High Democratic Efficacy Restrains Populism
* Recent research has found that democratic efficacy, a concept created by DEMOS, is negatively associated with populism. * The higher the levels of democratic efficacy, the less prone a citizen is to agree with populist statements. * Findings suggest that one in 10 Europeans is fully democratic efficacious, while a third of them show a low level of democratic efficacy. Research used data from 15 EU countries. * Western democracies score the highest in democratic efficacy, while Central and Eastern European countries such as Poland score the lowest. New research by the H2020 project DEMOS has found a relationship between populism and democratic efficacy, a concept created by the project to assess whether citizens can resist the populist appeal. Citizens with high scores in all components of democratic efficacy believe they can influence politics. They also trust the responsiveness of politics and are well informed about it. Besides, they have political skills and support values of liberal democracy. The research has shown that they are less likely to agree with populist statements and adopt populist attitudes. The DEMOS project assumes that they are also better prepared to resist populist governments and narratives. Thus, DEMOS is working on proposals to enhance democratic efficacy. Besides testing the concept, the research also measured it. The research team analysed survey data, collected in 2019, from 15 European countries. The findings suggest that one in 10 Europeans has high levels of democratic efficacy. Nearly a third of citizens score low in several components of democratic efficacy. The lower scores suggest that citizens are more likely to take a populist attitude. MORE INFORMATION Read the full press release and download the working paper on the DEMOS website: https://demos-h2020.eu/en/high-democratic-efficacy-restrains-populism
Keywords
democratic efficacy, DEMOS, H2020, Populism, Democracy, Research, Science, Central, Eastern, European, Countries, Italy, Hungary, Poland, society