While delegation of policy-making authority from citizens to legislature and government is the
most defining characteristic of representative democracy, public demand for delegating such
authority away from legislature/government to technocrats or back to citizens appears to have
increased. Drawing on spatial models of voting we argue that the distance between individuals’
ideal policy point, the status quo, experts’ policy position, and the aggregated societal policy
preference can explain whether individuals want to delegate decision-making power away from
parliament and, if so, to whom. This relationship is expected to be stronger when the policy
issue dimension is salient for the respective individuals. We test this theory using survey
experiments in Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. The empirical analysis supports our
theoretical arguments. Our research contributes to better understanding citizens’ support for
representative democracy and variation in preferences for delegating policymaking authority
away from parliament.
