IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/polstu/v58y2010i4p731-751.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Process is the Reality: Perceptions of Procedural Fairness and Participatory Democracy

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Carman

Abstract

To (re)connect and (re‐)engage citizens with their governing institutions, many advanced industrial democracies have adopted innovative reforms designed to ‘transform’ the way citizens interact with public institutions. This article assesses the extent to which the Scottish Parliament's petitioning system, a reform designed to connect the Scottish public with its parliament, influences broader trust in the political system. Using structural equations to model data from a survey of Scottish Parliament petitioners, the article finds that process evaluations far exceed outcome evaluations in influencing petitioner trust in political institutions. Hence simply adopting reforms that allow for ‘civic engagement’ is not enough to improve public support for the political system. Great care must be taken in adopting transformative reforms to ensure that those members of the public who do choose to ‘engage’ with political institutions see procedures as fair and politically neutral.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Carman, 2010. "The Process is the Reality: Perceptions of Procedural Fairness and Participatory Democracy," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(4), pages 731-751, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:58:y:2010:i:4:p:731-751
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00840.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00840.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00840.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbing, John R., 2001. "Process Preferences and American Politics: What the People Want Government to Be," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 145-153, March.
    2. Charles Pattie & Patrick Seyd & Paul Whiteley, 2003. "Citizenship and Civic Engagement: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britain," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 51, pages 443-468, October.
    3. Charles Pattie & Patrick Seyd & Paul Whiteley, 2003. "Citizenship and Civic Engagement: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britain," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 51(3), pages 443-468, October.
    4. Kenneth Newton, 2006. "Political Support: Social Capital, Civil Society and Political and Economic Performance," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54, pages 846-864, December.
    5. Kenneth Newton, 2006. "Political Support: Social Capital, Civil Society and Political and Economic Performance," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(4), pages 846-864, December.
    6. Matsusaka, John G., 2004. "For the Many or the Few," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226510811, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luís Aguiar-Conraria & Pedro C. Magalhães, 2018. "Procedural Fairness, the Economy, and Support for Political Authorities (Forthcoming at Political Psychology (submitted pre-print version))," NIPE Working Papers 05/2018, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    2. Henrik Serup Christensen, 2019. "Boosting Political Trust with Direct Democracy? The Case of the Finnish Citizens’ Initiative," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 173-186.
    3. Pedro C. Magalhães & Luís Aguiar-Conraria, 2017. "Procedural Fairness and Economic Voting," NIPE Working Papers 07/2017, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    4. Zhu, Zhongkun & Ma, Wanglin & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Leng, Chenxin, 2020. "The effect of internet usage on perceptions of social fairness: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Jungin Kim, 2021. "The Effects and Antecedents of Perceived Fairness in the Deliberative Process for Sustainable Citizens’ Participation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-12, July.
    6. Salil Benegal & Mikhael Shor, 2016. "Procedural Justice and Political Risk," Working papers 2016-30, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hilde Coffe & Catherine Bolzendahl, 2011. "Gender Gaps in Political Participation Across Sub-Saharan African Nations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(2), pages 245-264, June.
    2. Gustavo Gouvêa Maciel & Luís de Sousa, 2018. "Legal Corruption and Dissatisfaction with Democracy in the European Union," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(2), pages 653-674, November.
    3. Bennett, Kyle M. & Campbell, Jeanna M. & Hays, Scott P., 2022. "Engaging youth for positive change: A mixed methods evaluation of site level program implementation & outcomes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Elizaveta Kopacheva, 2021. "Predicting online participation through Bayesian network analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-22, December.
    5. Małgorzata Marks-Krzyszkowska & Krystyna Dzwonkowska-Godula & Anna Miklaszewska, 2022. "Types of Rural Residents in Central Poland in Terms of Their Local Participation: The Perspectives of the Local Authorities and the Inhabitants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-25, October.
    6. Anna Liddo & Grazia Concilio, 2017. "Making Decision in Open Communities: Collective Actions in the Public Realm," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 847-856, September.
    7. Huang, Jian & Maassen van den Brink, Henriëtte & Groot, Wim, 2009. "A meta-analysis of the effect of education on social capital," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 454-464, August.
    8. Kjell Andersson & Stefan Sjöblom, 2013. "Localism in Finland: The changing role and current crisis of the Finnish municipal system," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 28(3), pages 240-256, May.
    9. Andreea Ligia DRUGAU-CONSTANTIN & Andra Karla ANGHEL-SIENERTH, 2022. "Challenges Of Civic Participation At Eu Level During Covid-19 Pandemic: European Citizens' Initiative," APPLIED RESEARCH IN ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 3(1), pages 4-10, April.
    10. Anders Lidström, 2010. "Citizens’ Intermunicipal Political Orientations: Evidence from Swedish City-regions," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(10), pages 2093-2109, September.
    11. Matt Henn & Mark Weinstein & Sarah Forrest, 2005. "Uninterested Youth? Young People's Attitudes towards Party Politics in Britain," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 53(3), pages 556-578, October.
    12. Matteo Migheli, 2016. "Behind the Wall: What Remains of the “Communist Legacy” in Contemporary Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 671-690, June.
    13. Anders Lidström, 2006. "Commuting and Citizen Participation in Swedish City‐Regions," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(4), pages 865-888, December.
    14. Thapa, Manish, 2022. "Civic Engagement Practice at Planning and Monitoring System by Local Government (s) of Nepal," MPRA Paper 111667, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Le Tang & Fengqin Zhou & Xueliang Feng & Yali Luo, 2018. "Collective Civic Petitions in Urban Neighborhoods: A Comparative Study between Two Different-Tier Chinese Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-17, December.
    16. Alexander De Juan & Jan Henryk Pierskalla, 2016. "Civil war violence and political trust: Microlevel evidence from Nepal," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 33(1), pages 67-88, February.
    17. Jēkabsone Inga & Sloka Biruta, 2016. "Social Capital, Well-Being and Municipality: Salaspils Municipality (Latvia) Case," Economics and Culture, Sciendo, vol. 13(1), pages 65-75, June.
    18. Peter Kotzian, 2014. "Good Governance and Norms of Citizenship: An Investigation into the System- and Individual-Level Determinants of Attachment to Civic Norms," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 58-83, January.
    19. Stolle, Dietlind & Hooghe, Marc, 2009. "Shifting inequalities? Patterns of exclusion and inclusion in emerging forms of political participation," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2009-204, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    20. Geys, Benny, 2007. "How to make head or tail of bridging and bonding? Adressing the methodological ambiguity [Wie ist ‘Briding vs. Bonding’ sozialer Netzwerke zu verstehen? Das Problem der methodischen Zweideutigkeit]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-11, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:polstu:v:58:y:2010:i:4:p:731-751. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0032-3217 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.