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Since their transition to democracy in the 1970s, Spain and Portugal have been ���immune��� to the success of populist radical right (PRR) parties. This exceptional situation, however, came to an end: Chega���s leader, Andr�� Ventura, was elected in the Portuguese parliament, while VOX has become the third most voted political party of Spain. Using new online survey data from the Spanish and Portuguese national elections in 2019, we find that the Iberian PRR electorate is mostly in line with the characteristics of the PRR electorate in Western Europe when it comes to socio-demographics, political dissatisfaction, media diet, and the rejection of immigration and feminism. Interestingly, however, the support for Chega and VOX does not come from economic losers of globalization. Finally, both parties capitalize on country-specific issues ���national unity in Spain and welfare in Portugal��� but PRR parties might struggle to establish themselves within the party system of the two Iberian countries.

Submitted by Madalena Reis (madalena.reis@ics.ul.pt) on 2020-05-13T13:30:11Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ICS_MCLobo_Portuguese Wave 3.pdf: 563025 bytes, checksum: af30e0070925bc5c5f1a632854a193e9 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2020-05-13T13:30:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ICS_MCLobo_Portuguese Wave 3.pdf: 563025 bytes, checksum: af30e0070925bc5c5f1a632854a193e9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-10 info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The onset of the Great Recession raised the profile of technocracy, or government by experts, as a contrasting model to democracy. Yet, there is little research on how attitudes towards technocracy may impact European citizens' political behaviour. Moreover, the consistency of technocracy supporters' political attitudes, especially towards the EU, is questionable. This paper uses new survey panel data collected before and after the European parliament elections in May 2019 in six countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain). We investigate how citizens’ technocratic attitudes affect their voting behaviour in the European elections. We find evidence that citizens with technocratic attitudes are less likely to support mainstream parties, and tend to either abstain or, if they vote, to give their vote to anti-system parties, especially from the populist right. In addition, by distinguishing technocracy supporters according to their partisanship, we conclude that technocracy is a thin ideology that can be combined with different patterns of political support: while many technocracy supporters have no party identification or support non-mainstream parties and show dissatisfaction with democracy and the EU, another subgroup of technocracy supporters identifies with a mainstream political party and show above average political support and support for the EU.

What does democracy mean? This question is difficult to answer - theoretically, we find different ideas of a “good” democracy, and also empirically, democracy is a multidimensional concept: Across countries, democracy varies both in its quality and in the way it is realized. Yet, when researchers for example analyze if citizens are satisfied with “the way democracy works” in their country, they suppose that democracy means the same for individuals all over the world. I argue that in order to be able to analyze support for democracy in a more nuanced way, we need to take a step back and ask what democracy actually means to citizens and how such expectations are formed. Based on the theoretical and empirical literature on varieties of democracy, I suppose that individual expectations from democracy differ across countries, and that they are influenced by two factors: The democratic culture, consisting of age and quality of institutions as well as authoritarian legacies, and the prevalent democratic model. Hence, the specific democratic context in which a citizen lives matters - due to socialization and democratic learning, individuals acquire democratic preferences and value those dimensions more which they experience in their own democracy. Using individual-level data from the European Social Survey (ESS) Round 6 as well as country-level data from the Democracy Barometer, I test how the national democratic context in 27 European democracies influences these individual democratic ideals. Indeed, I find evidence for both socialization and participation effects of the democratic context on citizens’ democratic ideals.

Submitted by Madalena Reis (madalena.reis@ics.ul.pt) on 2020-05-13T13:41:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ICS_MCLobo_MAPLE Report-post EP election-18dec.pdf: 1530192 bytes, checksum: 501de2dae289fae67891df20e1ce30ca (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2020-05-13T13:42:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ICS_MCLobo_MAPLE Report-post EP election-18dec.pdf: 1530192 bytes, checksum: 501de2dae289fae67891df20e1ce30ca (MD5) Previous issue date: 2019-12 info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Satisfaction with democracy (SWD) is a commonly used indicator, and its determinants have been analysed extensively. But what does dissatisfaction with democracy substantially mean? This paper test...

When analysing support for democracy, researchers tend to assume that ‘democracy’ is a concept that travels across countries. This paper argues that democracy is not the same thing for every citizen, because collective and individual socialization experiences strongly shape the criteria citizens expect a democracy to fulfil. Based on the literature on varieties of democracy, I suppose that individual expectations of democracy are influenced by regime‐specific socialization, and depend on the democratic history, authoritarian legacies, and the prevalent democratic model. Due to socialization and democratic learning, individuals acquire democratic preferences and value those dimensions more which they experience in their own democracy. Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Democracy Barometer, I test how the national democratic context in 26 European democracies influences these individual democratic ideals. I find evidence for both socialization and participation effects of the democratic context on citizens’ democratic expectations.

In der Debatte um eine Legitimationskrise etablierter Demokratien taucht auch der Faktor Globalisierung regelmasig auf, meist im Zusammenhang mit einer kritischen Sicht auf die Internationalisierung von Wirtschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft. Die Vorstellung, dass Globalisierung eine ernst zu nehmende Bedrohung fur die Demokratie darstellt, ist nicht nur in der Wissenschaft, sondern auch in der Offentlichkeit verbreitet. Allerdings bleibt die Begrundung dieser Bedrohung meist vage, und es scheint sich in vielen Fallen eher um einen gefuhlten als um einen empirisch belegten Effekt zu handeln. Fest steht aber, dass in den postindustriellen westlichen Demokratien ein deutliches Unbehagen gegenuber Prozessen der Denationalisierung herrscht.