Consequences of Political Confidence

What are the respective consequences of individual citizens’ confidence in representative and regulative institutions and authorities? In the fourth chapter of his book, Schnaudt analyzes whether the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of citizens’ confidence in representative and regulative institutions and authorities are the same or rather different ones. According to the author, despite recurring lamentations about a lack of research on the implications of political confidence, so far much more effort has been spent on investigating the antecedents of political confidence rather than its consequences. In order to alleviate this omission from the literature, Schnaudt examines the respective influence of confidence in representative and regulative institutions and authorities on citizens’ support for different models of democratic citizenship as well as citizens’ political participation. Relying on individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS), the author shows that confidence in representative institutions and authorities fosters citizens’ support for a participatory model of citizenship, whereas confidence in regulative institutions and authorities increases citizens’ support for a representative model of citizenship. Contrary to more recent findings in the empirical literature, Schnaudt’s analysis concerning the behavioral implications of political confidence shows that neither confidence in representative institutions and authorities nor in regulative ones exerts an impact on citizens’ institutionalized or non-institutionalized political participation. The fourth chapter thus provides novel insights into both the attitudinal and behavioral implications of political confidence, in particular in those instances in which the author is able to demonstrate varying consequences of confidence in representative and regulative institutions and authorities.