ABSTRACT
In comparison with other countries, Finland is characterized by high satisfaction in democracy. It is, however, not clear what type of democracy Finnish citizen prefer. This chapter compares support for four distinct conceptions of democracy, representative, direct, deliberative and stealth, both over time and in terms of their individual-level determinants. The findings demonstrate that dissatisfaction with democracy increases support for alternatives to representative democracy, but the preference depends to a large degree on a person’s level of political interest. The politically disinterested and distrusting want more direct democracy, while the politically interested prefer deliberative democracy. Moreover, the politically disillusioned show even some support for stealth democracy, but the pattern is clearly weaker. Nevertheless, disappointment with how the democracy works is associated with different outcomes depending on how politically aware and interested a person is. Women and younger people are more likely to support alternatives to representative democracy, which likely reflects their position as somewhat underprivileged groups in democratic societies. Overall, support for representative democracy in Finland is still higher than for the other types of democracy and it seems to have increased during the past couple of decades.
