Does Populism promote citizen participation

Abstract

owadays, Western European democracies are facing several challenges: electoral volatility and scepticism are increasing, while party membership and support in favour of politicians and institutions are decreasing (Dalton, Scarrow & Cain, 2004). Voters’ attachment and identification with conventional political alternatives are waning, and mainstream parties are increasingly perceived as distant from the civic society and alike to one another in terms of ideology and policies (Mair, 2002). Citizens are demanding to expand their access to the political arena and the policy-making processes, asking for an improvement of the transparency of governance and a higher reliability of politicians (Dalton et al., 2004). In particular, voters stress the importance of eliminating every form of intermediates between them and the policies, showing dissatisfaction towards representative democracy.