Abstract: The
“creative potential” of critical citizens plays an increasingly
important role in the recent debate on political culture. Critical
citizens are regarded as indicators for the health of democracy. This
paper develops types of critics, analyzes their profiles, and discusses
whether critical citizens are in fact a democratic resource. The data
is based on a survey on citizens in West and East Germany. The results
show that the disposition to be politically critical while being
convinced of the idea of democracy actually provides a democratic “head
start”. People with the latter disposition are better informed,
participate more often in the political life, are less alienated from
the political system and have a stronger feeling of internal political
efficacy. Thus, critical citizens may add valuable input to the
adaptation of democracy to changing contexts and circumstances, whereas
people without this disposition offer less innovative input.
