External political efficacy refers to one’s belief that one has a say in what the government does. This is important as people expect that their views and needs will affect the decisions taken by public institutions. In turn, external political efficacy can be built and destroyed by people’s experiences when interacting with public institutions and by institutions that are not perceived as responsive to people’s needs (e.g. policy-making processes and government decisions that do not respond to public preferences). External political efficacy is of paramount importance to democratic systems as it relates to the belief that political and social change are possible and that people can play a part in bringing about this change. This belief is also associated with the idea that it is worthwhile to perform civic duties (OECD, 2017).
There is a long tradition of including external political efficacy metrics in political participation surveys such as the American National Electoral Study, which has collected these data biennially for the United States since 1952. More recently, General Social Surveys (i.e. European Social Survey [ESS]) and Surveys on Adult Skills (Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies [PIAAC]) have picked up the topic as part of their regular measurement plans. According to the latest available data, in 2016 only 37% of people, on average, reported having a say in what government does in 23 OECD (mainly European) countries. There is, however, wide variation ranging from about 74% in Switzerland, a country with a long tradition of direct democracy, to just about 10% in Italy. From 2014 to 2016 the percentage of the population who believe they can influence government action increased the most in Iceland (24.5 percentage points) and Germany (14.4 p.p.) while the steepest declines happened in Poland (12.4 p.p.) and Sweden (9.9 p.p.).
In the academic literature, levels of external political efficacy are related to citizen engagement, satisfaction with democracy, and trust in public institutions, such as parliament. People who feel that they could influence their government are also those who are more satisfied with democracy and trust their assembly of elected representatives more (OECD, forthcoming). Switzerland, the Netherlands and Nordic countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, display the highest perception of external political efficacy, the greatest satisfaction with democracy and the greatest level of trust in their parliament. On the contrary, southern and eastern European countries such as Italy, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania and Slovenia trust their elected representatives less and are less satisfied with democracy overall.
