Ballot Box Blues

Improving accountability could go a long way to mitigating the growing feeling of disillusionment among voters.

With five provincial elections taking place this fall, and with voter turnout dipping below 50 per cent in Ontario’s election last Thursday, it’s the right time to ask: Is representative democracy working?

Voter turnout has hit a dispiriting low in Ontario. Learn more here.

Nicholas Kulish, writing in The New York Times on Sept. 27 about the surging protests around the world (in England, Greece, Spain, India, Israel, and, most recently, New York, with “Occupy Wall Street”), is uncertain what to conclude. He suggests that such protests reflect a shared crisis of legitimacy for both politicians and the democratic political system. The protesting citizens – in particular the large swaths of youth amid the crowds – have “little faith in the ballot box.” Does this really herald a shift away from a belief in the value of representative institutions?

After all, according to democratic theory, political representatives live or die by the ballot box. Thus, the electorate has the ultimate means of holding governments accountable. Not happy with your politicians? Vote them out of office! However, we know that, in practice, democracy is imperfect – and certainly the story in Canada is no different.

Should we think twice about the merits of online voting? Read about what we risk losing in the switch here.

Over the summer, Samara conducted a series of focus groups with citizens prone to political disengagement. We wanted to better understand what those traditionally less likely to participate think about politics and democracy. While by no means representative of the Canadian population, these groups offered insight into how they feel about politics and, more specifically, why they choose not to participate.

Less-educated youth, who are less likely to participate in the democratic process, expressed a strong sentiment of estrangement from politics bordering on a suspicion or animosity towards any establishment actors – not only government, but police and corporations, too. Driving this view is, in part, a belief that their voice is irrelevant: “I think the government knows what they want to tell us, they know what they want us to think,” said one young woman. “They may show a little percentage of our voice, but I really don’t think that matters.” Similarly, another young person responded: “politicians have their plans – they don’t care about us.”

How can Canada entice its young voters? Read one experts analysis here.

Younger participants were not the only ones who felt this way. Preliminary results indicate that there is a real disillusionment towards democratic participation across all our focus groups: less-educated youth, lower-income Canadians, urban First Nations, language minority groups, and new Canadians. The participants, in Kulish’s words, “lack a belief that the political system represent[s] their interests.” Should we be worried? After all, this is a key ingredient in what has led citizens in other democratic countries to bypass their representative institutions and take to the streets. However, I don’t believe this means representative institutions will be cast off.

As we are learning from our focus groups, what is more important to Canadians who are less likely to participate is a government that listens when a problem arises, works to fix that problem, and keeps its promises. On this, participants’ thoughts were resoundingly clear: Improve the legitimacy of our existing institutions (and, by extension, our politicians) through better responsiveness and accountability. The rest will take care of itself.

Look for the full report on Samara’s focus group research at the end of November 2011. In the meantime, share your perceptions of politics and democracy and ideas for the criteria you care most about when evaluating Canadian democracy.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.