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From Problems to Solutions? Interpretations of the Main Flaws of the Political System and Support for Institutional Reform

Democracy
Governance
Institutions
Public Opinion
Survey Research
Lilian Hosteins
Sciences Po Bordeaux
Lilian Hosteins
Sciences Po Bordeaux
Camille Bedock
Sciences Po Bordeaux

Abstract

It is well established in the literature on process preferences that dissatisfaction with the functioning of the political system is associated with higher support for different institutional mechanisms, such as direct democracy, sortition, or even authoritarian alternatives. Does the dissatisfaction with the status quo embodied by representative democracy imply support for any alternative to the current institutional order, or does the interpretation of the main shortcomings of the current system influence the type of mechanisms supported? This is the research question addressed in this paper. Thanks to an original survey module conducted in France inspired by the ‘problem-based approach’ of institutional reform (Warren 2017), we examine whether interpretations of the main flaws of the institutional system can be linked to support for six institutional mechanisms. Two of them relate to the renewal of the representative link to make representation more inclusive (quotas to improve descriptive representation and term limits), two to the control of political elites (recall, and the obligation to pay elected representatives with the average national salary), and the final two to the shift of decision-power from politicians to citizens (citizen-initiated referendums, and the replacement of elected representatives by citizens selected by lot). Through multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and ordered logit models, we show that, besides dissatisfaction with the working of the political system and the sociodemographic and political variables influencing preferences for institutional reform, the interpretation of the main flaws of the institutional system has an impact on the solutions favoured by citizens to fix it.