In a time of decreasing participation in party politics across Europe, both protests and deliberation can be studied as means of expressing political opinion that have not seen the same decline. Traditionally, protests and deliberation have been considered mutually exclusive. This notion has later been challenged, indicating that these factors coexist in democratic societies.The aim of this thesis is to get a better understanding of the complex causal relationship between protests and deliberative democracy in 30 European countries. This is investigated through the following research question: Do countries with high levels of protest activity also have high levels of deliberative democracy? Two contradicting hypotheses are established, where one considers protests and deliberation to be mutually exclusive while the second hypothesisconsiders them to be coexisting factors in democratic countries. To test the hypotheses, correlation matrices and regression analysis are used, adding relevant control variables (GDP per capita, population and income distribution) to the model. The results imply that protests and deliberation are not mutually exclusive, instead countries with higher levels of protest activity also have higher deliberation. However, this does not appear to be because protests itself drive deliberation, but rather that a confounding variable, measuring the percentage of national income that the bottom 40% holds, drives both protests and deliberation positively. The implications underline the importance of a more even income distribution to foster both more protests and higher deliberation. Further research to continue investigating these findings is encouraged.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-445234 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Håland, Amanda Louise Bolann |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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