Search

Support for democracy in the United States, once thought to be solid, has now been shown to be somewhat shaky. One of the most concerning aspects of this declining attachment to democracy is a marked age gap, with younger Americans less supportive of democracy than their older compatriots. Using age-period-cohort analysis of 12 national surveys collected between 1995 and 2019, we show that this age gap is largely a function of a long-term generational decline in support for democracy, with little evidence of an independent life-cycle effect apparent. The combination of generational decline without a positive and counterbalancing life-cycle effect offers a sober prognosis of how support for democracy in the United States might look in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does ideological polarization undermine or strengthen people's principled support for democracy? In this study, we suggest that different manifestations of ideological polarization have different implications in this respect. Using data from 11 surveys conducted with representative samples of the adult populations of a group of liberal democratic countries, part of the Comparative National Elections Project, we look at how people's level of ideological extremism and their perceptions of ideological polarization in their countries' party systems are related with their support for democracy. We show that citizens who hold more extreme ideological positions are indeed less supportive of democracy and that such a negative relationship is strengthened as citizens' extremism increases. However, we also show that the citizens who display higher levels of principled support for democracy are those who perceive parties to be neither too distant nor too close to each other in ideological terms. In other words, while a very polarized partisan supply seems to undermine popular commitment with democracy, very low polarization may have similar consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the role played by the concept of nation in the interwar writings of Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) and Eric Voegelin (1901–1985). It contends that, although these conservative thinkers were drawn in different ways to the anti-progressive potential of nationalist ideas, the centre of their political and theoretical horizons in that period is occupied by the problems of political unity and authority. Therefore, their nationalism is fundamentally determined by, and instrumental to, their adherence to a monistic and authoritarian conception of the state. This, in turn, leads them to embrace, though not without some reservations, the solutions put forward by the emergent far-right 'strongmen' to the interwar crisis of liberal democracy. Each author tested in his own way the porous borders between conservatism, nationalism, and fascism – a topic whose scholarly and political relevance is far from being exhausted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2019 Portuguese general elections have led to the formation of another minority government of the Socialist Party. Right-wing parties suffered a resounding defeat. The election had two key consequences. First, after four years of contract parliamentarism with an extreme-left party, the Socialists returned to their historical position of pivotal party in the system. Socialist leader Costa refused to replicate alliances with parties to his left. Second, the 2019 election witnessed the emergence of three new parties, Chega, Iniciativa Liberal and Livre. The election of Chega marks a watershed moment in Portuguese democratic history, as for the first time an extreme-right populist party has gained representation in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many political systems with direct democracy mechanisms have adopted rules preventing decisions from being made by simple majority rule. The device added most commonly to majority rule in national referendums is a quorum requirement. The two most common are participation and approval quorums. Such rules are responses to three major concerns: the legitimacy of the referendum outcome, its representativeness, and protection of minorities regarding issues that should demand a broad consensus. Guided by a pivotal voter model, we conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate the performances of different quorums in attaining such goals. We introduce two main innovations in relation to previous work on the topic. First, part of the electorate goes to the polls out of a sense of civic duty. Second, we test the performances of a different quorum, the rejection quorum, recently proposed in the literature. We conclude that, depending on the preferred criterion, either the approval or the rejection quorum is the best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast literature in social and organizational psychology suggests that support for authorities is driven both by the outcomes they deliver to people and by the extent to which they employ fair decision making processes. Furthermore, some of that literature describes a process‐outcome interaction, through which the effect of outcome favorability is reduced as process fairness increases. However, very few studies have been conducted to determine whether such interaction is also present in the explanation of support for political authorities. Here, we start by analyzing whether individual perceptions of the political system's procedural fairness moderate the well‐known individual‐level relationship between perceived economic performance and government approval. Then, we explore the implications of such process‐outcome interaction to the phenomenon of "economic voting," testing whether impartiality in governance moderates the effect of objective economic performance on aggregate incumbent parties' support. In both cases, we show that the interaction between processes and outcomes seems to extend beyond the organizational contexts where it has been previously observed, with important implications for the study of political support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Relações Internacionais is the property of Relacoes Internacionais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many democratic decision making institutions involve quorum rules. Such rules are commonly motivated by concerns about the 'legitimacy' or 'representativeness' of decisions reached when only a subset of eligible voters participates. A prominent example of this can be found in the context of direct democracy mechanisms, such as referenda and initiatives. We conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate the consequences of the two most common types of quorum rules: a participation quorum and an approval quorum. We find that both types of quora lead to lower participation rates, dramatically increasing the likelihood of full-fledged electoral boycotts on the part of those who endorse the Status Quo. This discouraging effect is significantly larger under a participation quorum than under an approval quorum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As semi-presidentialism has become increasingly common in European democracies, so have the debates about the consequences of several of its political and institutional features. In particular, in those regimes, cohabitation between presidents and cabinets of different parties and cabinet dismissal powers on the part of presidents are thought to be a source of inter-branch conflict and government instability. However, so far, most empirical work on government survival has failed to confirm any of these expectations. This article addresses this disjuncture between theory and empirical results by making a twofold contribution. First, it takes into account the internal diversity within semi-presidentialism, modeling the implications for government survival of different configurations between presidential powers' of cabinet dismissal, parliament dissolution and cohabitation in European semi-presidential systems. Second, it reconsiders traditional government survival using the competing risks framework by adding a distinction between two different types of non-electoral replacement: those where replacements imply a change in the party of the prime minister and those where they do not. Once such an approach is adopted, that presidential powers of parliamentary dissolution and cabinet dismissal indeed emerge as highly relevant for explaining government survival in these regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International economic crises are critical periods for any political regime. The 2008 global financial crisis brought to the surface several weak spots in the institutional performance of various southern European democracies. Portugal was no exception. Government attempts to tackle its negative externalities through a series of austerity measures did not prove successful on various grounds. Poor scoring in the economy generated social unrest. This article tries to assess the reaction of the Portuguese citizenry to the symptoms of failure in economic governance, particularly in what concerns their attitudes vis-à-vis the political realm by using different survey data sets. The analysis reveals that the decline in economic performance and in quality of governance is clearly reflected in citizens’ rising discontent with the performance of democracy and suggests even negative spillover effects for regime support. The available data also suggest that any expectations that the economic crisis might have ignited in citizens’ engagement in political issues seem only partially fulfilled. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diffuse support for democracy, as captured in mass surveys, tends to be treated as impervious to regime performance. Such a finding is often presented as confirmation of the basic distinction between 'diffuse' and 'specific' support as proposed by David Easton. This study argues that this line of argument stems from an incomplete reading of important aspects of Easton's theorisation about the relationship between system outputs and diffuse support. Using multilevel models, evidence from more than 100 surveys in close to 80 countries, and different measures of democratic support, it is shown that government effectiveness is the strongest macro-level predictor of such support. In democratic regimes, government effectiveness, understood as the quality of policy-making formulation and implementation, is linked to higher levels of support for democracy. Furthermore, in non-democracies, effectiveness and support for democracy are, under some model specifications, negatively related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three decades after the fall of the Portuguese authoritarian regime, support for democracy has become widespread among the mass public. However, similarities between Portugal and other more established democracies should not be overestimated. In most of the latter, several studies have found increasing political and civic activism on the part of pro-democratic and politically sophisticated citizens, who are nevertheless increasingly dissatisfied with democratic performance. However, the most prevalent and consequential attitudinal-behavioural syndrome in Portugal is less one of ‘democratic dissatisfaction’ than one of ‘democratic disaffection’, entailing low levels of political engagement and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have expressed concern over waning support for democracy worldwide. But what do ordinary citizens mean by the term "democracy," and how do their definitions of democracy influence their support for it? Using global cross-national survey data, this study demonstrates that individual variation in the understanding of democracy is substantively linked to democratic support across countries and regime contexts. Individuals who define democracy in terms of elections and the protection of civil liberties and those with greater conceptual complexity express higher support for democracy. This relationship between democratic conceptualization and support holds across diverse political contexts and alternative explanations. These results suggest that it is essential to consider divergent conceptualizations of democracy—and how they may vary systematically—when analyzing popular opinions of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do democratic regimes depend on public support to avoid backsliding? Does public support, in turn, respond thermostatically to changes in democracy? Two prominent recent studies (Claassen 2020a; 2020b) reinvigorated the classic hypothesis on the positive relationship between public support for democracy and regime survival—and challenged its reciprocal counterpart—by using a latent variable approach to measure mass democratic support from cross-national survey data. However, both studies used only the point estimates of democratic support. We show that incorporating the concomitant measurement uncertainty into these analyses reveals that there is no support for either study's conclusion. Efforts to minimize the uncertainty by incorporating additional survey data still fail to yield evidence in support of either hypothesis. These results underscore the need for both more nuanced analyses of the relationships between public support and democracy and taking measurement uncertainty into account when working with latent variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do young adults in Korea appear to reject the democratic system and embrace with authoritarianism? Employing a specially designed survey, this study examined the influence of the models of extreme economic hardship, social threat, fairness, and populism using the structural equation model. Thus, the determinants of the authoritarian system were found to be multidimensional and somewhat at odds with each other in the direction of causation. The threat of economic hardship and intolerant attitudes toward North Korea and minorities were important factors that led young adults to support authoritarian regimes. Nevertheless, young adults who are critical of the fairness of democracy in Korea continue to support the democratic system. Young adults who are critical of representative democracy and oriented toward populism showed the same preference. This result provides the hopeful prospect that Korea may not join the recent trend of deconsolidation and further reauthoritarianism in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholars emphasise the contentious relationship of populist forces to (liberal) democracy, less attention has been paid to whether this extends to those who support or oppose populist parties. This article utilises a public opinion dataset from ten Western European countries to analyse how citizens' conceptions of democracy relate to the behavioural intention to vote for or against populist parties. The empirical analysis shows that positive and negative identification with populist parties is driven by different understandings of democracy: While individuals who are less inclined to liberal democracy but more to direct democracy and authoritarian forms of rule are more likely to sympathise with populist parties, the opposite understanding of democracy predicts opposition to both left-wing and right-wing populists. These findings demonstrate that citizens with positive and negative partisanship towards populist parties are divided in their interpretations about both the conceptual meaning and the normative functioning of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Latinoamericana de Opinión Pública is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Anduli: Revista Andaluza de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Anduli: Revista Andaluza de Ciencias Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Public opinion polls conducted over the past five years point to a downward trend in African citizens' support for civil society and media freedoms. This is despite the flourishing of civil society and media actors as well as the expansion of democracy on the continent in the post-Cold War period. What explains this downward trend in public support? We use cross-national polling data from the Afrobarometer survey to examine the decline in public support for freedoms of association and media between 2011 and 2018 in the African context, a continent that has experienced decades of democratization waves and pressure. Using a multilevel statistical modelling approach, we analyse the influence of government repression of civil society and media actors on citizen support for enhanced government control over freedoms of association and the media. Our study shows that the government's repressive actions against civil society and media actors increases the probability that citizens will support control over association and media freedoms. Concerningly, this suggests government clampdowns on democratic rights influences the African publics to support such clampdowns, potentially legitimizing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Great Recession, European democracies underwent major political changes, from the spread of institutional discontent to the rise of radical populist parties. The erosion of democratic satisfaction in EU member states after the exogenous shock of the economic crisis is a significant phenomenon that requires innovative analysis and explanation. This article develops a new conceptual and empirical framework that examines how democracies are affected by exogenous shocks and the determinants of resilient democracies. The study explores the notion of democratic resilience, conceptualized as democratic resilience as the system characteristics which successfully adapt to or overcome democratic delegitimization processes after a shock. The analysis provides a classification of democracies by trajectory, distinguishing between preventive, recovered, and damaged democracies, and identifies which political characteristics have successfully increased or decreased democratic resilience. External political efficacy and economic satisfaction are highlighted as indispensable components and mediators of political and economic contextual features for a more resilient and stable political system during economic crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent surge of global populism has led many intellectuals to call for new forms of democratic elitism. Yet research into the sources of support for political organizations and regimes predicts that suppressing opportunities for public participation will likely exacerbate antisystem political tendencies. We cite the recent protests in Chile, a nation that has employed democratic elitism more effectively than perhaps any other, as illustrative of the eventual consequences of suppressing voice. Our research indicates that empowering citizens through vibrant parties and continuous democracy is the best way to avoid populist impulses and waves of contentious politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments even in consolidated democracies have adopted drastic measures, temporarily constraining individual freedoms and expanding executive political decision making. In light of this trade-off between public health measures and democratic norms, it becomes crucial to assess the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on public support for democratic versus authoritarian regimes. Following insights of the affective intelligence theory, emotions, and not only rational considerations, are key to understanding behavioural and attitudinal responses to crises. In the article it is argued that the pandemic threat of COVID-19 affects regime preferences by evoking distinct negative emotions, in particular anger and fear. Using original survey data in six European countries, it is shown that COVID-19-induced anger and fear have divergent effects on regime preferences. While democratic regime preference has declined for angry respondents, there is also a message of hope: fearful respondents display increased support for a democratic regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satisfaction with democracy (SWD) is one of the most commonly studied topics in the fields of political behavior and public opinion. Gauged with a survey question that asks respondents whether they are satisfied with the way democracy works, SWD has featured as an independent or dependent variable in more than 400 publications. In this Synthesis, we review the evolution and findings of this nearly 50-year-old body of literature, identifying gaps and disagreements. We pay particular attention to issues of measurement and conceptualization, research methodology, and real-world importance. We conclude by highlighting critical areas of future research, including continued investigation into the measurement of SWD and what the question captures, more qualitative and (quasi-)experimental work, more focus on emotions and extreme (dis)satisfaction, and greater geographic coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is usually recognized that satisfaction with democracy is enhanced by clean governments and fair democratic procedures. However, under certain circumstances, some citizens might appreciate the quality of democratic governance more than others. Building on research that underlines the accuracy and norm-inducing functions of education, we argue that the quality of democratic governance conditions the relationship between education and satisfaction with democracy. Analyzing data from 18 Latin American countries, we find that higher-educated citizens are less satisfied with the regime than the less-educated. Among the highly educated, nonetheless, the least satisfied are those who were asked by public officials to pay bribes. Highly educated individuals are more satisfied with the regime if their country's quality of democracy is robust rather than weak. At the lowest level of education, the conditional influence of being asked for a bribe or the quality of democracy is absent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Electoral Studies is the property of National Chengchi University, Election Study Center and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Because of a perceived (and real) risk of repressive action, some survey questions are sensitive in more autocratic countries while less so in more democratic countries. Yet, survey data on potentially sensitive topics are frequently used in comparative research despite concerns about comparability. To examine the comparability of politically sensitive questions, I employ a multilevel analysis with more than 228,000 respondents in 37 African countries to test for systematic bias when the survey respondents believe (fear) that the government, rather than an independent research institute, has commissioned the survey. The findings indicate that fear of the government induces a substantial and significant bias on questions regarding trust, approval and corruption perceptions in more autocratic countries, but not in more democratic countries. In contrast, innocuous, apolitical questions are not systematically influenced by regime type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Foro Internacional is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

How do individuals' fairness judgments affect their political evaluations? This article argues that when citizens perceive high levels of distributive unfairness in society, they will be less satisfied with the way democracy functions. Yet good governance—that is, impartiality in the exercise of political authority—should mitigate the negative influence of perceived distributive unfairness on satisfaction. Using a cross-national analysis of 18 Latin American countries from 2011 to 2015, this study demonstrates that individuals are significantly less satisfied with democracy when they perceive their country's income distribution as unfair. Yet good governance significantly offsets this negative relationship, even in a region with the highest level of inequality in the world. These findings imply that policymakers can bolster democratic satisfaction, even in places where citizens perceive the income distribution as fundamentally unfair, by committing to good governance and fair democratic procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public support has long been thought crucial for the vitality and survival of democracy. Existing research has argued that democracy also creates its own demand: through early-years socialization and later-life learning, the presence of a democratic system coupled with the passage of time produces widespread public support for democracy. Using new panel measures of democratic mood varying over 135 countries and up to 30 years, this article finds little evidence for such a positive feedback effect of democracy on support. Instead, it demonstrates a negative thermostatic effect: increases in democracy depress democratic mood, while decreases cheer it. Moreover, it is increases in the liberal, counter-majoritarian aspects of democracy, not the majoritarian, electoral aspects that provoke this backlash from citizens. These novel results challenge existing research on support for democracy, but also reconcile this research with the literature on macro-opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely believed that democracy requires public support to survive. The empirical evidence for this hypothesis is weak, however, with existing tests resting on small cross‐sectional samples and producing contradictory results. The underlying problem is that survey measures of support for democracy are fragmented across time, space, and different survey questions. In response, this article uses a Bayesian latent variable model to estimate a smooth country‐year panel of democratic support for 135 countries and up to 29 years. The article then demonstrates a positive effect of support on subsequent democratic change, while adjusting for the possible confounding effects of prior levels of democracy and unobservable time‐invariant factors. Support is, moreover, more robustly linked with the endurance of democracy than its emergence in the first place. As Lipset (1959) and Easton (1965) hypothesized over 50 years ago, public support does indeed help democracy survive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Is democracy necessary for good governance? Although it is often assumed that there is a natural connection between democracy and governance, there is remarkably little empirical work that tests this relationship cross‐nationally. Methods: In this article, I first focus on distinguishing aspects of good governance and separate them conceptually from democracy. Second, I outline several different types of regime models that represent models for emulation among developing countries. Third, using data from 115 countries from 1996 to 2011, I quantitatively analyze which of these is more effective in producing good governance (which in part explains the appeal of some models over others). Results: The results suggest that there are (1) either no differences between one‐party regimes and democracies in terms of the promotion of rule of law or effective governance in the developing world; and (2) some types of semi‐authoritarian one‐party regimes are better at promoting rule of law and effective governance than other types of authoritarian regimes—equally as well as democracies. Conclusion: Contrary to much of the literature, democracy does not appear to be necessary for good "enough" governance. However, in the long run, for good governance and the "rule of law" to firmly take root (where regime elites are held accountable by law), democratic institutions must be ultimately developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 tests if satisfaction is actually a coherent consequence of citizens considering democratic supply and demand. It starts from the simple idea that satisfaction can be explained by the distance between what "should be" and what "is"; between democratic expectations and reality. I capture this idea in a spatial model of democratic support, where size and direction of the gap between citizens' expectations and evaluations of democracy determine levels of satisfaction. I use data for 26 countries from the European Social Survey. Taking into account both expectation-surplus and evaluations-surplus gaps, I find that satisfaction is affected by both the size and the direction of the distance between expectations and evaluations. The main finding is that liberal criteria of democratic quality are generally agreed upon amongst citizens, and that a perceived lack of their realization is the strongest predictor of dissatisfaction. Democratic input dimensions like direct participation and output criteria like social justice are more disputed, and create dissatisfaction amongst those wanting more of them as well as those wanting less. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Politicos (01215167) is the property of Universidad de Antioquia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, we assess the explanatory power of two contrasting theories about the sources of political trust. Using a unique survey of expatriated Swedes together with two cross-country surveys, we investigate how a move from a context of high institutional quality to countries characterized by low institutional quality affects peoples’ institutional trust and satisfaction with democracy. Our analyses show that Swedes living in countries with low levels of institutional quality display significantly lower levels of political trust and support compared to the native population, demonstrating that experience of institutional quality is more important than socialization and culture. However, long-time exposure to, and socialization into, a new cultural and institutional setting triggers something like a process of resocialization, in which the difference in satisfaction and trust decreases over time. The results are robust to a wide array of specifications and statistical techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that voters’ perception of electoral fairness has an impact on their attitudes and behaviors. However, less research has attempted to link objective measurements of electoral integrity on voters’ attitudes about the democratic process. Drawing on data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and the Quality of Elections Data, we investigate whether cross-national differences in electoral integrity have significant influences on citizens’ level of satisfaction with democracy. We hypothesize that higher levels of observed electoral fraud will have a negative impact on evaluations of the democratic process, and that this effect will be mediated by a respondent’s status as a winner or loser of an election. The article’s main finding is that high levels of electoral fraud are indeed linked to less satisfaction with democracy. However, we show that winning only matters in elections that are conducted in an impartial way. The moment elections start to display the telltale signs of manipulation and malpractice, winning and losing no longer have different effects on voter’s levels of satisfaction with democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]