consensual decision-making is also present at the local level in Finland. All parties that are represented in the council are usually represented in the local executive as well. The government-opposition division is therefore lacking in Finnish municipalities. The structure of Finnish local government has changed extensively from the 1960s onwards. The number of municipalities has decreased during the last 47 years in two separate waves. The first took place in the 1960s-1970s and the second in , resulting in a local government structure with 320 municipalities in the beginning of There are more municipal mergers on the horizon, because radical reform of local government is one of the main objectives in the Government 1 Finnish Association of Local and Regional Authorities, visited on the 3rd of May,

8 Programme of the current national government. This reform has been much debated before and after the working group on local government structures coordinated by the Ministry of Finance published a report in February 2012 suggesting that the number of municipalities in Finland should be reduced to The report also gave recommendations for the organization of the current municipalities into new political units. Quite expectedly, this received a lot of criticism, and the government came out later with more moderate numbers. As the next step in the reform, the government in June 2012 agreed upon the criteria, which an autonomous municipality has to fill in order to remain independent. The suggested minimum population size was set to 20,000 giving a clear message to municipalities smaller than this to merge with some of their neighbors. Several economic indicators were also introduced to ensure that the new municipalities would be able to arrange all mandatory public services. After receiving comments from the municipalities to the suggested structure of local government, the government gave the parliament a law proposal concerning the structuring of local government, which was enacted on the 1 st of July According to this, municipalities are obliged to look for possible companions during 2013 and give their own suggestion for the new municipal structure to the government by July This demand is backed up with the Ministry s authority to enforce special processes such as requiring referendums in reluctant municipalities. Based on these developments, it is clear that municipal mergers are a highly political and emotive topic in most municipalities, but also a likely fact in the near future for many local politicians and citizens. We focus on the Turku region in the South-West of Finland, where Turku is the central city with 180,000 inhabitants. It is surrounded by smaller some rural municipalities, and possible benefits of merging municipalities in the region have to some extent been explored during the last decade. However, official negotiations between Turku and the surrounding municipalities have not started yet. The issue was put on the agenda again in 2012 when the working group on local government structures suggested that Turku and 13 surrounding municipalities should form a common area, within which the possibility of a municipal merger is explored. Due to the topicality of the municipal merger, the Turku region constitutes an excellent chance to examine what forms of involvement inhabitants prefer in a new municipality formed through a merger, and the extent to which this involvement can help sustain political legitimacy. Even if the questions concern expectations and intentions rather than experience, this situation nonetheless provides us with a chance to explore what the inhabitants expect from a new political unit looming in the near future rather than a distant hypothetical scenario. Presentation of the study and empirical results To examine our research questions, a survey was conducted during the autumn 2012, which explores the attitudes and preferences of citizens as well as their political activity with regard to the past and the future at the prospect of a municipal merger. A total of sixteen forms of political participation and influence were included; both traditional methods and democratic innovations. Traditional forms of democracy included in the analysis are voting in local elections, contacting local official or 8

9 employee, contacting local politician, act as elected official (trustee), signing petition or initiative, and doing voluntary work. Following Newton s typology of democratic innovations, one item is concerned with direct democracy: voting in advisory referendum. Five modes of participation are concerned with information, consultation and deliberation: focus groups established for the purpose of dealing with certain local matters, town hall meetings where inhabitants, representatives and officials discuss issues relevant to the local community, general survey on various topics, citizen initiative and advisory referendum initiative. One item belongs to the co-governance category: local area councils where residents share decision-making power with politicians on locally important issues. Three e- democracy devices are included: commenting on the local council agenda, filling in the feedback form on the municipality homepage, and participating in surveys on the municipality homepage. In the following, we examine how the inhabitants of the Turku region feel about the prospect of a municipal merger and whether the introduction of democratic innovations may help to create democratic legitimacy in a new enlarged political unit. The first question concerns the expectations of inhabitants when it comes to the possibilities of participation and influence after the municipal merger. Based on previous research on the link between size and democracy, we examine differences between inhabitants in the urban Turku municipal area and inhabitants in the surrounding municipalities. Table 1 displays the results. Table 1 Assessment of possibilities of participation and influence in case of municipal merger Area N Much worse Somewhat worse No change Somewhat better Much better Mean score % Scale 1-5* Turku Marttila Sauvo Aura Kaarina Rusko Naantali Lieto Paimio Nousiainen Masku Mynämäki Tarvasjoki Raisio Peripheral municipalities total TOTAL Note: Question phrasing: How do you believe that citizen participation and influence will change in a potential enlarged municipal unit? The data has been weighted. * Higher mean scores indicate more positive attitudes towards the possibilities of participation and influence. 9

10 A majority of the inhabitants worry over loosing possibilities for participation and influence because of the municipal merger. However, it is important to note the important differences that exist between the inhabitants of urban Turku and those living in the peripheral municipalities. Although both sets of inhabitants tend to hold negative attitudes towards the effects of a potential city merger, the trend is much stronger in the peripheral municipalities. The majority in Turku tend to think that nothing will change or that the situation may even improve, while the majorities in all peripheral municipalities expect things to change for the worse. Table 2 Views on possibilities of participation in current municipality Mean Agree totally or agree somewhat Turku Rusko Tarvasjoki Sauvo Marttila Masku Lieto Naantali Mynämäki Kaarina Nousiainen Aura Raisio Paimio Peripheral municipalities total TOTAL Note: Question phrasing: How do your views correspond to the following statements: I am satisfied with the possibilities of participation and influence in my home municipality (5-point Likert scale from Agree totally to Disagree totally). A higher means score indicates a higher extent of agreement with the statement. When examining the satisfaction of the residents with the current possibilities, the source of these differences between Turku and the surrounding municipalities becomes clear, as is shown in Table 2. The Turku residents tend to be more dissatisfied with the current possibilities, while the populaces of the surrounding municipalities are more satisfied. Hence, the lack of worries among a majority of the Turku residents do not necessarily entail that they foresee the enlarged municipality to be legitimate. They instead expect it to be more of the same, which they are already fairly dissatisfied with. For the surrounding municipalities, the respondents worry that the possibilities for taking part and influencing decisions will deteriorate from the current situation with which they are generally satisfied. Either way, none of the two groups expect the new political unit to be well-functioning. Even in Turku, where the respondents are generally not satisfied with the current situation, it is only a small minority who believe that the situation will improve in a new political unit. Hence, there are clear indications that the inhabitants worry over the effects of the potential municipal merger and the creation of a new political unit to replace the old municipalities. This confirms the general expectation that citizens tend to prefer what they have to the possibilities of 10

11 the new. This shows that any new political unit formed through a merger is likely to have problems with the level of political legitimacy from the get-go. The subsequent question is what can be done to alleviate the fears and increase the political legitimacy of the new political structures. We here explore what opportunities for participation the respondents would like to be introduced in the new municipality formed by the merger. To examine this, we asked the respondents about their opinions on the use of a range of different options for citizen involvement. The results are shown in Table 3. Table 3 Opinions on citizen involvement in a new municipality Valid % Somewhat or completely agree Binding referendums should be used to decide on municipal mergers Advisory referendums should be used to decide on municipal mergers Initiatives for popular referendums affect the decisions of the local council Town hall meetings can help improve the mutual trust between inhabitants and the political decisionmakers Informal practices such as focus groups and Town hall meetings are needed on a regular basis New technological possibilities such as voting via the Internet should be used on a regular basis Voting in local elections is sufficient to influence local decisions Neutral Somewhat or completely disagree Note: Question phrasing: How do the following statements correspond to your opinion concerning the possibilities of participation and influence? The answers generally show that the inhabitants are in favor of more citizen involvement in the new political unit. The first two questions concern the use of binding and advisory referenda for deciding on municipal mergers, and here a majority agrees with the use of both binding (53%) and advisory (64.5%) referendums, although there is also a considerable minority (24.1%) opposed to the use of a binding referendum. Nonetheless, the bulk of the respondent clearly wish that citizens are directly involved in deciding on the merger. However, the third question on the use of citizen initiatives for popular referendums shows that the respondents are somewhat uncertain about the possibilities of getting this wish fulfilled, since only 28.2 per cent of the respondents believe that such initiatives affect the decisions of the local councils. A majority of 60.1 per cent tend to agree with the statement that town hall meetings can help improve the mutual trust between inhabitants and decision-makers, which we may take as evidence in favor of this kind of democratic innovation. The support for focus groups and town hall meetings is less clear-cut, since only about 40 per cent believes this is necessary, while about 60 per cent are either neutral or directly negative to this proposition. Contrary to this, about half of the respondents agree with the statement that the possibilities offered by the Internet and related ICT s should be used to involve citizens more regularly, and only 20.8 per cent are directly opposed. 11

12 All of this suggests that a large share of the inhabitants want to be involved on a more regular basis in the political decision-making of the new political entity. Somewhat perplexingly, there is also a large minority of 38.9 per cent who believe that voting in local elections is enough to influence the local decision-making, which suggests that several inhabitants are not interested in more direct forms of involvement. Instead, these people believe that electoral participation will be enough to influence the political decision-making, even in a larger political unit. 2 Despite this caveat, the evidence thus far suggests that large shares of citizens are worried over the impact of a municipal merger on the possibilities of influencing political decision-making. There is also evidence to suggest that citizens generally envisage democratic innovations new ways for citizens to take part in the political decision-making as a potential way to create political legitimacy for the new amalgamated political unit. In the following, we explore in more detail what forms of involvement citizens prefer to use to channel their preferences into the political decision-making. We do this by first comparing what means have been used to affect political decisions previously compared to what forms of involvement the inhabitants would like to use in the new municipality, as shown in Table 4. Table 4 Activities performed previously and interest in using in new municipality % have done % somewhat or very interested in using Vote in local election Contacting local officials or employees Sign petition or initiative Voluntary work Contacting local politicians Survey Town hall meetings Vote in advisory referendum Active elected official (trustee) Survey via municipal homepage Commenting on agenda of local council Feedback via municipal homepage Sign or author initiative for municipal referendum Focus groups Citizen initiative Local area council 31.4 Note: Question phrasings: % have done: How have you previously participated in municipal decision-making or brought issues to the municipal agenda? Which of the following forms of participation would you be interested in using in a future merged municipality? 2 This may also be testimony to the incoherency that it has been argued respondents display when answering questions on preferred forms of involvement (cf. Hibbing & Theiss-Morse 2002; Bengtsson 2012). 12

13 When examining these results, it should be kept in mind that all inhabitants have not had the opportunity to make use of all activities since several of the democratic innovations have not been used in the municipalities. Furthermore, to ask for future involvement is not necessarily a good measure of actual future involvement, since there may well be a tendency to exaggerate the actual extent of involvement. Both of these problems entail that we would expect the preferred future involvement to be larger than the extent of the actual experienced involvement (although there may also be a tendency for respondents to exaggerate here, especially for conventional forms of participation such as voting). Nevertheless, or even exactly for these reasons, the results here predict problems for the future extent of involvement in a merged municipality. For the more popular activities used previously, there is a clear tendency for fewer people being interested in using them in the future. This is most clearly the case for voting, where only 77 per cent state that they are interested in using it compared to more than 90 per cent who say they have done so. Although clearly neither of these numbers should be interpreted as an accurate measure of the actual extent of voting (the average level of turnout in the latest 2012 local elections in Finland was 58.2), it is nonetheless a clear indication that the inhabitants are less likely to consider elections an adequate source of influence. A similar, although less pronounced, pattern can be found for contacting local officials, sign petitions and voluntary work. With the possible exception of voluntary work, which may more properly be considered civic engagement, all of these activities are traditional forms of political participation where citizens interact with the political decision-makers. This suggests that the inhabitants do not consider the traditional forms of engagement as adequate tools for holding the decision-makers accountable, or at the very least that they would be less inclined to do so. Either way, this could be problematic since the new merger municipality would not be able to rely on the traditional means for sustaining democratic legitimacy. On the other hand, we see an increased willingness to engage in a range of new forms of interactions. Although some of these activities have not been available in all municipalities, and a low extent of actual involvement is therefore to be expected, it is nonetheless striking that large shares of citizens are interested in using direct democratic tools such as surveys, town hall meetings, advisory referendums, various e-democratic measures, focus groups and citizen initiatives. This clearly suggests that the introduction of new democratic innovations may be a necessity for creating a legitimate political entity. To further explore the interest in using democratic innovations, we performed a factor analysis to examine the underlying structure of the preferences for political activities after a merger not presently available to all inhabitants. The results are presented in Table The Kaiser criterion, which specifies that only factors with an eigenvalue larger than 1 should be extracted and is the most common rule for determining the number of factors, in this case only specifies that two factors should be extracted. However, this solution does not provide us with an easily interpretable solution and several indicators do not load strongly onto either dimension. Since the Kaiser criterion is only indicative (Velicer & Jackson 1990), we explored alternative number of dimensions to extract. The three factor model chosen at the same time provides a fairly neat solution and makes it possible to examine the factors leading to support for referendums. For this reason, we use this solution instead, which is also warranted by the popularity that the empirical results suggest this form of participation has (More on this below). 13

14 Table 5 Factor analysis of interest in using democratic innovations Component Focus groups Citizen initiative Town hall meetings Initiative for local advisory referendum Local area council Survey on municipal homepage Feedback form on municipal homepage Commenting on local council agenda General survey Advisory referendum % Variance explained Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy..883 Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square (df) (45)*** Note: Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation. *** P < See Table 4 for question phrasing. Although the results do not completely reflect Newton s typology, the three dimensions nonetheless correspond to three of the four categories. The first component involves participatory activities or direct involvement and this dimension mixes elements from Newton s second category information, consultation and deliberation with the third category co-governance. However, given the close connection between these two categories, it is hardly surprising that citizens do not distinguish between them. We refer to this dimension as agenda setting and deliberation in the following. The second component involves various activities whereby inhabitants can communicate their preferences to the decision-makers through less intense forms of involvement that entail responding to queries from the decision-makers, mainly in electronic form. This dimension corresponds to Newton s e-democracy. The final component includes advisory referendums, which is closely related to Newton s direct democracy. However, to acknowledge that advisory referenda are not the only type of direct democracy, we refer to this as referendum engagement. These three distinct dimensions then capture distinct forms of participation that the inhabitants envision using for transferring their preferences to decision-makers. Although the three dimensions share some commonalities, it is possible to create separate indexes that measure the attitude towards each of the three dimensions. In doing this, we include all activities with a loading stronger than 0.6 (bolded in the table) to create indexes that measure how positive each respondent is towards each form of participation. 4 Table 6 displays the mean scores for the three indexes in Turku and the surrounding municipalities. 4 By only including the activities with strong loadings rather than the factor scores, we decrease the correlation between the three dimensions. 14

15 Table 6 Mean scores of three engagement indexes in Turku and the periphery Agenda setting and deliberation Interest in using E-democracy Referendum Total Turku Periphery Difference -0.09*** -0.06*** 0.00 Note: Entries are mean scores on scale 0-1. The strongest support is found for using advisory referendums with a mean of 0.69 for all respondents, a result which is replicated in both Turku and the peripheral municipalities. The support for agenda setting & deliberation and e-democratic engagement is somewhat weaker at 0.46 and 0.45, yet the support for these forms of engagement is stronger in the surrounding municipalities than in Turku. The differences are not enormous, but they are statistically significant, and they show that it is especially inhabitants on the periphery who demand new participatory tools. Since these people are also most likely to doubt the legitimacy of the merger municipality, it underlines that it is necessary to create new forms of democratic involvement to nurture political legitimacy in the new political unit. However, since there are pronounced differences between the residents in Turku compared to the surrounding municipalities, we need to resort to regression analyses in order to confirm that the observed differences can be attributed to the place of residence. To ensure that the differences are valid, we include a number of other variables in these analyses, which simultaneously help discern the characteristics of the proponents of the three forms of engagement. These include sociodemographic characteristics age, gender and education, as well as the attitudinal factors political interest, party identification, ideology, political trust and social trust. More information on the coding of these variables can be found in the appendix together with descriptive statistics. The results are shown in Table 7. Here we see that the differences between Turku and the peripheral municipalities persist even when controlling for other aspects, since there are significant positive effects for agenda setting & deliberation and e-democracy while the differences remain insignificant for referendums. This then confirms that living in a peripheral municipality strengthens the interest in using agenda setting & deliberation and e-democracy in a new municipality, while the interest in using referendums is similar regardless of domicile. 15

16 Table 7 Regressions analyses Agenda setting and deliberation E-democracy Referendum Constant 0.01 (0.03) 0.20 (0.03) ** 0.33 (0.04) *** Peripheral municipality (ref=turku) 0.08 (0.01) *** 0.06 (0.01) *** 0.00 (0.01) age/ (0.03) * (0.03) *** 0.12 (0.04) ** Gender (Ref=female) 0.00 (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) ** Education 0.01 (0.02) 0.06 (0.02) ** 0.06 (0.02) ** Political interest 0.23 (0.02) *** 0.27 (0.02) *** 0.25 (0.03) *** Political trust 0.25 (0.03) *** 0.29 (0.03) *** 0.10 (0.04) * Party identification (0.02) *** 0.02 (0.02) 0.08 (0.03) ** Left-right ideology (1=right) 0.06 (0.02) ** (0.02) (0.02) *** Social trust 0.17 (0.03) *** 0.02 (0.03) 0.13 (0.03) *** Adjusted R N Note: Entries are coefficients from OLS regression analyses with standard errors in parenthesis. * p < 0.05; ** p< 0.01; *** p < The results for the other variables reveal some interesting differences among the supporters of the different kinds of involvement. The younger inhabitants prefer e-democracy, while the older support agenda setting & deliberation and referendums. The gender differences are small although women are slightly more likely to support advisory referendums. A higher extent of education leads to a stronger support for e-democracy and the use of referendums, while it does not affect the support for agenda setting and deliberation. As for attitudes, high political interest and high political trust both lead to support for all forms of engagement. The effect of party identification is ambiguous since it leads to a stronger support for advisory referendums, while it weakens support for agenda setting and deliberation. Inhabitants with right-leaning ideological tendencies are more likely to support agenda setting and deliberation while leftist inhabitants support referendums. Finally, those with a high extent of social trust support agenda setting & deliberation and referendums, while there are no significant differences for e- democracy. Conclusions Municipal mergers have far-reaching implications for citizen involvement in local politics. In this study, we have explored whether democratic innovations may enhance democratic legitimacy in a region where one large municipality and several smaller ones might be merged into a single municipal unit. The analysis clearly shows that the citizens in the Turku region are worried over the possibilities of political participation in a potential municipal merger, particularly so in the peripheral municipalities. This is conversely correlated with how satisfied the citizens are with the present possibilities of democratic involvement: in all but two smaller municipalities, a majority of the inhabitants are satisfied with the current situation, compared to merely one fifth in the city of Turku. 16

17 Accordingly, the consequences regarding democratic involvement are expected to be much more drastic on the periphery than in urban Turku. It has been argued that smaller units offer better prerequisites for citizens to effectively participate in politics (Dahl & Tufte 1973), and our findings show that the inhabitants in these currently small municipalities are interested in participatory innovations of various kinds to a greater extent than the populace in the city of Turku. Contrary to the suggestions of Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002), it seems like citizens want to be involved in the political decision-making to a greater extent. In this sense, democratic innovations may help cure the democratic malaise (cf. Newton 2012). Consultative and deliberative forums such as town hall meetings, focus groups and local area councils may engage citizens in the peripheral areas and create an adequate level of legitimacy, since the residents would still have influence on local issues that are important to them. Also agenda setting advices such as citizen and referendum initiatives have potential for involving citizens in the small municipalities. E- democracy also arouses more interest in the peripheral areas than in urban Turku. Accordingly, a future scenario would be agenda setting and deliberative solutions concerning local issues and more e-democracy with regard to issues that concern the merged municipality as a whole. Hence, we may conclude that participatory innovations have some potential for enhancing and reestablishing democratic legitimacy to some extent, particulary on the periphery and less so in urban areas. However, what is also clear is that citizens prefer different types of involvement depending on their background. The only form of participation that clearly arouses interest in the future center of a merged municipality, besides voting in local elections, is direct democracy in the form of voting in advisory referendums. Advisory referendum is the most popular democratic innovation in the peripheral areas as well. Yet, it should be pointed out that citizens are rather doubtful whether referendum initiatives really affect decision-making in the local councils. In this regard, consultative and deliberative forums are more effective in engaging politically interested citizens. Another important finding that concerns the research population as a whole is that young people are interested in e-democracy, which suggests that various forms of ICT-solutions might be the way forward regarding political engagement among future generations (cf. Milner 2010). Comparing traditional forms of democratic involvement to innovations, we found that the former gather more interest than the latter in the future as well. One explanation for this pattern is probably that people are more familiar with the traditional ways of participating in politics. It comes as no surprise that voting in local elections is the most popular form of participation after all, voting is the foremost way of exerting democratic influence. Furthermore, the purpose of democratic innovations is not to replace traditional forms participation but to serve as a complement and cure possible malaises of representative democracy. Our findings indicate that traditional forms of participation will not be adequate in a potential merger. For one thing, a large majority of the populace in the region believe that the possibilities of democratic involvement will get worse if a merger takes place. Moreover, when looking at attitudes towards some different options for citizen involvement, many think that alternative forms of participation and influence are needed, notably town hall meetings, various forms of ICT-solutions, and advisory referendums on municipal mergers. It should be 17