Abstract
In political science, the theme of critical citizenship is often interpreted negatively and understood to express distrust. However, criticism can be motivated by positive aspirations towards democracy and how to improve it. In order to test this idea, we asked respondents to the Democracy and citizenship survey to rank how the features of different types of democratic legitimacy appealed to them. The module adopted an innovative methodology by bringing together philosophy (political theory) and political science. This approach led to a series of results that tempered and questioned the more prevalent pessimistic understandings of critical citizenship. Furthermore, this article looks closely at controversy surrounding the meaning ascribed to criticism and discusses the presuppositions made by many political sociology studies and their differing hypotheses on critical citizenship. It shows that the very definition of criticism remains unclear and proposes a ‘critical understanding of criticism’ adopting a meta-critical stance (as is often the case in philosophy) to better identify four possible types of criticism: reactive criticism (primary), evaluative, propositional (first or secondary order) and pluralist political criticism.
Keywords
As democracy has evolved over time, the significant theme of critical citizenship has become more prevalent, notably at election time when votes are cast and interpreted. Critical citizenship is often used to explain sanctions by voters of representatives who are not re-elected or issues proposed in a referendum. It has happened in Switzerland, for example, that initiatives that have enjoyed great parliamentary or governmental support at canton or national level have been rejected when put to a referendum. Journalists and/or political specialists are not alone in interpreting criticism as being almost entirely negative. A certain amount of political science 1 research also does, seeing it as similar to distrust and anger and as signifying a lack of interest and/or cynicism among citizens.
The present article goes beyond this negative and above all limited understanding of criticism. Firstly, criticism can be motivated by positive aspirations. Secondly, the article takes a close look at controversy surrounding the meanings attributed to criticism. As shall be seen, a large number of studies in political sociology establish very different hypotheses about critical citizenship, but more importantly the very definition of criticism remains unclear. This article draws on the rich concept of criticism that lies at the core of modern thinking and the philosophical tradition as a whole. It thus broadens critical understanding of criticism and, as is often the case in philosophy, adopts a meta-critical stance or a ‘criticism of criticism’. This approach has been adopted in order to better distinguish between the possible meanings of criticism and the conditions under which it occurs. In politically plural democracies, different types of criticism are made by citizens who are frequently in opposition to each other. The liberal and pluralist democratic framework guarantees the coexistence of such opposition.
One of the major contributions of the article is that it makes an analytical distinction between four different types of criticism. These range from individual criticism by individuals with varying levels of knowledge and competence to a type of criticism that takes the plurality of criticisms made by other citizens or groups into account. It thus qualifies criticism as reactive (primary), evaluative or propositional (first or secondary order) and politically pluralist.
The article highlights various dimensions of criticism that focus on different types of issues and that require different types of competence. It looks at evaluations reflected in both positive and negative criticism and shows that criticism in all its potentialities is essential to political life as it enhances the ability among citizens to understand the issues, to view them at some remove, to protest and to develop solutions. The focus of criticism is always to transform a given state of affairs and move towards an outcome that is aspired to and seen as being better or at least preferable to the existing state of affairs. Criticism is analysed here in the context of the democratic system and how it might be improved by citizens who want to be actively involved in bringing about change.
Another innovative step in relation to the existing literature on critical citizenship was to expose respondents to different traits of democratic legitimacy, taken from normative theories of democracy (Cunningham, 2008). The creation of a link between democratic legitimacies and different types of critical citizenships explains the title of the present article. We focused not only on criticism of the exercise of politics within a democratic framework and on the tendency towards engagement among citizens, but also on political theories that justify a given type of democracy. The latter constitutes the main objective of this article. To put it succinctly, different political theories of democracy are at odds with each other on the very foundation and definition of democracy.
Added to the conceptual exploration of criticism, its potential and its role within democracy (without effacing its negative aspects), one of the original features of the research presented here is a methodological innovation. The Democracy and Citizenship Module 2 was designed and built on the basis of a close collaboration between political philosophy and quantitative political science. Subsequent analyses are based on responses to a questionnaire on ‘Democracy and Citizenship’ undertaken from December 2 to 7, 2016 among a population of 18, 013 individuals aged 18 years and over, registered as voters and constituting a representative sample of the French population. The questionnaire was part of the 2017 French Electoral Survey (wave 9) carried out by the Centre de Recherches Politiques de Sciences Po (CEVIPOF). It consisted of eight questions.
The first issue was to solve the problem of how to propose empirical features of theoretical models of democracy and turn them into survey items to test their appeal among respondents. This methodological approach thus revisits the division between philosophy and sociology. From an analytical perspective, it provided a way out of the opposition between political analyses which posit that citizens use criticism either to express their distrust or fatigue with democracy, or on the contrary to express their democratic aspirations. The approach also provides a better account of the complex nature of the concept of criticism and its connection to the ideals of democracy. Democracy is one of the only systems to accept and institutionalise criticism of itself. In so doing, it uses self-criticism in order to improve itself.
In the second part, we shall take a closer look at how to identify types of critical citizenship, types of criticism (4.1.) and what respondents consider democracy to be. We shall look at whether and how citizens are prepared to become engaged (4.2.). We shall then analyse the nature of the democratic framework their criticism is built on or, to put it more simply, that best defines democracy for them (4.3). These latter questions reflect the improvement of democracy that is aspired to.
In an attempt to show the potential of criticism analytically (2.1.–2.3.), the first part of the article discusses a number of perspectives or models that include criticism of democracy in very different ways (1). Particular reference is made to furtive democracy (pessimistic) (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, 2002) and its opposite, sunshine democracy (optimistic) (Neblo et al., 2010). These two descriptions add to our understanding of democracy and are frequently linked to critical citizenship. However, neither of them fully grasps either the content or the tone of criticism itself.
Multi-layered types of criticism
In political science, critical citizenship covers a wide variety of research hypotheses and perspectives.
Relational criticism
Let us turn briefly to the general framework for criticism approached from a relational perspective. Here, criticism is seen in the context of how respondents perceive their elected representatives and institutions from the perspective of trust/distrust. A few remarks will then follow.
Under representative democracy, citizens agree to delegate most of their power to representatives who are chosen by them through regular elections. To a certain degree, representative democracy today is being called into question as the idea of more direct participation becomes more popular. But here again, negative criticism tends to dominate when citizens are asked to vote on items or projects by referendum, as is more frequently the case in smaller countries like Switzerland or in some US states, for example.
A type of discourse (frequently at the extreme ends of the political spectrum) that sees an opposition between ‘the people’ and the system has also begun to emerge. This is in spite of the fact that the term ‘people’ forms the very basis of the democratic system. Furthermore, in democratic and pluralist countries, the ‘people’ are divided, not only for cultural, ethical or religious reasons or because of the different interests of social class or profession but also because of normative preferences that lie at the very heart of the exercise of democratic politics and its conditions and priorities. This is all the more true in larger areas that are part of a long-term institutional framework such as the European Union.
Beyond the diversity inherent to a community of citizens, the crisis of representation and trust in institutions and other groups (the media and scientists, for example), while ordinary citizens have always been (at least theoretically) at the heart of the democratic system, over the past two decades, political scientists believe they have become more and more critical. Thus, since the 2000s, Pippa Norris, for example, has written about ‘critical citizenship’ (P. Norris, 1999, 2011) 3 . In research of this type, the term ‘critical’ is frequently seen as having negative connotations and citizens frequently described as distrustful and even disillusioned. Understood in this sense, the term conveys an erosion of trust in elected representatives, the initiatives, referendums and consultations they undertake and more radically an erosion of trust in representative democracy.
Other research such as the CEVIPOF’s Baromètre de la confiance politique 4 (in English: the Barometer of Political Trust) analyses criticism from the perspective of attitudes towards a given type of institution.
These observations echo other work outside the strictly academic sphere such as the work of the very popular French pollster, Brice Teinturier, CEO of the IPSOS Institute (2017). Teinturier described these citizens as ‘prafistes’ (Plus rien à foutre/faire de la politique), in English ‘couldn’t care less about politics anymore’. This is how he describes a population of voters who no longer have any expectations of politics. According to him, ‘30% of French people are disgusted or indifferent and without making a fuss have quietly distanced themselves from politics’. He goes further, saying ‘32% of French people believe that other political systems can be as good as democracy’.
A few remarks
Firstly, these approaches focus on the negative aspect of criticism, understood as distrust.
Secondly, it is not so much the content of trust or inversely of criticism that are thematised as the relationship to institutions and/or representatives, whom ordinary citizens believe may or may not be worthy of trust.
Thirdly, this research links a lack of interest in political involvement among citizens to such criticism.
Critical citizenship can be seen to reflect an increasing level of cynicism among ordinary citizens towards their elected representatives, leading to a general crisis for intermediary bodies (e.g. environmental associations and advocacy associations) notably the more traditional political parties or indeed the trade unions as the Yellow Vests crisis has shown in France. This seems to suggest that a lack of engagement with traditional political organisations has become prevalent.
However, as shall be seen later on, criticism is not necessarily negative. The majority of survey respondents are prepared to become actively involved and above all the content of criticism itself merits thorough investigation.
Furtive democracy vs sunshine democracy
Other research (Stocker and Hay, 2012; Stoker, 2006, 2012; Hay, 2007; Hansard Society, 2011) inspired by explanations taken from cognitive anthropology of the folk theories type (Holland and Quinn, 1987; Lakoff, 2002; Kempton, 1986; Keesing, 1987), also explore criticism in a negative and restrictive sense as shall be seen later. These explanations seek shared ‘commonsense or taken-for-granted ways of understanding’ (Stocker and Hay, 2012, p. 4) capable of orienting individual actions. Such research develops more loaded hypotheses than relational approaches do. They sketch concepts of how politics function within a democratic framework. Some of these conceptions are presented below followed by a number of remarks pertaining to them.
It was mainly Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002) who introduced these very general anthropological theories to political science. They then proposed the idea of ‘stealth democracy’ (StD). Their conception is pessimistic, with democracy seen as an unpleasant aspect of modern life which wastes time and leads to corruption. The authors also infer that because of this, citizens only become involved in politics under sufferance. Thus, political debate is nonsense as sensible people agree on what needs to be done. These authors add that according to this vision, what is expected of the government is effective action which would be better executed by experts on the basis of correct information. According to this vision of politics, effectiveness is therefore essential to politics.
However, a more optimistic vision (Neblo et al., 2010) so-called ‘sunshine democracy’ (SuD) does exist. Unlike stealth democracy, this liberal model of representative democracy ascribes value to debate and above all recognises the importance of finding compromise. The essential aspect of the model is that politics enables reconciliation. These analysts add that as long as politics obeys such an ideal well enough, citizens will be prepared and even happy to become involved.
Remarks on non-symmetrical oppositions
The opposition between these two models based on presuppositions taken from folk theory – a set of very general cognitive anthropology hypotheses – also call for a number of remarks.
Firstly, Theiss-Morse and Neblo et al. establish a direct dependence between their model and what elected representatives should do. According to StD, they must manage to make effective decisions. According to SuD, they must manage to find compromises. On reflection, these terms of ‘effectiveness’ and ‘compromise’ are not necessarily in opposition to each other. A greater level of effectiveness can be reached through compromise. Furthermore, depending on the shape of institutions within the State, compromise can be more or less easily reached.
Secondly, one presupposition made by StD is that good decisions go without saying. It is assumed that good decisions are simply common sense.
And of course a full account of this common sense/meaning must be given for complex decisions such as the majority of collective choices and above all the ways in which they are justified normatively, as is the case for fair taxation, job creation or ecological transition, for example. The process of identifying this common sense is challenging given that it is to be found in the frequently confrontational terrain of politics and even more so in democracy where political conflict reigns supreme. The institutional context itself – the separation of powers and the guaranteed existence of parties that are in opposition to each other – fans the birth and mushrooming of these conflicts.
Thirdly, and paradoxically, the StD theory implies the replacement of elected representatives by experts. This is counter-intuitive as common sense is frequently the opposite of expertise, notably in the analysis of complex systems such as politics, where decisions are taken on a number of complex economic or environmental systems or in international relations, for example. Furthermore, the opposition between expert and non-expert knowledge has frequently been observed, as attested to by a sizeable amount of research particularly in the domain of controversial technical choices and participatory technological assessment (Reber, 2006, 2011a). In this area, a large number of collective choices have caused controversy where common sense was not immediately apparent.
Conversely, SuD takes conflict or at the very least pluralism (interpretative or normative interests) seriously, as in such a context compromise must necessarily be reached through discussion. Similarly to compromise, pluralism can lead to decisions that are better than those taken only on the basis of common sense.
SuD could be compared to a minimal form of deliberative democracy as it remains attached to a representative framework where ordinary citizens only indirectly participate in decision-making. Neblo and his colleagues leave only a minimal margin of initiative to ordinary citizens. Their role is rather to express interest in or to support the political policies adopted by representatives than to engage directly or make policy decisions themselves.
Fourthly, StD does not differentiate between democracy as it actually exists and what it ought to be, whereas SuD sees citizen engagement as conditional to the quality of political exercise. According to the latter, if politics are exercised by elected representatives with a focus on achieving the ideal, citizens will become engaged. It can therefore be deduced that if the ideal is not attained in the practice of politics, citizens may well no longer engage or indeed may shift towards StD. 5
Fifthly, while work on the Neblo et al. model leaves more room for citizen engagement, it remains within the confines of the representative framework. However, they use the term deliberative democracy, which is not the same as representative democracy. With deliberative democracy, it is expected that exchanges on the bases of public reason (Rawls, 2003) or argument (Habermas, 2015) in support of a given claim will take place (Reber, 2016). Admittedly with the systemic turn (Deliberative systems) in debates on deliberative democracy, ranging from experiences with mini-publics to various institutional gatherings, representative and deliberative theories have become mixed together without this really being thought through (Parkinson and Mansbridge, 2012). This has meant that the demands and promises of the earliest research on deliberation in politics tend to be forgotten. Moreover, it should be noted that the two authors most frequently cited as the inspiration of deliberative democracy, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas always had a system in mind and not a series of mini-publics (Reber, 2016), which have provided the main material for experimentation with deliberative democracy.
Sixthly, and in the same vein, citizens are not usually questioned about whether they would play an active part in politics, whether they expected initiatives to be taken or how they might like the practice of democracy to change. On the contrary, we approached these questions in order to test them empirically. Other theories of democracy than the theory of representation alone can be referred to, which is what we did in the survey. 6
Approaches of the type adopted by Norris, the Baromètre de la confiance or indeed those that oppose StD and SuD are thus lateral compared to what we wanted to achieve with the Democracy and citizenship Module as we questioned citizens about their engagement, the initiatives they might take or that they expect and, above all the differentiated appeal of types of democracy theories that were presented to them.
The potential value of criticism according to four types
Before making a sixth remark about these models, the concept of critical citizenship 7 and its constructive potential within the framework of the exercise of politics will be developed below. None of the models presented thus far tackle the notion of criticism head on. Clarification shall therefore be offered on what is meant by criticism from the perspective of what is being criticised, the implicit competence required and the frameworks for competing and opposing types of criticisms.
From reactive to pluralist political criticism
The analyses briefly outlined above do not exhaust all the roles played by criticism nor indeed all the meanings contained in the notion of ‘criticism’. At the very least, critical citizens may well have aspirations, hope for change, opinions on how democracy might be improved or indeed participate in bringing about change. This type of attitude can therefore be differentiated from a more primary type of criticism that does not lead to any kind of practical outcome (reactive criticism). Such primary criticism can be expressed, for example, by casting a punishment vote or by expressing a desire to dynamite the entire system. The description of resentment by the philosopher Max Scheler on foot of Nietzsche (1972) reflects such a posture. This is a type of criticism that cannot be expressed to others, no more than it can lead to change or even imagining being involved in change.
A second type of criticism that includes aspirations corresponds to a capacity or a virtue that enables individuals to evaluate a given situation, a set of proposals, or the actions of politicians and public policies (evaluative criticism). This type of criticism carefully judges such political elements through the prism of promises made, expectations or normative backgrounds (e.g. conceptions of justice). These judgements can be made ex post or ex ante to political acts.
It should be observed that openness to evaluation shows another meaning of the term criticism, understood as the negative result of an evaluation. Frequently, when a jury is described as being very critical, it is the result or sanction which is highlighted rather than the process which has led to such a positive or negative assessment. It may indeed seem surprising that criticism is usually understood as being negative. However, a distinction must be made between the positive or negative result for each conception of criticism.
A distinction must also be made between vague understanding or a sanction being imposed prior to any evaluation being made (reactionary criticism) and criticism based on a substantiated evaluation.
A third type of criticism, which is quite similar to the latter of the two mentioned above, is not conceived of as a form of critical sovereignty or negative politicisation, but rather as an ability or virtue capable not only of judging a situation but also of proposing a solution or different actions to deal with those proposed. The difference between this type of criticism and the two previously mentioned is in the ability to propose (propositional criticism).
From an analytical perspective, a distinction should be made between two forms of propositional criticism. The first is linked to the entities evaluated, for example, a particular political act (first-order propositional criticism). The other, a more sophisticated and second-order type is capable of criticising the very frameworks for the evaluation of the items judged (second-order propositional criticism), for example, what public policy or democratic control should be.
A fourth type of criticism (pluralist political criticism) formulates criticism while taking normative pluralism (political and moral) or indeed the plurality of interests into account, thus centring on collective interests. It is particularly aware of the irreducibility of conflict in politics, the legitimacy of political pluralism (Rawls, 2003) or the combination of political and ethical pluralism (Reber, 2011b), and the need for discussion to reach different types of agreement. This is an ambitious type of criticism which is essential to the practice of democracy where not only normative assertions about moral conflicts compete but also normative constraints that guarantee cooperation primarily on a collective level in politics. This is precisely where different forms of democratic legitimacy are to be found. It corresponds to the level where discussion and justification of criticism take place. Democracy is the system that is most open to criticism in all its diversity.
Citizen aspirations and ambitions for democracy may therefore provide the inspiration for their criticisms. In this sense, criticism could be described as a prerequisite for enlightened citizenship in a pluralist context where policies led by those who govern and competing proposals must be evaluated. This last level is no longer a question of dissent between two conflicting individual (or group) points of view. Rather, it is a question of identifying a collective answer to binary dissent at a level that caters to a much great number of people and positions.
Furthermore, at this political level, the belief is that decisions must be made taking minority and (ideally) all points of view into account. It is one thing to criticise or even to express well-argued criticism in a discussion, it is quite another to organise such a discussion in a politically pluralist manner that welcomes different types of criticism and opposing points of view. In this case, critical perspective and the ability to step back is of the essence.
The four types of criticism can thus be summarised: 1. Reactive, 2. Evaluative, 3. Propositional (first and second-order) and 4. Politically pluralist.
Criticism of common sense
These distinctions are not gratuitous and lead to the sixth remark on political science approaches to critical citizenship (1.2). Indeed, given the types of democracy that oppose Theiss-Morse to Neblo et al., the former can be described as monistic in that they draw on one univocal type of common sense, which they argue is shared by all. Indeed, even if most citizens believe that such common sense exists, the practice of politics quickly reveals copious amounts of conflict during discussions on how to apply decisions made to different contexts and on conflicting interpretations of the said decisions. Equally, how robust the notion of common sense is with respect to the exercise of politics is open to question. The complexity of relations in international politics or economics, for example, dissipates any such evidence at once.
It should nonetheless be recognised that surveys contain a bias due to the fact that respondents are deemed to attribute a common meaning to the questions posed. Within any questionnaire, suppositions are made about the automatic understanding of respondents and the common meaning of the terms used. However, this common meaning is not the same thing as the common sense that characterises StD politics given that the exercise of politics is subject to discussions, constraints, oppositions and reformulations. Added to this, respondents answer as ordinary citizens and therefore not as they would if they were actually in power where they would have more accurate information but also where they would have to deal with power struggles and rules which must be respected.
In the same way, the implicit social ontology in surveys by internet of relations between individuals and groups or even from individual to individual may lead to the reinforcement of such a bias. This is because the individual is alone in front of his/her screen. Even when the interview is carried out by phone, respondents encounter neither resistance nor opposition. The only constraint is the interviewer who reduces his/her influence to a minimum. Thus, so-called common sense is rarely put to the test.
On the other hand, in their presuppositions, Neblo and his colleagues have observed the need for discussion so that forms of agreement (they go as far as to mention reconciliation) might be reached. Moreover, they are partial to more participatory political experimentation where other analysts are reticent or at the very least sceptical about more inclusive political discussion. However, reconciliation is a strong and loaded term as used by them. Taking adverse opinions and conciliation into account is itself an interesting idea. Reconciliation implicitly signals that the disagreements are very strong and perhaps long-standing and therefore that a compromise must be sought. They choose to use the term compromise which itself is also open to many interpretations (Médevielle, 1998).
Further discussion with StD proponents is needed about their definition of the term compromise in order to understand if it should be given a negative valence only (which is what they do) – compromise as concession. However, this is only one possible understanding amongst others and is as limited as it is widespread. On the contrary, compromise can have a positive valence, as a political product that calls for great creativity. This practice of seeking compromise is very widespread in the European parliament, for example, where no group has a sole majority either on its own or with another group. Furthermore, many other types of agreement might be proposed such as consensus, deliberative disagreement or indeed agreeing to disagree (Rescher, 1993; Reber, 2011b, 2016).
Looking closely at criticism in order to differentiate between its diverse meanings enables a discussion of the main analytical frameworks of critical citizenship to take place. As indicated earlier, critical citizenship is mainly of the first type, reactive criticism, which is essentially negative. Traditionally, surveys do not ask citizens directly if they might become engaged, present counter-proposals or define types of democracy they aspire to which might lend more meaning to their criticisms. In the Democracy and Citizenship Module, we have attempted to test these aspects by posing the relevant questions to respondents. However, we were not able to go further than this and pose questions which would methodically test the four types of criticism. This area offers potential for further research which shall be indicated in the conclusion (Perspectives).
Comparative attraction of the features of democracy
A further reason justifies the investigation of a number of potentialities offered by criticism to move towards purely political criticism (pluralist political criticism). In the module, our focus was not only on criticism of politics as they are practiced or on the disposition towards engagement, but also on the theories that justify a given type of democracy. This approach constitutes an original perspective of the present article. Briefly, various political theories of democracy (Cunningham, 2008) disagree on the foundation of democracy. Without wishing to be exhaustive, we included forms that are already present in surveys such as representative democracy (‘delegating political decision-making to elected representatives’) and epistemic (specialist knowledge and know-how) democracy (‘leaving it up to the experts to make the right decisions’). We added participative democracy which is also and more rarely called continuous democracy (‘being involved in public life, beyond elections’), and (for the first time) deliberative democracy (‘talking together to hear different arguments before deciding’). The final formulation includes the notion of rights, notably the right to contest decisions deemed to be bad or unjust. This form of democracy can be compared to non-dominational republicanism (or independence from arbitrary power) within liberal theories of democracy (Pettit, 1999, 2018). It includes a number of mechanisms that allow certain decisions that apply to individuals to be contested, such as: ‘giving oneself the right to contest certain decisions judged to be bad ones’.
Certain types of democracy such as Catallaxic democracy (exchange) which are similar to the theory of rational choice and economics or pragmatic democracy were not included. However, the five types of democracy that were included provided a rich terrain for results to be gathered.
The hypothesis can thus be made that in order to criticise democracy, ordinary citizens draw on models or ideals (often implicitly) that reflect theories of democracies even summarily. By way of example, over the past few decades, another model – participative democracy – has been discussed and experimented with, albeit on a small scale. During the last French presidential election campaign, it was frequently included in political proposals that aspired to being seen as innovative. Other theories of democracy are present in philosophy and our aim was also to test them. These theories of democracy are just as useful as models imported from cognitive anthropology. Even if they are sometimes highly sophisticated, such theories have the advantage of ultimately being based on the intuitions of the political philosophers who produce them. Some philosophers even refer to these intuitions in the discussion of their theses. Indeed, it is extremely rare for political philosophers to rely on survey material for empirical research. Many philosophers consider that the thoughts of non-philosophers on the subjects they deal with are of no interest. This is not our point of view.
A final argument which makes this rapprochement with political theory plausible is the fact that philosophical ideas or texts can inspire proposals or acts. For example, Rousseau’s texts provided ideas that were used much later in political discourse at the time of the French revolution. Marx – and his texts – was actively involved in a number of political changes. More recently, texts by Paul Ricoeur (Emmanuel Macron) or by Chantal Mouffe (Jean-Luc Mélenchon) were cited during the last presidential election.
The problem we were ultimately interested in can thus be summarised as follows: how do citizens respond when diverse theories of democracy are proposed to them even in a very simplistic style? The adoption of this framework allowed us to revisit the meaning of criticism. Distrust, disinterest and a type of negativity towards politics do not have the monopoly on criticism. On the contrary, criticism can be positive, constructive, full of aspirations, be of many different shapes (reactive, evaluative, propositional (of first or second-order, politically pluralist). This latter type of criticism is particularly valuable as it calls on survey respondents to rank features that justify different points of democratic legitimacy and indeed different democratic theories. Moreover, these potentialities of criticism can in turn contribute to improving democracy by developing some of its possible models.
Having deepened the conceptual debate surrounding critical citizenship, we shall return to the choices and risks accepted in associating two types of science that often work in parallel to each other and are at times wholly ignorant of each other – philosophy and political sociology. Furthermore, certain versions of political theories (Reber, 2011a), encourage such discussion, while others are only concerned with a normative and conceptual research.
A truly interdisciplinary methodology
The Democracy and Citizenship Module and the interdisciplinary collaboration mentioned above were innovative from several points of view.
Firstly, the collaboration modified the general questions contained in the French Electoral Survey, similarly to research previously carried out in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom which answers five major questions: - What individual and contextual factors are likely to anchor electoral choice? - Are the so-called major variables (socio-demography, religion and patrimony) sufficient to explain electoral choice? - What role do psychological elements (emotions and personality) play with regard to the vote? - What influence do personal, familial, professional and geographical changes have on the vote? - What types of political activity do first-time voters engage in?
As indicated in the previous section, the module focusses on preoccupations other than the above.
Secondly, this research is truly interdisciplinary. The questions and interpretations were formulated by researchers from each of the two areas involved. For the political philosophers, this was not a question of simply working on the survey in a secondary capacity or of choosing a few survey results to illustrate philosophical beliefs as happens with empirical philosophy. Moreover, a quantitative survey provides far bigger samples. This does entail of course abandoning lengthy discussions and interviews which are sometimes too long (qualitative sociology) in favour of very simple questions and response items.
Thirdly, the disciplines that cooperated together in the survey very rarely come together. To my knowledge, very few political philosophers have undertaken research based on quantitative sociology. This is also true for the relationship between qualitative moral sociology (Pharo, 2004; Reber, 2011a) and moral philosophy. Philosophers and sociologists tend to keep to their own domain even when both groups are studying values, for example. A significant amount of research that brings together political philosophy and theory and qualitative sociology does exist. This includes work on deliberative democracy (Steiner et al., 2005; Gerber and Mueller, 2018; Gerber, Bächtiger et al., 2018), and is frequently of concern to smaller publics or used in parliamentary debate. However, this rarely happens with quantitative sociology. The difficulty undoubtedly stems from the brevity of the questions formulated and their simplicity, designed to ensure that all respondents can answer them. This poses a problem for philosophy which cannot work well with brief questions/answers and needs well structured, rational and well-argued discussion in order to function. The module is also useful in that it addresses a large number of people who are not involved in political discussions themselves.
Fourthly, and following on from the previous point, it was only possible to ask one short question on theories of democracy. Such a simplification was difficult to accept for a philosopher and it undoubtedly limits the scope of the survey in terms of political theory. However, this was the price to pay for the robustness of the survey.
By way of example, for qualitative empirical research on deliberative democracy, in mini-publics or within a parliament, Steiner et al. were able to characterise the theory in seven points (Steiner et al., 2006). Here, we had just one point to highlight chosen for its salience.
However, the differential appeal of theories of democracy has never been tested. The module thus provided novel and interesting results as shall be shown later.
Fifthly, while the article focuses on citizens who can be qualified as critical, the analysis focuses primarily on the content of their criticism as the aim is to understand the differences between the various types of criticism. With regard to content, the level of intensity is of primary interest as qualitative surveys do not allow in-depth study of the content and its reflexive potential given the simplicity and brevity of the questions posed and the response modes proposed. More precisely, it is not possible to deal with such a complex problem in this article. However, the depth of criticism is different and more easily identifiable if the question is about whether radical or slight changes should be made to change democracy, than if it is about whether respondents are prepared to engage or take part in initiatives for change, or (appealing to a greater reflexive capacity), if they have to choose between different types of positive democratic legitimacy that cater to differences between citizens. These three levels of depth were all tested in the module.
Sixthly, the interdisciplinary collaboration undertaken here provides the occasion for a reminder: criticism occupies a central place in philosophy. It lies at the heart of Kant’s modern philosophy and his work on criticism. It is recognised as one of the markers of modernity (Ferry, 1991). A number of secondary effects of this same modernity have continued to be criticised in successive waves that can be grouped together under the broad term of critical theory, firstly philosophical and then sociological.
Added to this, the capacity for criticism has been one of the major resources for the practice of philosophy since its origins. Criticism is also a feature of rationality in science. However, while these types of criticism were not specifically drawn on in this module, they are clearly present to different degrees in most democracies (France included) through laws and political customs. 8 The separation of powers, due process in law, the multi-party system and the development of critical thinking in the education system all provide different signs of the development of critical thinking. This point answers the criticism that the potentialities of criticism (2.1) would never be accessible to survey respondents.
Some empirical results
What follows is a presentation of the analysis of a few significant data on the intensity of the criticism, the willingness of respondents who want to change things to engage and how this engagement might take place, together with the attraction of different types of democracy. The latter are presented as features proper to theories of democracy. The focus will be on the distribution of respondents according to partisan identification. The tables will show all of the questions posed.
Levels of intensity in critical citizenship
The title of the first table, Opinions on how democracy functions is implicitly functionalist. It allows different intensities of criticism to be distinguished: absence of criticism (‘our democracy works well, there’s no reason to really change things’), reformist criticism (‘our democracy should be improved on several points’), transformative criticism (‘establishing true democracy in France would call for radical change’) and finally intense criticism (‘democracy doesn’t work, we need to find another political system’). Among those who are critical, the first type can be called reforming critics (RCs), the second, transforming critics (TCs) and the third type exiters Table 1.
Opinion on the way in which democracy functions in France.
The first result overturns the common belief about critical citizenship seen from the perspective of distrust or suspicion. Within the restricted framework of questioning on the way in which democracy functions and how it might be changed, only 8% of respondents call the democratic system itself into question. This is a far lower percentage than the 32% of ‘prafistes’ referred to earlier and also very different from analyses borrowed from explanations of stealth democracy.
From the point of view of partisan preferences, Front National 9 (extreme right) and Débout la France (who allied with the FN for the 2017 French presidential election) sympathisers obtain higher scores here with, respectively, 17% and 13%, which is about twice as high as for respondents as a whole.
At the other end of the scale from those who want to change the system, 9% believe that democracy works well, with a very high percentage among socialist sympathisers (18%), twice as many as for respondents as a whole, followed by the UDI (Union of Democrats and Independents) (13%) and LR (The Republicans) (12%), which is nonetheless five and six points lower than Parti Socialiste sympathisers.
Those who declare that they do not identify with any party are close to the average, with a slight tendency towards changing the political system (11% compared to 8% for the total), and at the same time a lower percentage (6%) say that democracy functions well. However, this is twice as many as those who say they identify with the FN and/or Débout la France (also an extreme right party).
En Marche! supporters are at the same level as respondents as a whole who say that democracy works well but half as many as socialist sympathisers. A lower level of satisfaction with the status quo can therefore be deduced among En Marche! supporters. This is confirmed through the aspiration for change expressed not only in the party’s discourse and campaign promises but also in the presidential election results. The lower level of satisfaction for the status quo among these sympathisers was also confirmed by the composition of the new government which in a certain sense abolished the usual lines of Left/Right division. As many as 62% of Modem (centre) supporters and 56% of En Marche! supporters are RCs.
Two remarks on how the questions were formulated are called for. Firstly, the two response items that structure these two extreme axes, are not equivalents because the first option ‘our democracy doesn’t work well, there’s no need to really change things’ calls for a judgement on how French democracy works, whereas the second item judges all forms of democracy, in order to abandon it ‘Democracy doesn’t work, we need to find another political system’.
Secondly, it should be added that with the first item democracy is only implicitly envisaged in its representative form as ‘our democracy’ indicates the system in France which is representative. Furthermore, this first response item may contain an ambiguity between representative democracy from the perspective of political theory and an evaluation of how it actually works.
A second and more significant result is provided by grouping answers to the other two items together (83%) of those who believe that French democracy can be improved in several areas and those who call for ‘radical’ change. The former, reforming critics (RCs) make up almost half of the survey sample (48%). The first lesson here is therefore that the vast majority (83%) of respondents believe that democracy can be improved. This result consolidates the existence of a type of criticism that corresponds to an aspiration that democracy be improved rather than rejected or more broadly that the political be forsaken.
Among those who believe that democracy should be improved, the RCs are most numerous among Parti Socialiste, Modem and UDI sympathisers with the same score of 62%. TCs can be found amongst FN sympathisers at 52%, and then fairly far behind them, Front de gauche sympathisers, extreme left (44%). Moreover, more than half of FN sympathisers can be found in the TC category.
Criticism and engagement
Beyond observing and being interested in politics, the question as to whether respondents are happy merely to express their views on the subject or whether they would be prepared to become actively involved merits attention. Similarly to what the French proverb says, it is easy to criticise but difficult to make art (Reber, 2015) are respondents not like spectators at a show which they judge with indignation or cheers and ultimately a vote?
Type of criticism and engagement.
Type of engagement and intensity of the criticism on how democracy works.
The second result is that for 62% of respondents, such involvement is conditional to a particular initiative they might become engaged in. One quarter of them believe that it is not up to them to become involved.
The highest scores in favour of disengagement can be found among Les Républicains sympathisers (30%) and those who identify with no party (33%).
FN sympathisers are divided between abstention (33% compared to 26% for the total) and on the other hand, those who say they have ideas to defend and that they are ready to propose measures to change things (18%), compared to 12% for the total.
When the two tables are crossed, the percentages of respondents according to the intensity of their criticism of how democracy functions and according to the likelihood of them becoming actively involved or not become apparent, together with the ways in which they might be prepared to engage.
One remark about this table: the first line shows the general distribution of all respondents on the question on how democracy functions. The second line shows the division between those who believe that democracy needs to be changed (RCs and TCs) or that the system should be abandoned (exiters). Those who believe that democracy works well (9.2% of the sample as a whole) have been left aside. Finally, the following lines show the division between respondents to questions about democracy, depending on the type of engagement they consent to or not.
The first group, those who believe it is not up to them to become involved are more numerous among the RCs (55%). The share between RCs and TCs is similar for those who might become involved in an initiative that suited them.
For the third group, the division is different: those who are prepared to defend their ideas and to propose measures to do so, lean towards radical change (50%) and, more especially favour changing the system (16.6%).
This shows that the desire for radical change of the system and indeed the abandonment of democracy is more pronounced among those who say they are prepared to become engaged.
However, this should not overshadow the overall result on the role of the citizen in the transformation of democracy which shows that only 12% (Table 2) of the whole want to become involved of their own volition and without expectations of initiatives they might adhere to being put forward by others.
What type of democracy do citizens aspire to?
Critical citizenship is thus not uniform either in its observations on democracy or in the type of involvement citizens are prepared to consent to. The next step is to look at theories or more simply features that contribute to the legitimisation of democracy. As might have been expected, all the features (question items) obtain scores above the average as the elements in competition with each other are all positive (Table 4).
While the differences in scores are of little importance, the ranking of response items is of significant interest. There are many lessons to be learned from this given that the current democratic framework – representative democracy – is very poorly ranked, just above ‘expertocracy’ which is similar to epistemic democracy (Estlund, 1993, 2008). Participation or forms of continuous democracy come just slightly above it. This is surprising in the light of current debate which focuses on more inclusive and more widespread forms of citizen participation thanks to information and communication technologies. The recent French Grand débat National, 10 the Yellow Vests crisis and the responses proposed by the executive, notably with the Citizen Convention for the climate, 11 give pride of place to citizen participation. The item, ‘talking together to hear different arguments before deciding’ gets one of the highest scores. This corresponds closely to what is understood by deliberative democracy in political theory (Reber, 2016; Bächtiger et al., 2018), and should not be confused with participative democracy. The highest score is obtained by the right to contest/protest.
The survey does have a limitation here as, according to how the item is formulated, decisions to contest are those that are ‘judged to be bad ones’. Moreover, such an answer may include direct contestation by citizens and more institutionalised or legal forms of dissent.
The fact that dissenting democracy tops the ranking explains the favourable attitudes towards different types of referendum within the Yellow Vests movement and the strong support for the movement among the general public. It should nonetheless be noted that the movement has not sought to exit the confines of democracy.
As a percentage, the answers as a whole of those who agree (7–10 on the scale) indicate an even stronger disaffection with representative democracy at 18 points less than participative democracy and 26 points less than deliberative democracy.
Looking at the ranking of types of democracy, 81% of extremist sympathisers on the Left and 76% of those on the Right agree that democracy should include a right to dissent (7–10 on the scale.
Deliberative democracy obtains a higher score from respondents who identify with the Extreme Left, the Greens and also En marche! than from respondents as a whole.
The latter and those who identify with EELV (The Greens) differ from respondents as a whole in that for both of these categories, deliberative democracy wins out over dissent.
Among those who are favourable to representative democracy (only 37% of those who agree) En marche! sympathisers are the most numerous (46%), followed by Les Républicains (44%) and UDI (44%).
One surprising result is that FN sympathisers rate a decision-making system reserved to experts quite highly (36%). Indeed this party plays on the opposition between the people on one hand, and the elites and experts on the other.
Conclusion
Attraction of definitions (theories) of democracy.
Political representatives might well have an important role to play given that many citizens are prepared to become involved. Such citizens are most numerous among those who are looking for initiatives that might suit them which means that the initiatives proposed must be very carefully chosen. Respondents who believe they have ideas and are prepared to volunteer to become engaged tend to want more radical change and may even wish to abandon the democratic system. However, the most radical reformers (TCs) are not the most numerous.
The final question in the module on competition between and evaluation of democratic theories (systems) is more avant-garde. It uses a few salient points taken from various definitions of democracy to answer a general question which might be formulated as follows: ‘What do citizens answer when diverse theories of democracy are proposed to them, even in a very succinct form’? Answers to the question reveal a preference for the right to dissent, which can be understood as a form of republicanism, but also as a more direct form of dissent This democratic theory is followed in the rankings by deliberation (deliberative democracy), and then participation (participative democracy), in spite of the fact that the latter was seen to be the most innovative proposal of certain political programmes. Moreover, answers to the question show that representative democracy is ranked second-last, just ahead of democracy entrusted to experts (expertocracy or epistemic democracy).
The aspiration to contest needs to be further examined prospectively so that it might be better understood and democratically organised. Tensions are visible in some of the propositions that emerged during the Yellow Vests crisis surrounding the direct initiative referendum (DIR) and other variants of it. The crisis also gave rise to the proposal for a national debate (Le Grand Débat National) which can be interpreted as the establishment of a type of formal debate to guarantee the opportunity for disagreement to be expressed.
Independently of what form it takes, the object of criticism needs to be nuanced, whether it is a type of democracy or the entire democratic system that is being called into question. The module indicates that the main issue is the democratic form itself as only a minority express a desire to abandon the democratic framework altogether. What is certain is that representative democracy is heavily criticised.
This point weakens hypotheses on stealth democracy, which paradoxically is too demanding and elitist as it calls for both common sense and delegation to experts. It also weakens the sunshine democracy hypothesis as the emphasis is mostly on representatives alone. However, taking institutional reality into account, it is simply not possible for everyone to participate directly in decision-making: representative democracy includes practical advantages and continues to be the framework and the usual practice for most democracies. Furthermore, theories of democracy that stress different elements of democratic legitimacy are not necessarily incompatible. Research on the quality of deliberation inspired by the theory of deliberative democracy have analysed not only experimental mini-publics but also parliamentary debates which are forms inherent to representative democracy (e.g. Steiner et al., 2005).
Even if they are not equally practiced on the same scale, all the simplified forms of democracy tested here have a role to play either by directly involving citizens (mini-publics), or on a larger inter-institutional scale (States or the EU, for example). The rules, criteria and norms implied in these types of democracy can be applied to mini-publics and also to inter-institutional communication. What is at stake is the democratic legitimacy that in turn guarantees the legitimacy of procedures and these latter are currently changing.
Because of the interdisciplinary methodology which brings together political theory (political philosophy) and quantitative political sociology that has led to new questions being formulated, the objective of some sections of the Democracy and Citizenship Module questionnaire goes well beyond the various proposals contained in some of the 2017 presidential campaign programmes. These proposals were relevant to representative democracy only, even if they were at times accompanied by new forms of institutionalisation (e.g. the idea of a VIth Republic as suggested by La France Insoumise). Furthermore, while several programmes suggested including ordinary citizens chosen randomly to take on different responsibilities, ranging from citizen conferences to controls of executive-level policy, none explained what rules would be followed within these new frameworks or in what sense broader or more inclusive participation would be more legitimate. And yet, the anticipated justifications often depend on the models of democracy which inspire them. The proposal made by the President, Emanuel Macron, at the end of the Grand Débat National to randomly select 150 citizens for a ‘Citizen Convention for the Climate’, managed under the auspices of the Conseil économique, social et environnemental (CESE), also fails to clarify these points. The said convention was initially supposed to take place over a period of 6 months 12 at a rate of one weekend per month.
Criticism is very different from distrust and is an essential resource for democracy. Furthermore, bibliographical research that includes the educational sciences and education in civics and democracy, for example, shows that the literature on the positive side of criticism is far more abundant than the literature that only considers criticism as distrust. Democracy cannot exist without the acquisition of critical capacities. The current analyses being carried out in the Grand Débat National 13 and other participatory experiences show this need, no matter how sophisticated they may or may not be. The different types of criticism explained in section (2.1.) are useful here. These distinctions make a contribution to thought on what role criticism plays in order to understand whether it threatens democracy (Almond and Verba, 1963; Barnes and Kaase, 1979; Puolimatka, 1995; Norris, 1999) or, on the contrary, guarantees it (Geissel, 2008; Westel, 1997). The question of critical citizenship continues to be an object of much discussion. Intuitively or indeed empirically (Parry, 1976; Sniderman, 1975, 1981) a population whose members were not critical at all would cause a number of questions to be raised. However, it brings with it an interpretation of criticism as going beyond primary or reactive criticism. This implicitly recalls the evaluative and propositional criticism presented in this article. There is therefore a strong possibility that a political society without criticism is not democratic. Moreover, while democracy allows conflicting interests and aspirations to be managed, it needs the final type of criticism proposed in this article – pluralist political criticism to exist. Indeed, it rarely happens that the choices made please everyone when the right to expression is guaranteed. In the same way, the role of criticism in the set of indicators made up of sensitivity to the political sphere, trust, satisfaction and identification, together with their opposites continues to remain the object of debate on the links between these indicators and their reciprocal influence on each other (Geissel, 2008).
Perspectives for further research
Attraction of definitions (theories) of democracy according to partisan sympathies.
The research has also allowed discursive resources such as contestation and argumentation to be tested (Tables 4 and 5), in order to go beyond the common sense of StD and the compromise implied in SuD. We thus went further than interest in the negative appreciation of a situation which corresponds to reactive criticism or evaluative criticism in its negative form.
At this level, two main types of criticism can be distinguished: the first, first-order propositional criticism (EC1) – concerns the distance between an ideal and its application or practice, and the second – second-order propositional criticism, pluralist political criticism (EC2) – concerns comparison between the ideals themselves. Finally, each individual relies on models or normative features to criticise democracy, even for criticism of the first type. Given that citizens have different perceptions of democracy when they evaluate it, there will be a need in future to distinguish between EC1 and EC2. It is extremely likely that while respondents do not rely on the same theories or significant features of democracy, which the breakdown of the survey results shows, neither do they evaluate the same thing, and, more especially, they do not all use the same normative frameworks (Tables 4 and 5).
Our formulation of the items for the general question on opinions on how democracy functions (Table 1) could be improved. The term functions and mention of the French framework leads more towards a judgement of the state of play than towards a normative abstract referential. And yet this was what we were looking for. Moreover, the item ‘Establishing true democracy in France would call for radical change’ (transformative criticism) implies a normative background which is not a feature of reformative criticism, ‘several aspects of our democracy should be improved’, which implies that respondents who choose this answer consider that they live in a true democracy.
When the theme of critical citizenship is considered from a negative angle, it is mainly the relational dimensions of trust/distrust in institutions and representatives that are in question. If the focus is on EC2, then it is paradoxical to be interested in trust from a relational perspective alone, when it is precisely representation by elected representatives that is at stake.
Interdisciplinary collaboration, notably by philosophical questioning, at best clarifies presuppositions that have not been discussed and at worst, confusions in quantitative surveys and their analytical framework for critical citizenship. Given how important the theme of criticism is in political science research, it would be interesting to formulate operational questions for quantitative political sociology. Such questions would systematically cover all the distinctions proposed in the first part in order to survey criticism in all its forms. We would then be in a position to move from criticism of general and dominant interpretive frameworks that promote the narrow themes of critical citizenship to documentation of types of criticism expressed by citizens, and above all the way in which ordinary citizens appreciate criticism and how they see it within a democracy which must also allow criticisms made by their opponents to be taken on board. The final step could then be taken: testing whether or not respondents had acquired such capacities and not simply a small amount of positive knowledge about how democratic institutions function. 14
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
For their most knowledgeable advice and collaboration, grateful thanks to Bruno Cautrès, Flora Chanvril-Ligneel, Janie Pélabay, Réjane Sénac, David Copello, Robert Gianni, my philosopher colleagues from the international group, Eco-ethica, the Dusan Sidjanski Centre for competence in European research of the University of Geneva and the European research project New-Horizon: Excellence in science and innovation for Europe by adopting the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation. (See: 
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