Are satisfied citizens willing to participate more? An analysis of citizens’ life satisfaction in the public service domain and public participation

Abstract

Citizen participation is an integral part of democratic governance, but because of the predominance of New Public Management and its consumer-oriented approach, citizens tend to be viewed as self-interested and passive actors whom the government needs to satisfy or purposely encourages to facilitate the policy process. Based on our notion of active citizenship, we demonstrate that citizens inherently have some degree of proactiveness and that proactive citizens can enhance their life satisfaction in the public service domain, which motivates their participation. Using 2017 survey data with 1, 916 respondents, we examine whether highly satisfied citizens in the health care service domain are more likely to participate in that domain. The findings reveal that life satisfaction in the health care service domain is positively associated with respondents’ participation in it.