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Explaining Support for Stealth Democracy

ABSTRACT The pioneering work of Hibbing and Theiss-Morse [2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans’ Beliefs about How Government Should Work. New York: Cambridge University Press] on citizens’ process preferences, and particularly support for “stealth democracy” as an alternative to both direct and representative democracy, has recently garnered increased attention from scholars. This paper examines the influence of perceptions of public consensus about controversial issues and of fellow citizens’ competence in making policy determinations on support for stealth democracy. Those who believe there is consensus in the public, and who believe the typical citizen is not competent to make policy decisions, should be more likely to support stealth democracy than direct or representative democracy. To test this, I use data from a statewide survey in Pennsylvania. The results suggest that attitudes on public consensus, but not on citizen competence, explain support for stealth democracy. However, a belief in public consensus also explains support for direct democracy. The factor that distinguishes support for stealth and direct democracy is ideology.