Institutional Design, Citizens’ Preferences and Policymaking

Much discussion of democratization seems to assume that allowing the citizens to shape public policy is one of the costs, rather than one of the benefits, of introducing a new democracy. Yet, a principal claim of democracy is to connect the desires of citizens and the actions of policymakers. Moreover, institutionalized citizen influence may help constrain elite exploitation and encourage citizen support. If that were a serious goal of democratization, how might it be affected by differences in the design of democratic institutions? This essay considers: (a) the conceptual problem of aggregating citizen’s preferences into policymaking influence; (b) what we know about the role of two critical institutional arrangements--election rules and decision rules–in shaping citizen influence in established, stabilized democracies; (c) some elements in a research agenda for analyzing the establishment of such connections in newly democratizing systems. 1 Institutional Design, Citizens’ Preferences and Policymaking G. Bingham Powell Much discussion of democratization seems to assume that allowing the citizens to shape public policy is one of the costs, rather than one of the benefits, of introducing democracy. Citizens are apparently too short sighted to endure the dislocations of economic transitions from authoritarian dominated economies, too enamored of welfare expenditures to support economic investment, too susceptible to populist “quick fixes” to control inflation, guarantee property rights, or even sustain civil freedoms. Institutional design needs to insulate policy makers from citizens, rather than create connections to them, needs to combine the virtues of guardianship with the symbols of democracy. Yet, one of the primary justifications for a democratic political system is that it provides institutional arrangements, above all genuinely competitive elections, that will enable the wishes of the citizens to prevail in making public policy. Democracy and guardianship are, philosophically, very different types of political systems. There is scattered evidence, moreover, that in new democracies as in old ones, guardians too easily confuse self-interest and public interest, while average citizens have unexpected capacities to demonstrate patience, learn perspective on their long term interests and penetrate elite smoke-screens. In some cases the successful establishment of institutions for genuine citizen influence on policy making is apparently not a luxury, but a necessity to complete a transition to a consolidated democracy and a competitive economy. (See especially Hellman 1998.) My goal in this paper is to discuss a research agenda for studying the effects of institutional arrangements on the citizen-policymaker connection in democratizing countries. I shall just assume for my purposes that strong connections are desirable, both intrinsically and for the net public policy outcomes. Whether the latter is in fact so, is another research issue. I shall organize the discussion in the following way. (1) I shall briefly discuss the conceptual issues involved in connecting citizens’ preferences with what policymakers do, trying to recognize the difficulties and suggest some ways around them; (2) I shall review some recent work on how election rules and decision rules shape these connections in the established democracies of the economically developed world; (3) I shall suggest some of the things we need to know about the effects of institutions in the social and political contexts of the newly democratizing countries–some elements in a research agenda. Conceptualizing Citizens’ Preferences and Policy Connections Analyzing the desirable connections between what citizens want and what policymakers do is a very difficult problem, particularly if we want to assess the success of different institutional designs in achieving such connections. It is difficult both theoretically and empirically. I cannot in this brief paper adequately address all the issues involved. (For more extensive discussions see