Partisan, not Ignorant - Citizens' Use of Arguments and Justifications in Direct Democracy

203 Pages·2016·2.16 MB·English

by  Céline Colombo

Partisan, not Ignorant -
Citizens' Use of Arguments and
Justifications in Direct Democracy
Céline Colombo

Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to
obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences
of the European University Institute

May 2016

European University Institute
Department of Political and Social Sciences
Partisan, not Ignorant -
Citizens' use of Arguments and Justifications in Direct Democracy
Céline Colombo

Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to
obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences
of the European University Institute
Examining Board
Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute, Supervisor
Prof. Alexander Trechsel, European University Institute, Co-Supervisor
Prof. Diana Mutz, University of Pennsilvania
Prof. Rune Slothuus, Aarhus University

© Céline Colombo, 2016

No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior
permission of the author
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Researcher declaration to accompany the submission of written work
Department of Political and Social Sciences - Doctoral Programme
I, Céline Colombo, certify that I am the author of the work Partisan, not Ignorant - Citizens' Use of
Arguments and Justifications in Direct Democracy, I have presented for examination for the Ph.D. at the
European University Institute. I also certify that this is solely my own original work, other than where I
have clearly indicated, in this declaration and in the thesis, that it is the work of others.
I warrant that I have obtained all the permissions required for using any material from other copyrighted
publications.
I certify that this work complies with the Code of Ethics in Academic Research issued by the European
University Institute (IUE 332/2/10 (CA 297).
The copyright of this work rests with its author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full
acknowledgement is made. This work may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. This
authorisation does not, to the best of my knowledge, infringe the rights of any third party.
I declare that this work consists of 56,752 words.

Statement of inclusion of previous work:
I confirm that chapter 4 was jointly co-authored with Professor Hanspeter Kriesi and I contributed more
than 60% of the work.

Statement of language correction:
This thesis has been corrected for linguistic and stylistic errors. I certify that I have checked and approved
all language corrections, and that these have not affected the content of this work.

Signature and date:
10/03/2016,

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Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 9
List of Tables and Figures ............................................................................................................. 15

Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 19
1.1 Research motivation ....................................................................................................................... 19
1.2 Direct democracy in Switzerland and beyond ................................................................................ 27
1.2.1 Types of direct democratic instruments ......................................................................................... 29
1.2.2 Direct democratic instruments at the national level in Switzerland ............................................... 30
1.2.3 Direct democracy in Scotland ........................................................................................................ 34
1.2.4 Increasing use of direct democracy ................................................................................................ 34
1.3 Thesis outline.................................................................................................................................. 38

Chapter 2 Deliberation, direct democracy and citizen competence – towards a concept of
considered opinion, a review of theory ..................................................................... 43
2.1 Participatory democracy theory ...................................................................................................... 44
2.1.1 Direct democracy ........................................................................................................................... 46
2.1.2 Deliberative democracy .................................................................................................................. 47
2.1.3 On the antagonism between direct and deliberative democracy .................................................... 50
2.2 Public opinion research: political knowledge and citizen competence .......................................... 54
2.2.1 Cold cognition – heuristics and biases ........................................................................................... 56
2.2.2 A motivational theory of political reasoning .................................................................................. 58
2.3 The task structure: considering the context of the vote .................................................................. 61
2.4 Bringing the perspectives together: justifications as the connecting link ....................................... 63
Chapter 3 Justifications and citizen competence in direct democracy – a multilevel analysis……. 69
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3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 69
3.2 Theoretical considerations and hypotheses .................................................................................... 70
3.2.1 Justifications and citizen competence ............................................................................................ 70
3.2.2 Individual resources and the decisional context ............................................................................. 73
3.2.3 Individual level – ability and motivation ....................................................................................... 73
3.2.4 Context level – opportunity ............................................................................................................ 74
3.3 Research design, data and measurement ........................................................................................ 75
3.3.1 Data ................................................................................................................................................ 75
3.3.2 Measures......................................................................................................................................... 76
3.4 Empirical results: multilevel analysis ............................................................................................. 80
3.4.1 Determinants of the level of justification ....................................................................................... 81
3.4.2 Low-complexity vs. high-complexity issues .................................................................................. 85
3.5 Discussion, conclusions and limitations ......................................................................................... 87

Chapter 4 Party, policy – or both? Partisan biased processing of policy arguments in direct
democracy ................................................................................................................... 93
4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 93
4.2 Theoretical considerations: Party over policy?............................................................................... 94
4.2.1 Deep or shallow? Party cues as heuristics or triggers of biased systematic processing? ............... 97
4.2.2 Individual and context-level moderators: political knowledge and issue complexity .................... 99
4.3 Research design, data and measurement ...................................................................................... 100
4.3.1 Data .............................................................................................................................................. 100
4.3.2 The two cases ............................................................................................................................... 101
4.3.3 Key concepts / operationalization ................................................................................................ 102
4.4 Empirical results ........................................................................................................................... 105
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4.4.1 Part one: direct effects of party preference and policy arguments on vote intention and
campaign effects ........................................................................................................................... 105
4.4.2 Part two: does party preference affect position on policy arguments? ......................................... 109
4.5 Discussion and conclusion ........................................................................................................... 112

Chapter 5 Debiasing political opinions - the case of the Scottish independence referendum ....... 117
5.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 117
5.2 Motivated reasoning and considered opinions ............................................................................. 118
5.3 Research design ............................................................................................................................ 124
5.3.1 Stimulus material .......................................................................................................................... 125
5.3.2 Treatments .................................................................................................................................... 125
5.3.3 Measures....................................................................................................................................... 126
5.3.4 Balance checks ............................................................................................................................. 129
5.4 Analysis ........................................................................................................................................ 129
5.4.1 Integrative complexity .................................................................................................................. 129
5.4.2 Robustness of findings on integrative complexity ....................................................................... 132
5.4.3 Argument strength ratings ............................................................................................................ 133
5. 5 Discussion and conclusion ........................................................................................................... 136

Chapter 6 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 143
6.1 Research questions ....................................................................................................................... 143
6.2 Citizen competence ...................................................................................................................... 145
6.3 Main findings................................................................................................................................ 145
6.4 Contributions and limitations ....................................................................................................... 148
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................... 153
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 181
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This thesis is a work of independent research. In accordance with §9.2 of the
‘Academic rules and regulations for the doctoral and master’s programmes’ at the
European University Institute (as amended by Academic Council decision N° 2 of
10 December 2014), the thesis contains my own account of my investigations. It
has not previously been published in full. Earlier versions of some of the contents
(chapter 4 is co-authored with Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi) are part of the work, and I
contributed over 60%.
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