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CRITICAL CITIZENS REVISITED: CHAPTER 5 5/5/2023 2:31 AM

Chapter 5

Critical citizens around the world

The previous chapter compared trends in public opinion in Western Europe and the United

States – all affluent post-industrial societies, long-standing liberal democracies, and stable states.

Instead of a tidal wave of growing political disaffection, the evidence during the third wave era

demonstrates fluctuating orientations towards the nation-state, its agencies and its actors. Some

enduring contrasts in cultural attitudes persist for many decades, such as those distinguishing

confidence in government in Norway and Italy, Britain and France, or the Netherlands and Belgium,

maintaining diversity among European nations.1 Even in the United States – where the loudest alarm

bells can be heard about a supposed rising tide of political cynicism and voter anger – in fact American

support for government has both risen and fallen over time, and public confidence varies among the

major branches of the federal government. European satisfaction with the performance of democracy

fluctuates over time, moving gradually upwards during the last thirty-five years.

Subsequent chapters analyze whether the dynamic of systems support can be best explained by

cultural shifts among citizens, media coverage of public life, or problems of government performance.

Whatever the precise diagnosis and the appropriate cure, post-industrial societies in Western Europe

and the United States are all stable states and wealthy economies, where the culture of liberal

democracy has deep-seated roots which has evolved over centuries. Generalized trust in government

provides a reservoir of support which is independent of policy performance and thus lack of trust may

tie policy-makers hands.2 Deeply-unpopular governments or leaders may fall through election upsets.

Widespread dissatisfaction can catalyze support for constitutional reform movements and spur

demands for greater transparency, monitoring, and accountability.3 At worst, enduring cynicism may

potentially fuel contentious politics and sporadic outbreaks of violent street protest. The existence of

multiple indicators of political disenchantment in particular cases should raise genuine concern about

the workings of democratic governance in these societies. Governments, and multilateral institutions

such as the Council of Europe, have expressed mounting concern about these issues. 4 Nevertheless the

institutional inertia of long-standing democracies makes them highly unlikely to experience a major

legitimacy crisis, far less threats of regime change or even state failure, due to any grassroots

disaffection.

The same is not necessarily true elsewhere. In electoral autocracies and electoral democracies

which have not yet fully consolidated the transition from absolute autocracy, a serious and enduring 1


lack of democratic legitimacy could have potentially serious consequences for regime stability. There are

numerous cases of nations such as Kenya, Thailand, Honduras, Bangladesh, or Fiji where regular

democratic processes have been undermined by inconclusive or disputed election results, deep-rooted

partisan strife and factional violence, outbreaks of major political scandals, and coup d’états by

opposition forces or the military.5 Moreover a serious legitimacy crisis can even lead in some cases to

state failure, where deep-rooted ethnic conflict, civil wars, and secessionist movements challenge the

authority and power of the central government and the boundaries of the nation-state. For comparison

with established democracies in Western Europe and the United States, this chapter expands the

country coverage by analyzing public opinion in a wide range of countries worldwide. This chapter seeks

to understand multiple indicators of systems support around the globe, focusing upon (i) public trust

and confidence in regime institutions; (ii) evaluations of regime performance; (iii) support for regime

principles, including endorsement of democratic values and the rejection of autocratic alternatives; and

also, at the most diffuse level, (v) orientations towards the nation-state, including feelings of national

identity and pride.6

The broader geographic coverage, and the comparison of public opinion in a range of

contemporary regimes, also allows us to expand the theoretical issues under analysis. Theories differ in

their predictions about how the public learns about democracy and acquires democratic values

following the transition from repressive autocracies and the consolidation of democratic institutions.

Traditional theories of political socialization are the most common approach to understanding social

learning, suggesting that enduring values and attitudes are acquired during the formative years of

childhood and adolescence from family and friends, colleagues and neighbors. By contrast, cultural

attitudes and values become more rigid and resistant to change in adulthood. It follows that the pace of

cultural evolution in any society is usually expected to be glacially slow and path-dependent. For

example in post-Communist societies which liberalized in the early 1990s, such as Hungary, the Czech

Republic and Poland, socialization theories suggest that long-term processes of generational

replacement gradually strengthen attitudes and values which are closely related to democratic societies,

such as social tolerance, interpersonal trust, the rejection of autocracy and the endorsement of

democratic principles, just as citizens acquire habitual patterns of civic engagement through voting,

parties, and community associations. If these predictions are correct, political cultures in countries

which have experienced transitions from absolute autocracy should display generational patterns;

democratic values can also be expected to be strongest among the younger cohorts who grow up under

more liberal conditions, compared with the political attitudes and values endorsed by their parents or 2


grand-parents. Yet the dramatic historical events surrounding regime change, exemplified by the end of

apartheid in South Africa, the impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Warsaw Pact countries, often

generates a major shock to any society, an alternative viewpoint is provided by performance accounts,

which predict that public opinion responds more rapidly to changing political conditions and institutional

contexts. According to this theory, the radical processes of political change experienced during the third

wave era of democratization, and the contemporary performance of younger democratic regimes, has

the capacity to shape perceptions of current conditions and expectations about future developments

among all generations in younger democracies. Rather than being relatively immutable, lifetime

learning allows adults to change their political orientations and to acquire democratic habits and values

through direct personal experience, as well as from information conveyed by the independent news

media and by processes of adult civic education.

This chapter expands the comparative framework beyond the U.S. and Western Europe to

examine contemporary indicators of systems support both cross-nationally and longitudinally, with

evidence derived from the World Values Survey. The broadest comparison is drawn from the 5 th wave of

the WVS, conducted in 2005-7. This wave covers more than fifty countries around the world, including

states which differ substantially in their political histories, cultural traditions, and contemporary levels of

democratization. Moreover the pooled World Values Survey also contains time-series survey data

spanning twenty-five years (1981-2007) covering a more restricted sub-set of eleven nations including

in all five waves. The dynamics of system support can be examined by examining trends over time in

these particular cases.

After comparing an array of evidence, the chapter concludes that the historical experience of

democratic governance has left a marked and enduring imprint upon contemporary democratic cultures,

as socialization theory has long suggested. In particular, the analysis establishes that compared with

long-standing autocracies, the public living in countries which have the most extensive historical

experience of democracy: (i) are more committed to democratic ideals and the rejection of autocratic

alternatives, (ii) value living in a democracy more highly, and also (iii) evaluate the democratic

performance of their own government more positively. These patterns persist as significant even after

controlling for a battery of social characteristics which commonly shape social and political attitudes and

which differentiate these societies, including levels of education, age and income. By contrast, people

living in countries with long historical experience of autocracy continue to adhere less strongly to

democratic values and they also prove far more critical of the democratic performance of their own

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government. The longitudinal comparisons over the third wave era in a smaller range of countries

further confirms that value change is a process of incremental evolution, as socialization theory

suggests, with persistent contrasts in cultural attitudes towards government and democracy displayed

even among relatively similar countries. Although these general patterns are observed, nevertheless

some intriguing and puzzling outliers exist to each of these generalizations. To build on this foundation,

the next chapter analyzes what people in diverse societies mean when they express support for

democracy and thus whether there is a universally-shared understanding of this concept.

Theories of cultural change

Empirical survey data is now available to compare the contemporary state of system support in

many world regions, including orientations towards the national community, attitudes towards

democracy, and confidence in regime institutions. The third wave era was accompanied by the rapid

growth of new cross-national survey research seeking to understand public opinion around the globe.

What patterns would we expect to find?

Traditional socialization theories emphasize the primacy of the learning process for social norms

and values acquired during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Formative influences in this

process include parents and the family, the impact of schooling, the mass media, and religious

authorities, and the influence of friends, colleagues and neighbors in the local community, as well as

lessons learnt from the broader social conditions and political context experienced during growing up.

The socialization process is believed to generate relatively enduring attitudes and values which persist

during a lifetime. As a result, cultural social change is thought to be a decades-long process that depends

largely on generational replacement. In the light of socialization theory, the effect of democratic regime

change on political culture is expected to be glacially slow and lagged, with the strongest impact upon

the formative experiences of the younger generations who grow up under political conditions which

differ sharply from their parents and grand-parents. Hence this account emphasizes that the younger

generation of Hungarians, Czechs and Poles, experiencing new found freedoms since the fall of the

Berlin wall, are likely to hold distinctive democratic values and beliefs compared with the older

generations who learnt about politics under Communism. In the same way, according to this

perspective, feelings of racial tolerance in South Africa, expectations about the role of the state in

Russiaor attitudes towards social trust, clientalism and corruption in Mexico, are all expected to lag

behind institutional reforms.4


Socialization theory has long suggested that people gradually acquire enduring cultural attitudes

during their formative years and early adulthood, through learning primarily from parents and siblings,

as well as absorbing the prevailing social norms and values transmitted by the mass media, teachers and

religious authorities, and within local communities.7 Longitudinal studies of social learning report that

core political predispositions tend to be highly stable through the life span, with attitudes crystallizing as

people age, infusing core predispositions with increasing psychological strength over time. 8 For these

reasons, public opinion should display more favorable attitudes towards democratic governance in long-

standing liberal democratic states, which have consolidated democratic institutions and inculcated civic

awareness among citizens over decades and even centuries, compared with countries which

transitioned from autocracy and democratized during the third wave era. 9 Moreover persistent

contrasts are predicted to be evident among neighboring states within relatively similar cultural regions,

levels of development and among contemporary liberal democracies, if they differ in their past

background and political traditions, such as historical events in Spain and France, Hungary and Austria,

or Japan and South Korea.

If socialization theory is correct, this suggests the hypothesis that cultural attitudes and values

will display the enduring imprint of each society’s cumulative historical political experiences. Moreover it

also follows that democratic orientations and feelings of government legitimacy should gradually

strengthen over the years among citizens living within democratic states . These expectations arise from

the claim that learning about democratic practices and procedures should gradually inculcate stronger

democratic norms and values among the general public, such as feelings of interpersonal trust,

tolerance of minorities, and habits of active political participation. Through this process, eventually

democracy is expected to become accepted, in Linz and Stephan’s phrase, as ‘the only game in town’. 10

Direct comparison of cultural trends over time within the same countries allows us to test the stability of

attitudes among the eleven countries included in successive waves of the WVS, spanning a quarter-

century. While unrepresentative of public opinion worldwide, these states include the younger

democracies of South Africa, South Korea, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain, as well as a range of

established democracies such as the US, Japan, Germany, and Sweden, for comparison.

Socialization theories suggest that political cultural is a relatively deep-seated and stable

phenomenon. It follows that the enduring imprint of cumulative historical experiences over decades or

even centuries is expected to shape democratic attitudes more strongly than the type of regime

currently in power in any country. Moreover, a state’s level of democracy can fluctuate substantially

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from year to year (generating noise in measurement) due to specific historical events, such as a sudden

coup staged against elected presidents, a successful election challenge by opposition forces overturning

a repressive government, or the breakdown of autocracy following the death of the leader. Thus the

more diffuse dimensions of systems support, in particular, exemplified by affective feelings of

nationalism and the endorsement of regime values, are not expected to be strongly associated with

short-term fluctuations in Freedom House ratings. Diffuse orientations are important in determining

whether democracy persists and consolidates over the longer term.11

Yet an alternative perspective is provided by institutional theories which emphasize adult

relearning in response to regime change, where early socialization has less influence than current

political conditions. In this view, public opinion has the capacity to adjust more rapidly and fluidly to

major constitutional reforms and more democratic regimes. If political attitudes reflect the

contemporary institutional arrangements, then it follows that citizens living in contemporary democratic

states with widespread political rights and civil liberties should express the most satisfaction with the

performance of democracy in their own country. By the same logic, people living under repressive

regimes should prove more critical about the performance of democracy in their own country.

Institutional accounts therefore suggest that cultural attitudes towards democracy will reflect the

contemporary type of regime in power. Nevertheless, citizens may not be rational and fully informed

about political conditions and democratic processes in any society, especially in states which commonly

exercise techniques of propaganda and censorship designed to manipulate public opinion and suppress

criticism of the regime. The most extreme cases, such as Burma and North Korea, with closed borders to

outside information, use state broadcasting and propaganda to maintain regime support.

We can test the empirical evidence for each of these propositions. The regime classification

used in this study also facilitates comparison with earlier research conducted by Hans-Dieter

Klingemann who compared political support among older democracies, younger democracies, and ‘low’

democracies, based on the 3rd and 4th waves of the WVS conducted during the early-to-mid-1990s.12 His

conclusions highlighted the phenomenon of ‘dissatisfied democrats’, defined as: “people who put a high

rating on the attractiveness of democracy as a form of government but at the same time place a low

rating on the performance of their particular democratic regime.” In Central and Eastern Europe,

however, many states had only experienced their initial founding or transitional multi-party election

during the early-to-mid-1990s. This chapter can therefore update Klingemann’s study to examine the

persistence of this pattern in the 5th wave of the WVS (2005-7), roughly a decade later.

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As discussed in chapter 3, each country’s historical experience of democratization is measured

by the cumulative record of civil liberties and political rights for each nation during the third wave era, as

estimated annually by Freedom House from 1972-2006, taking account of both downturns and upticks

over the years. The resulting index is standardized to 100-points and categorized into societies with

restricted, moderate and extensive experience of democratization during the third wave era. The

historic democracy index is appropriate to explain contemporary cultural attitudes and values, since the

duration of democratic institutions is measured over more than three decades and thus prior to the

period of fieldwork for the fifth wave survey of the WVS, conducted in 2005-7. This helps to guard

against analytical problems of reciprocal causation in the complex relationship between culture and

institutions. The index is also used to sub-divide older and younger liberal democracies, to reflect their

differing histories. Contemporary regimes (in 2006, to match the midpoint of the fifth wave of the WVS)

are classified by this study into four categories: older liberal democracies, younger liberal democracies,

electoral democracies, and autocracies. It is not possible from cross-national comparisons to determine

the direction of causality in any correlations between contemporary regimes and patterns of political

attitudes; public demands for political reforms may lead towards stronger democratic states, on the

other hand, better functioning democracies may encourage public faith and confidence in this form of

governance. The technical appendix for the book describes the specific items and measures used to

construct the indicators of system support.

Do cultural values lag behind regime change?

(i) Confidence in regime institutions

As already observed, at the more specific level, the issue of declining confidence in the core

institutions of liberal democracy, including parliaments, parties, and governments, has attracted

widespread concern in Western Europe and the United States.13 Some of the worry is clearly

exaggerated in popular commentary; the evidence presented earlier shows trendless volatility in

institutional confidence in most West European states. Admittedly, a few of these countries have indeed

experienced steadily growing public mistrust of state institutions during the last decade, but other

societies have seen the reverse. Confidence in the core institutions of state, however, is arguably far

more critical for democratic stability elsewhere in the world, especially in countries which have only

recently transitioned from autocracy, or in deeply-divided or post-conflict societies. Prospects for

democratic consolidation in these countries seem poor if the public expresses minimal faith in the core

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representative institutions, if ministers and civil servants are regarded as corrupt and self-serving, and if

the legitimacy and authority of the government is widely challenged.

To compare the cross-national survey evidence, an institutional confidence scale was

constructed from the WVS 2005-7 data. The scale measured attitudes towards seven types of public

sector organizations, including political parties, the national government, the national parliament, the

civil service, the courts, the police, and the armed forces. The factor analysis presented in chapter 3

demonstrated that responses to all these items were strongly inter-correlated, meaning that people

who trusted parties or parliaments, for example, often usually also trusted governments and the civil

service. When the pooled sample was broken down further by the type of regime, and the factor

analysis run separately for each, the public living in the older liberal democracies distinguished between

the institutions closely associated with liberal democratic governance (parties, parliaments, the

government and the civil service) and those associated with maintaining security (the armed forces,

police and the courts). In the remaining publics, however, no such dimensions emerged from the factor

analysis, suggesting that the scale based on aggregating confidence in all seven types of public sector

institutions is the most appropriate one to compare across all societies. The combined institutional

confidence scale was first standardized to 100-points for a continuous measure and then also

dichotomized for descriptive comparisons, so that responses of 70 and above were categorized as

strong expressions of institutional confidence.

[Figure 5.2 about here]

Figure 5.2 describes the proportion who expressed strong institutional confidence within each

nation in the fifth wave of the WVS by the major type of contemporary regime, without any prior

controls. Overall, the analysis shows that roughly one third of the public expressed strong confidence in

public sector institutions, but this proportion varied considerably in the countries under comparison. 14

Most strikingly, China proved a clear outlier, with almost nine out of ten citizens expressing strong

confidence in state institutions. The precise reasons for this remain unclear and clearly the factors

driving this pattern require further exploration, as discussed in the next chapter. 15 This result could not

simply be attributed to the way that autocracies commonly control the news media, suppress dissidents,

and manipulate public opinion, however, since confidence in public sector institutions was relatively low

in other repressive regimes which follow similar practices, including Russia, Ukraine, and Iran. Once

China and Vietnam were excluded from the comparison, institutional confidence was not significantly

linked with either the historical or contemporary levels of democracy (see Table 5.1). It is also striking

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that considerable variance among countries was observed within each type of regime. Amongst the

societies with the longest experience of democracy, for example, almost twice as many Fins and

Norwegians expressed strong confidence in public sector institutions compared Italians and the Dutch.

Similar variance is displayed among countries with moderate experience of democracy, as exemplified

by the confident sentiments recorded in Malaysia, South Africa and Turkey compared with greater

skepticism expressed in Poland and Argentina. In general, there is no support from this evidence for the

contention that liberal democracies gradually accumulate a much stronger and deeper reservoir of

confidence towards public sector institutions, such as parliaments, governments and parties. Instead

levels of institutional confidence proved to be remarkably similar in many older and younger

democracies, for example if we compare Norway and South Africa, or if we look at contrasts between

Brazil and New Zealand.

[Figures 5.3 and 5.4 about here]

To examine trends over time, Figure 5.3 shows how the overall institutional confidence index

varies during the last twenty-five years in the eleven countries contained in all five waves of the WVS

survey. For comparison, Figure 5.4 illustrates the trends in confidence in parliaments in these nations,

since much of the concern focuses upon legislatures, and there may well be contrasts between trust in

all public sector institutions, including the army and security forces, and those most closely linked with

representative democracy. There are only five time-points, so that any observations remain limited and

we are unable to establish the degree of annual flux in support, but the extended time period means we

should be able to detect any steady and consistent flows during a period when regimes in Spain,

Argentina, South Korea, South Africa and Mexico were being radically transformed. To test more

systematically for the direction and significance of any change over time, the year of the survey wave

was regressed on political attitudes. Patterns over time show a few specific cases of decline across both

indicators of institutional confidence, notably during the 1980s in Argentina and South Korea.

Constitutional rule was restored in Argentina in 1983; the presidency of Raúl Alfonsín saw the re-

establishment of civilian command over the military and strengthened democratic institutions, although

there were persistent economic problems in controlling hyperinflation. During this era, however,

Argentinean institutional confidence fell sharply before stabilizing at a lower level. The Sixth Republic of

South Korea began in 1987 with democratic elections which marked the transfer of power from the

authoritarian President Chun Doo-hwan; despite this, and growing economic prosperity prior to the

Asian economic crisis of 1997, confidence in public sector institutions gradually slipped among Koreans,

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and confidence in the National Assembly fell sharply. In South Africa, however, rising confidence peaked

during the first post-apartheid election and then fell back.

Overall, supporting our earlier observations, there is no support from the available time-series

analysis for the argument that institutional confidence progressively strengthened significantly during

the third wave era among the democracies under comparison.16 Despite the radical changes which have

occurred during recent decades, such as the restoration of civilian rule in Argentina, the end of

apartheid in South Africa, and the breakdown of the hegemony of the ruling party in Mexico, any

historical processes of changing trust and confidence in state institutions therefore appears to operate

on a far longer time-scale. In the remaining countries, the composite institutional confidence scale

generally shows a fairly stable trend from the start to the end of the series. The trends in confidence in

parliament, however, display a significant fall over time. The WVS evidence confirms the erosion in

public confidence in the United States Congress that we have already observed from the GSS data, and a

similar decline occurred in Germany, Argentina and South Korea. Despite the limited number of

observations (50 year-country units), the erosion of confidence in parliament since 1981 in the eleven

countries under comparison proved statistically significant. The results, therefore, suggest that any loss

of institutional confidence is more clearly related to the legislative body rather than to all public sector

institutions, and we need to examine this finding further to determine the underlying reasons in

subsequent chapters.17

(ii) Evaluations of democratic performance

How do people evaluate the democratic performance of their own government? This represents

a more diffuse level of support which is arguably more important as an indicator; people can express

increasingly skeptical attitudes towards leaders and elected officials in parliament, but in multi-party

democratic states, regular elections provide periodic opportunities to ‘throw the rascals out’, providing a

release valve for pressures. If the public loses faith in the broader workings of democratic regimes,

however, this can have potentially far more significant consequences for political stability. While the

branches of government are the main components, the ‘regime’ represents the overall constitutional

arrangements and rules of the game governing any state. As discussed earlier, measures gauging

satisfaction with the performance of democracy are common in the EuroBarometer surveys (see chapter

4), as well as the International Social Survey Program, and the Global-Barometers. The standard

question used in these studies asks: “On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very

satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the way democracy works in your country?” The results have been

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widely analyzed in the research literature, especially studies analyzing whether satisfaction with

democracy can be attributed to the impact of institutional design, good governance, policy performance,

and regime histories.18 Nevertheless the precise meaning of the standard measure of democratic

satisfaction remains ambiguous and open to interpretation. This question may indeed reflect public

assessments of democratic practices and performance (‘the way democracy works in your country’).

Responses to the standard question, however, may also be seen as endorsing normative approval about

the general legitimacy of democratic principles (‘are you satisfied with democracy’). 19 In addition,

usually responses to this question are treated as unambiguous and straightforward, on the assumption

that citizens are capable of making informed and rational assessments about the democratic

performance of governance in their own country. Even if evaluations do not meet these standards, for

example if the public remains highly critical in states such as Sweden and Norway which are regularly

ranked by experts as some of the most democratic in the world, public perceptions are still an important

indicator of the state of political culture. Democracy is a complex and abstract concept, open to several

interpretations; the next chapter explores how citizens understand the meaning of this idea, particularly

in closed autocracies lacking democratic traditions, to establish whether public judgments are based on

informed knowledge.

Using an alternative phrasing, the 5th wave WVS asks the following question: “And how

democratically is this country being governed today? Again using a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means

that it is “not at all democratic” and 10 means that it is “completely democratic,” what position would

you choose?” The way that this question emphasizes evaluations of how democratically each country is

being governed makes it highly suitable to test public evaluations of the perceived democratic

performance of regimes in each country.20 The use of the 10-point scale also provides respondents with

a more subtle range of choices than the standard 4-point scale. Moreover evaluations of democratic

performance using this question are strongly correlated at national-level with another WVS survey item

asking respondents to evaluate respect for human rights in their own country (R=0.78 p>.000) and

confidence in government (R=.51 p>.000). By contrast, public evaluations of the democratic

performance of their own government were not significantly related to general approval of democratic

or autocratic forms of rule. This pattern gives us more confidence that the democratic evaluation

measure taps into how people regard the workings of their own political system more generally, rather

than tapping support for democratic values. The 10-point democratic performance scale was

dichotomized for descriptive comparisons, so that responses of 7.0 and above were categorized as

expressing strong satisfaction with the performance of democracy.11



Using this measure, the comparison of almost fifty nations demonstrates that overall about one

third of the public expressed strong satisfaction with the performance of democracy in their own

country. Figure 5.5 shows that the public strongly approved of how democratically their country was

being governed in many of the older democracies with the longest history of this form of governance,

although again the comparisons highlighted the considerable range of replies, with Scandinavian

citizens, in particular, usually proved exceptionally positive about the democratic performance of their

states, in contrast to Italians, the Dutch and the Americans. Yet the link between the length of

democratic experience and satisfaction with democratic performance was not wholly clear cut, as highly

favorable evaluations are also expressed in the third-wave democracies of Ghana, South Africa, and

Uruguay. Ghana, in particular, proved exceptionally positive in how they judged their government. A

half-century ago, Ghana was the first African state to achieve independence following colonial rule. In

April 1992 a constitution allowing for a multi-party system was approved in a referendum, ushering in a

sustained period of democracy. Since then, the two largest political Ghanaian parties have regularly

rotated in presidential office and the country has been regarded as one of the most successful

democracies on the continent.21 By contrast, citizens in the countries with minimal experience of

democracy usually expressed the most critical towards the performance of democracy in their own

country. Hence, in line with the evaluative reports of independent observers and expert judgments, in

2005 Ethiopians, Russians, and Iranians all rated their own governments extremely poorly by this

standard. It is also notable that Chinese evaluations proved similar to those made in India, although the

latter has been democratic (with one period of suspension) since independence in 1947, an puzzle to

which we shall return in the next chapter.

Therefore despite the important variations, in general democratic satisfaction usually deepened

significantly with each country’s historical experience with this form of governance (R=.37 p>.009).

Hence 40% of citizens living in states with extensive experience of democracy expressed strong

satisfaction with the performance of their own democracy, compared with just 14% of the public

expressing similar levels of satisfaction in the countries with restricted experience. Unlike the pattern

observed for institutional confidence, therefore, a reservoir of support for the performance of

democracy does seem to gradually accumulate and deepen with greater familiarity with this form of

governance, lending support to the first proposition. The cumulative experience of living in a state with

widespread political rights and civil liberties, and the values and norms gradually acquired through this

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process, therefore do seem to generate positive satisfaction among citizens with how democracy works.

Attitudes were also linked with the contemporary level of democracy in each country, although the

correlation proved weaker, as predicted, and not statistically significant at the conventional level

(R=.257 p>.075).

(iii) Attitudes towards democratic and autocratic rule

Surveys have sought to tap public attitudes towards democracy and autocracy forms of

governance in several ways.22 Perhaps the most common approach has relied upon questions which ask

the public to express their direct or overt preferences for democratic rule as a normative ideal, using the

‘d’ word but without providing a more specific context, concrete principles, or elaborating its meaning

further. For example, surveys have typically asked people whether they approve of democracy as the

‘best form of government’, whether democracy is ‘preferable to any other form of government’, whether

it is important ‘to live in a country that is government democratically’, or whether they approve of

having a democratic system ‘as a good or suitable way of governing their own country’. The direct or

overt approach allows survey respondents to reply using their own understanding of these terms, rather

than imposing a common meaning. Similar methods have often been used to gauge opinions towards

other complex normative concepts, such as notions of equality, freedom, or human rights. At the same

time, direct questions suffer from certain important limits which put their face validity into question. It is

therefore important to explore the underlying meaning, as well as the depth, of any overt support for

democracy.23

Research based on the Global-barometer and the World Values Surveys suggest that during the

1990s, when asked directly, many citizens around the globe expressed widespread aspirations for

democratic principles as the best system of government. 24 The ‘Asian values’ thesis propounded by Lee

Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, claimed that democracy was a Western cultural

artifact.25 Confucian values, the thesis stressed, emphasize community rather than individualism, duties

rather than rights, and the importance of harmony, consensus, respect for authority, and an orderly

society.26 Nevertheless despite these claims, surveys have reported that in fact orientations towards

authority, as well as support for democracy, are remarkably similar in East Asia and Anglo-American

societies. 27 Indeed almost universal public approval for the abstract idea of democratic governance has

been expressed even in some of the most rigid East Asian autocracies, including Communist China and

Vietnam, where the public lacks any direct experience of living under this type of rule.28 In the Middle

East, as well, the region which lags furthest behind the rest of the world in democratic reforms, it might

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be expected that support for democracy would be low. Yet the 2006 Arab Barometer survey reports that

eight or nine out of ten respondents in Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, and Kuwait believe that ‘democracy is

the best form of government’ and that ‘having a democratic system of government would be good for

our country’.29 As Diamond summarized the survey evidence worldwide: “Strikingly, the belief that

democracy is (in principle at least) the best system is overwhelming and universal. While there is a

slightly higher preference for the Western industrialized countries, in every region – even the former

Soviet Union and the Muslim Middle East – an average of at least 80 percent of people polled say that

democracy is best.”30

The World Values survey monitors direct or overt attitudes towards democratic rule using the

following question: “I'm going to describe various types of political systems and ask what you think

about each as a way of governing this country. For each one, would you say it is a very good, fairly good,

fairly bad or very bad way of governing this country? Having a democratic political system .” By itself,

overt support for democratic values proved to be insignificantly related to either the historical

experience of democratization or to contemporary types of regimes. Support for democracy as an ideal

form of governance proves over-whelming and almost universal today; almost nine out of ten

respondents worldwide who offered an opinion approved of democratic governance as a ‘very’ or ‘fairly’

good political system for their own country. Moreover positive attitudes were expressed among the

public living under every type of regime, including in autocracies, and also in every cultural region,

including in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Far from being a Western phenomenon, as earlier

research suggested, the WVS survey evidence indicates that approval of democratic governance is

widespread and universal, confirming the findings of previous studies based on the Global-barometers. 31

Democratic states have not produced ‘the end of history’ but it seems as though democratic values have

broad appeal, even in unlikely places.

The ubiquity of public approval of democracy around the world also raises certain important

questions, however, about the measurement and interpretation of these results. In particular Schedler

and Sarsfield argue that the validity of direct measures of abstract support for democracy can be

questioned due to the potential problems of interviewer effects generating ‘politically correct’

responses, as well as the vague, shifting and controversial meaning associated with ideas of

democracy.32 Instead, they argue, abstract measures need to be compared with attitudes towards more

specific, concrete, and detailed procedures, rights, and institutions associated with this form of

governance. Hence using a Mexican survey they examined public approval of freedom of speech,

14


freedom of assembly, political equality and tolerance of minority rights, without mentioning the term

‘democracy’ directly in these questions, to avoid cueing respondents. They report that Mexicans

expressing the strongest support for democracy also manifest illiberal convictions on at least some

specific political rights and civil liberties.

If we simply tap attitudes towards democracy, without considering alternatives, then we are

unable to analyze the relative importance of different forms of rule. For example, if people are asked by

pollsters whether they value health care and also whether they want lower taxes, then it is likely that

both statements will be widely endorsed. If people are asked whether they prefer more public spending

on health care or more tax cuts, then this presents respondents with more realistic and complex choices

where they are forced to prioritize options. Similarly support for democracy may be widely endorsed but

it remains unclear how important this is to Jordanians, the Chinese or Moroccans compared with, for

example, the desire to maintain social stability, the value of respecting traditional authorities, or the

risks of regime change. A more effective way to explore whether democratic attitudes are robust, and to

measure more nuanced choices, is to use trade-off items where citizens are asked to express their

preference for different types of democratic and autocratic regimes. This strategy has been widely used

in countries which have experienced a recent water-shed transition, notably in post-communist Europe,

where surveys have commonly compared people’s evaluation of the current against the previous

regime.33 This is a useful approach in the context of revolutionary upheaval or a watershed

constitutional change involving a shark break from the past, exemplified by the end of apartheid in

South Africa, or the fall of the Berlin wall in Germany. It is less appropriate in many countries where

democratization has been an evolutionary process of a series of incremental reforms, or indeed with

many states such as Russia, Pakistan, and Nigeria which have veered back and forth over the years in

their human rights record. The process of democratization occurs gradually in many states, with an

extended series of steps, backwards and forwards, transforming each polity.

Given these considerations, the Global-Barometer surveys used a trade-off question to monitor

regime preferences, as follows: “Which of the following statements do you agree with most? Democracy

is preferable to any other kind of government. In certain situations, an authoritarian government can be

preferable to a democratic one. It doesn't matter to people like me whether we have a democratic

government or a non-democratic government.” The results confirm widespread popular support for

democratic rule in the abstract, with majority populations in 43 out of 49 societies preferring democracy

15


over any other kind of government. Most people also exercised a clear choice, with few responding that

it didn’t matter to them either way.

For comparability, to see whether the results remain robust and consistent with other

indicators, for a trade-off scale the World Values Survey asks about the desirability of democratic

governance, military rule, rule by bureaucratic elites, and also strong-man leadership unchecked by

parliament and elections. The standardized democratic attitudes index is constructed by recoding the

items to reflect the endorsement of democratic rule and the rejection of autocratic forms of

governance, and then combining these responses. Figure 5.6 shows the distribution of democratic

attitudes using this standardized index. The 100-point scale was also dichotomized for descriptive

purposes, so that responses of 70 and above were categorized as expressing strong democratic

attitudes.

Most strikingly, it is apparent that democratic attitudes significantly strengthen with historical

experience of living under this form of governance (R=.58 p>.000). Seven out of ten respondents living in

countries with the longest experience of this form of governance expressed strong approval of

democratic attitudes, compared with roughly four of ten respondents in states with restricted

experience. As illustrated in Figure 5.6, democratic attitudes are most widely expressed in countries

such as Germany and New Zealand, with the most autocratic states such as Iran and Russia clustered in

the bottom left corner of the graph. Nevertheless again there are a few outliers, notably Iraq (and, to a

lesser extent, Ethiopia), where moderate approval of democratic attitudes is evident, and a democratic

culture appears to be flourishing strongly in Ghana. Contemporary levels of democracy are also

significantly related to democratic attitudes, although the relationship is slightly weaker than the

historical comparisons (see Table 5.1). Therefore the trade-off question employed in the World Values

Survey, where respondents are offered a choice between democracy and autocracy, did produce a less

overwhelming consensus that simply asking about direct or overt approval of democracy. Nevertheless

the result confirm the widespread appeal of democracy, as well as the public’s rejection of autocratic

forms of government, with democratic attitudes strengthening in societies with the longest experience

of this form of governance


(iv) Endorsement of democratic values

16


The expression of democratic attitudes and the rejection of autocratic alternatives by itself is

still essentially ‘costless’, and hence it remains difficult to estimate the weight which should be given to

these responses. Thus although general approval of democratic governance appears remarkably

widespread in countries such as Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso, it is unclear from this evidence whether

democracy is regarded as vital and urgent to people’s lives, or whether it is seen as generally desirable

but as less important than more immediate priorities facing poorer societies, such as strengthening

economic development, living standards, or security. In addition to attitudes towards democratic and

autocratic types of regimes, therefore, we must therefore also compare how far people value

democracy. The concept of ‘values’ refers to personal or societal goals which are regarded as desirable,

for example the importance of freedom and autonomy , of security and avoiding risk, of respecting

traditional sources of authority, or of material gains in living standards. Values can apply to the

individual, or to broader units such as the family and household, social group, the community and

society, the nation-state, or even the world. Values can be understood as the normative benchmarks

which can be used to evaluate actions, policies and events, for instance, where there is a trade-off,

whether it is regarded as more important for governments to pursue economic growth or

environmental protection, and whether societies should seek to reward entrepreneurial success or to

share public goods more equitably among all members. By contrast, ‘attitudes’ refer to approval or

disapproval of more specific statements; hence people can agree that a high priority should be placed

on democracy, as the most desirable goal or value, but there is still room for legitimate debate about

which institutional arrangements are most likely to maximize opportunities for political participation and

competition, and hence differing attitudes towards alternative types of electoral system or the

appropriate division of powers between the executive and legislature.


The value of democracy is gauged from the World Values Survey 2005 by the question: “How

important is it for you to live in a country that is governed democratically? On this scale where 1 means

it is “not at all important” and 10 means “absolutely important” what position would you choose?” This

item is arguably superior to asking simply about approval of democratic attitudes, as it seeks to gauge

the depth or strength of support. ‘Strong’ support for democratic values is indicated by those giving a

score of 7.0 and above. Overall, two thirds of the public in the countries under comparison reported that

democracy was very important. Strikingly, again, the saliency of democracy deepens significantly with

historical experience of this form of rule. On average three-quarters of the citizens living in states with

17


the most extensive history of democracy thought that it was very important to live in a democracy,

compared with almost six out of ten citizens living in states with limited experience of this form of rule.

Figure 5.7 also confirms that a culture where the general public regards living in a democracy as

important deepens with greater experience of living in a democracy. This view proved especially popular

among Scandinavian citizens, although again there was considerable variation among long-standing

democracies, and strong preferences for democracy were also expressed among some transitional

states, such as Ghana, Turkey and Argentina, as well as by Ethiopia, Rwanda and Jordan. By contrast, as

predicted by the second proposition under analysis, the contemporary level of democracy in any state

was not significantly related to the endorsement of democratic values (see Table 5.1).

(v) Strength of nationalism

Lastly we can compare trends in the strength of nationalism, operating at the most abstract or

diffuse level of systems support. Enduring bonds to the nation reflect a sense of community within

common territorial boundaries. Such feelings are important for binding-together every nation-state, but

they play a particularly important function by strengthening social cohesion and state legitimacy in

multicultural communities, in deeply-divided societies, and in fragile states emerging from long-lasting

conflict. Nationalism can be expected to weaken under the forces of globalization, especially in Western

Europe, due to the process of European Union integration. The experience of growing economic and

political integration within the EU, with people working, living, studying and traveling across the borders

in different member states, have dissolved traditional physical barriers. European identities can also be

expected to have gradually strengthened most among citizens of the founding states that have lived

under European institutions for a long time, such as Italy, France, and Germany. Despite these

predictions, in fact the empirical evidence that cosmopolitan identities have indeed come to supersede

the older attachments of nationalism, even in the EU, remains limited.34 It is also unclear theoretically

how feelings of nationalism are predicted to relate to patterns of democratization. The extensive

literature on the ‘democratic peace’ has long debated the consequences of regime change for conflict

between and within nations. It is often argued that democracies are less likely to declare war on each

other, as well as reducing the threat of civil war and the causes of terrorism, although the empirical

evidence for all these claims remains strongly contested.35 Democratic states are usually open societies,

which are well integrated into the institutions of global governance and world trade, and which are also

more likely to perceive diplomatic signals and to seek to resolve international conflicts through

multilateral agencies. The most cosmopolitan societies have widespread access to the mass media, open

18


borders to information flows, and extensive trans-border flows of trade and peoples. Cosmopolitan

communications weaken traditional attachments to the nation, especially among media users in the

most open societies.36 As some hope, and others fear, denser and faster interconnections across

territorial borders may thereby gradually erode older allegiances and promote a more multicultural and

cosmopolitan ethos. In contradiction, Mansfield and Snyder argue that the initial breakdown of

autocracies and the transition to electoral democracy heightens the dangers of populist leaders who

seek to reinforce their rule by reinforcing feelings of nationalism, stirring up ethnic hatred, and

emphasizing the threat of external conflict.37


Nationalism is also a highly complex concept which remains difficult to gauge. One way to assess

its strength is through survey items measuring feelings of national pride, as well as the willingness of

citizens to defend their own country in case of war. These items can be combined into a nationalism

standardized scale, where strong feelings of nationalism are measured by scores of 70 and above on the

100-point index. The results show that 82% expressed strong feelings of nationalism in countries with

restricted historical experience of democracy, compared with 77% of those living in long-standing

democracies. Figure 5.8 illustrates how feelings of nationalism were especially weak in Western Europe

and in the special cases of Germany and Japan (following the legacy of World War II). Nationalism

strengthened significantly in the electoral democracies and in autocracies, where feelings of national

pride and willingness to fight for their country proved exceptionally strong in Turkey, Iraq, Ethiopia, and

Iran.


What of trends in nationalism over time? Figure 5.9 shows that these expressive orientations

were also relatively stable across most of the eleven countries with time-series data available since the

early-1980s. Hence nationalist feelings were persistently low in Germany and Japan, reflecting the

enduring legacy of World War II, in comparison to all the other countries. The major changes in the

series involved South Korea, where nationalism fell over the years, whereas by contrast the indicator

became more positive in South Africa, peaking around the time of the end of apartheid and the first

fully-democratic elections in the early-1990s. We can conclude that the cross-national evidence suggests

that democratic values, attitudes and evaluations are usually strengthened in long-established

democracies, but feelings of nationalism show the reverse pattern. Where nationalism fuels

international conflict, the results provide some provisional support for the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, 19


although it should be noted that third wave democracies with only moderate experience of democracy

are just as nationalistic as long-standing autocracies.

Summary of results

To summarize the core propositions, does system support vary in predictable ways, generating

significant contrasts: (i) by the cumulative length of historical experience of democratization; (ii) among

liberal democracies over time; and (iii) among contemporary types of regimes? To describe patterns,

Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1 summarize the mean score on the selected indicators of system support

according to the historical experience of democracy in each society, without prior controls, comparing

around fifty nations contained in the most recent wave of the WVS. Building upon this foundation,

Table 5.2 uses multilevel models which examine the impact of the society’s historical experience of

democracy on system support after controlling for many of the standard individual-level social

characteristics commonly associated with political attitudes, including age (in years), sex, household

income, education, and news media use.

The results of the analysis demonstrate that historical experience of democracy usually

strengthens democratic cultures, lending support for the first hypothesis arising from socialization

theory. The evidence shows that even after applying social controls, citizens living in states with

extensive experience of democracy are significantly more likely to approve of democratic attitudes, to

endorse the importance of living in a democracy, and to rate the democratic performance of their own

government more positively. The contrasts in the 100-point scales are greatest between those countries

with the most extensive and restricted experience of democracy, such as the 27-point gap in approval of

democratic attitudes and rejection of autocracy, the 17-point gap in the importance of democracy, and

the 26-point gap concerning satisfaction with the performance of democracy in their own country. At

the same time, the two other indicators of system support did not conform to this pattern. Hence at the

most specific level, confidence in public sector institutions was not significantly linked to historical levels

of democratization. Moreover feelings of nationalism are usually significantly stronger in historically

autocratic states. Amongst the controls in the models, age was positively linked with indicators of

systems support, particularly institutional confidence, suggesting that these attitudes and orientations

gradually strengthen over a lifetime. Any differences between women and men were usually

insignificant, with the exception of the tendency for men to prove slightly more nationalistic. Education,

and the cognitive and civic skills acquired through schooling, were strongly associated with stronger

democratic attitudes and values, and yet with more critical attitudes towards the democratic

20


performance of their own government, reflecting the critical citizen syndrome at the heart of this book.

Lastly, regular use of the news media was linked with giving greater priority to democratic values, but

also with stronger nationalism and institutional confidence.

[Figure 5.1, Table 5.1 and Table 5.2 about here]

The idea that that cultural shifts are relatively slow to respond to changing conditions is further

confirmed by the examinations of trends in system support among a sub-set of eleven liberal

democracies where time-series evidence is available since the early-1980s. It is apparent that most

indicators prove fairly stable over time. This suggests that enduring attitudes and values towards politics

and government, acquired by the socialization process in early childhood and adolescence, are not

abandoned overnight when regimes are reformed. Moreover some enduring contrasts among countries

continue to persist during the last twenty-five years, even among relatively similar post-industrial

societies and long-standing liberal democracies, as exemplified by the historical legacy feelings about

nationalism displayed today in the countries which were major Axis powers in World War II (Japan,

Germany) and those which were Allies (the United States and Britain). This reinforces the importance of

scrutinizing national contextual factors, including the enduring characteristics and historical experiences

of each state, which help us to understand contemporary political cultures.

What about the alternative rational choice thesis which suggests that citizens are responding to

current conditions and the performance of the type of regime in power? When comparing the link

between contemporary levels of democracy and public opinion in any state, only two indicators

emerged as statistically significant, namely current democratic states displayed stronger endorsement of

democratic attitudes and also weaker feelings of nationalism. Further multilevel tests through

regression models, replicating Table 5.2, did not change these findings. This pattern strongly suggests

that many cultural attitudes towards democracy, learnt through socialization processes over many years,

or even decades, probably lag behind contemporary regime changes. Events leading towards the sudden

breakdown of autocracy and the implementation of multiparty elections, therefore, alter the

constitutional arrangements and the type of elites in power far faster than shifts which occur in

enduring cultural orientations among the mass publics. Moreover the annual changes in the estimated

indicators of democratization generate measurement ‘noise’, so that the historical political experience

in each state provides a stronger predictor of contemporary support for democratic attitudes and

values.

Conclusions21


This chapter sought to examine how far indicators of system support strengthened with

historical experienced of democratization during the third wave era, and whether these orientations

strengthened over time among a sub-set of liberal democracies, as well as how far these attitudes and

values varied systematically to reflect the quality of democratic practices among contemporary regimes.

Socialization theorists have long predicted that citizens living within democratic states, who have

multiple opportunities to observe and to become engaged in public affairs, will gradually develop norms

and values which deepen their commitment to democratic values. Long-term processes of value change

are predicted to leave an enduring imprint upon democratic attitudes and values, and in cases where

states have experienced a major regime transition, cultural attitudes are expected to lag behind

contemporary conditions.

The results of the analysis in this chapter generally provide important evidence largely

supporting these claims. Democratic cultures are indeed significantly stronger in societies which have

had the longest historical experience of this form of governance. In particular, compared with those

living under autocracy, citizens living in long-standing democracies display significantly stronger

commitment to democratic attitudes and a rejection of autocratic forms of governance, endorse the

importance of democratic values, and evaluate the democratic performance of their own governments

more positively. The cross-national results were not wholly straightforward across all indicators of

system support, however; confidence in a range of public sector institutions was not affected by

experience of democratization, and nationalism weakened, rather than strengthened, in the long-

standing democratic nations. As predicted, cultural indicators of system support were usually more

closely related to the accumulated historical experiences than to short-term fluctuations during the

third wave era in contemporary levels of democracy in each country.

The comparison of trends over time in the eleven countries under comparison during the last

twenty-five years reinforces the argument that cultural change is an incremental process which evolves

at a glacial pace. Rather than a uniform steady decline in system support, some divergent trends were

evident. Hence the institutional confidence scale eroded in some cases, but actually rose in others. The

most consistent decline concerned confidence in parliament, which did fall significantly in the eleven

countries under comparison. This suggests that any issues of a growing disconnect between citizens and

the state may center upon legislatures, rather than all institutions, an issue requiring further exploration

in subsequent chapters. Moreover in the countries where data is available, nationalism did not seem to

22


alter significantly during the period under comparison, and persistent cross-national contrasts can be

observed.

The overall pattern documented in this chapter therefore strongly suggests that democratic

cultures and patterns of system support usually evolve over many years, or even decades, as the result

of enduring and long-lasting experiences, rather than responding immediately and rationally to short-

term processes of regime change. Ever since Almond and Verba, cultural theorists have long suggested

that the gradual diffusion of democratic attitudes, norms, and values serves to consolidate and underpin

democratic regimes. The evidence confirms the role of long-term historical experiences in cultural

change. To understand why historical patterns are stronger predictors of democratic cultures than

contemporary conditions, we also need to look at political knowledge. When people express widespread

support for democracy, and when they evaluate the performance of democracy in their own countries,

it remains unclear what this implies, especially in states with little, or even no, historical experience of

this form of governance. To understand these issues further, the next chapter turns to examining the

cognitive basis of judgments and thus whether critical citizens are capable of making informed

judgments about the performance of democracy.

23


Table 5.1: Experience of democracy strengthens democratic orientations

% Expressing

strong support

Dimension of system support Historical experience of

democratization

1972-2006

Contemporary levels of

democracy

2006

N.

78 Nationalism -.280 * -.354 ** 52

69 Importance of democracy .330 * .225 N/s

50

57 Endorsement of democratic attitudes .584 ** .458 ** 50

32 Evaluation of democratic performance .371 ** .257 N/s

49

32 Confidence in public sector institutions .146 N/s

-.090 N/s

47

Notes: The figures represent the correlation coefficients and their significance, without prior controls. Historical experience of democratization is measured by the cumulative Freedom House index for political rights and civil liberties 1972-2006, standardized to a 100-point scale. Contemporary levels of democracy are measured by the nation’s score on the 2006 Freedom House index for political rights and civil liberties. Since China and Vietnam proved to be outliers in the strength of their institutional confidence, to examine the general pattern these two cases were excluded from these correlations. For details about each of the scales measuring the dimensions of system support, see Figures 5.1 to 5.7 and technical appendix A. ** = significant at .01 level, * =significant at .05 level.

Source: World Values Survey 2005-2007

24


Table 5.2: Characteristics of system support

Nationalism

Importance of

democracy

Democratic attitudes

Democratic performanc

e

Confidence

institutions

INDIVIDUAL LEVELDemographic characteristics

Age (years) .151 .158 .897 .050 .514(.008) (.008) (.079) (.010) (.067)

Gender (male=1) .066 .013 .033 -.013 -.077(.007) (.007) (.072) (.009) (.060)

Socioeconomic resourcesHousehold income 10-pt scale .031 .052 -.007 .205 .668

(.008) (.009) (.086) (.011) (.071)

Education 9-pt scale -.040 .211 2.07 -.037 -.609(.009) (.010) (.092) (.012) (.078)

Media useNews media use scale .046 .123 .098 -.005 .521

(.008) (.009) (.087) (.011) (.073)

NATIONAL-LEVELHistorical experience of democracy -.306 .084 4.76 .387 -1.65

(.110) (.079) (.898) (.144) (1.09)

Constant (intercept) 10.9 85.7 70.1 63.7 60.5Schwartz BIC 150959 229,663 401,601 240,946 372,129

N. respondents 41,772 56,296 48,044 54,472 46,633N. nations 40 46 44 45 44

Note: All independent variables were standardized using mean centering (z-scores). Models present the results of the REML multilevel regression models (for details, see Appendix C) including the beta coefficient, (the standard error below in parenthesis), and the significance. The 100 point scales are constructed from the items listed in Figures 5.1 to 5.7. See appendix A for details about the measurement, coding and construction of all variables. Significant coefficients are highlighted in bold. The historical experience of democratization is measured by the cumulative Freedom House index for political rights and civil liberties 1972-2006, standardized to a 100-point scale.


25


Figure 5.1: Experience of democracy deepens democratic orientations

Nationali

sm

Importa

nce of d

emocra

cy

Democra

tic attitudes

Satisfa

ction w

ith dem

ocracy

Institutional

confidence

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

9082

58

44

14

34

83

72

4237

29

77 7571

40

32RestrictedModerateExtensive

Note: The historical experience of democratization for each society is measured by the cumulative Freedom House index for political rights and civil liberties 1972-2006, standardized to a 100-point scale and categorized into societies with restricted, moderate, and extensive experience during the third wave era. For details about each of the 100-point scales measuring the indicators of system support, see Figures 5.2 to 5.8. ANOVA was used to test the significance of the difference between the type of historical experience of democratization and the indicators of system support. The mean difference between types of regimes (Eta) proved to be statistically significant at the .01 level for all indicators. N.78,416

Source: World Values Survey 2005

26


Figure 5.2: Democratic experience is unrelated to institutional confidence

Note: V146-147 “I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence (4), quite a lot of confidence (3), not very much confidence (2) or none at all (1)? (Read out and code one answer for each): The armed forces; The police; The courts; The government (in your nation’s capital); Political parties; Parliament; The Civil service” The standardized 100-point institutional confidence scale, where high represents most confidence, combines these items. The table describes proportion expressing strong institutional confidence (scoring 70 and above on the 100-point scale) by nation. For more detail about the survey items contained in each indicator, see the factor analysis in Table 3.2 and Technical Appendix A.

Source: World Values Surveys, 2005

27


Figure 5.3: Trends in institutional confidence, 1981-2005

Note: Institutional confidence scale (8) 1981-2005. V146-147 “I am going to name a number of

organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal

of confidence (4), quite a lot of confidence (3), not very much confidence (2) or none at all (1)? (Read out

and code one answer for each): The armed forces; The police; The courts; The government (in your

nation’s capital); Political parties; Parliament; The Civil service” The standardized 100-point institutional

confidence scale, where high represents most confidence, combines these items. The table describes

the mean distribution by nation. For more detail about the survey items contained in each indicator, see

the factor analysis in Table 3.2 and Technical Appendix A. Observations = 43. To test for the slope (beta)

and statistical significance, the year was regressed on institutional confidence (b =-.127 N/s).

Source: Pooled WVS 1981-2005

28


Figure 5.4: Trends in confidence in parliament, 1981-2005

Note: Confidence in parliament, 1981-2005. “I am going to name a number of organizations. For each

one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence (4), quite a

lot of confidence (3), not very much confidence (2) or none at all (1)? Parliament.” Observations = 50. To

test for the slope (beta) and statistical significance, the year was regressed on institutional confidence (b

=-.015 p=***).


29


Figure 5.5: Democratic experience strengthens evaluations of democratic performance

Note: V163. “And how democratically is this country being governed today? Again using a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means that it is “not at all democratic” and 10 means that it is “completely democratic,” what position would you choose?” For comparison, these items were standardized to 100-points. The table describes the proportion expressing very positive evaluations (scoring 70 and above on the 100-point scale) by nation. For the survey items contained in each indicator, see Table 3.2 and Technical Appendix A.

Source: World Values Survey, 2005

30


Figure 5.6: Democratic experience strengthens democratic attitudes

Note: Attitudes towards democracy and autocracy were monitored using the following four combined items: V148-V151: “I'm going to describe various types of political systems and ask what you think about each as a way of governing this country. For each one, would you say it is a very good, fairly good, fairly bad or very bad way of governing this country? Having a democratic political system; Having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections; Having experts, not government, make decisions according to what they think is best for the country; Having the army rule.” For comparison, all indicators have been standardized to 100-points. The table describes the proportion expressing very strong approval of democratic values and rejection of autocracy (scoring 70 and above on the 100-point scale) by nation. For the survey items contained in each indicator, see Table 3.2 and Technical Appendix A.


31


Figure 5.7: Democratic experience strengthens democratic values

Note: “How important is it for you to live in a country that is governed democratically? On this scale where 1 means it is “not at all important” and 10 means “absolutely important” what position would you choose?” For comparison, all indicators have been standardized to 100-points. The table describes the proportion saying that democracy was very important (scoring 70 and above on the 100-point scale) by nation. For the survey items contained in each indicator, see Table 3.2 and Technical Appendix A.


32


Figure 5.8: Democratic experience slightly weakens nationalism

Notes: The nationalism index was constructed from the following items.

National pride: V209. “How proud are you to be [French]*? “ Very proud (4); Quite proud (3); Not very proud (2); Not at all proud (1).

Fight: V75. “Of course, we all hope that there will not be another war, but if it were to come to that, would you be willing to fight for your country?”

For comparison, all indicators have been standardized to 100-points. The table describes the proportion expressing strong feelings of nationalism (scoring 70 and above on the 100-point scale) by nation. For the survey items contained in each indicator, see Table 3.2 and Technical Appendix A.


33


Figure 5.9: Trends in nationalism, 1981-2005

Note: The nationalism scale is constructed from two items: (V75) Willingness to fight for one’s country in a war, and (V209) Feelings of national pride. These items are summed and standardized to a 100-point scale. To test for the slope (beta) and statistical significance, the year was regressed on the nationalism scale (b =.071 N/s).


34


35

1 Similar conclusions are reached by Berhard Wessels.2009. ‘Trust in political institutions.’ In The Legitimacy

of the European Union after Enlargement. Ed Jacques Thomassen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2 Marc J. Hetherington. 2005. Why Trust Matters. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

3 Bruce Cain, Russell J. Dalton and Susan Scarrow. Eds. Democracy Transformed? The Expansion of Political

Access in Advanced Industrialized Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

4 See, for example, Council of Europe. Forum for the Future of Democracy.

http://www.coe.int/t/dgap/democracy/Default_en.asp

5 For a discussion about the causes of derailment of potential democracies, see M. Steven Fish and Jason

Wittenberg. ‘Failed democratization.’ In Christian W. Haerpfer, Patrick Bernhagen, Ronald Inglehart and

Christian Welzel. (eds). 2009. Democratization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. See also Ethan B. Kapstein

and Nathan Converse. 2008. The Fate of Young Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press; Ethan

B. Kapstein and Nathan Converse. 2008. ‘Why democracies fail.’ Journal of Democracy 19 (4): 57-68.

6 Unfortunately similar evidence is unavailable to compare approval of specific incumbent office-holders,

such as the popularity of particular party leaders or presidents.

7 M. Kent Jennings, Laura Stoker and Jake Bowers. 2009. ‘Politics across Generations: Family Transmission

Reexamined.’ Journal of Politics 71(3): 782-799.

8 Donald Sears and C.L. Funk. 1999. ‘Evidence of the long-term persistence of adults' political

predispositions.’ Journal of Politics 61: 1 -28.

9 William Mishler and Richard Rose. 2007. ‘Generation, age, and time: The dynamics of political learning

during Russia's transformation.’ American Journal of Political Science 51 (4): 822-834.

10 Juan Linz and Alfred Stephan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Baltimore, MD:

Johns Hopkins University Press; Andreas Schedler. 1998. ‘What is democratic consolidation?’ Journal of

Democracy 9 (2): 91-107.

11 Ronald Inglehart. 2003. ‘How solid is mass support for democracy: and how do we measure it?’ PS:

Political Science and Politics 36 (1):51-57.

12 Hans-Dieter Klingemann. 1999. ‘Mapping political support in the 1990s.’ In Pippa Norris (ed). 1999.

Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

13 Russell J. Dalton, 2004. Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in

Advanced Industrial Democracies. New York: Oxford University Press.

14 It remains unclear whether the result in Antigua and Barbuda is an anomaly or whether it reflects public

opinion. The Caribbean island, which gained independence in 1981, is a stable parliamentary democracy

with Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State, represented by the Governor General, and a prosperous tourism-

http://www.coe.int/t/dgap/democracy/Default_en.asp

dependent economy. There have been a succession of scandals, however, and accusations of corruption

against the ruling Bird family.

15 See also, Russell J. Dalton and Doh Chull Shin, eds., 2006. Citizens, Democracy and Markets around the

Pacific Rim Oxford: Oxford University Press; Z. Wang. 2005. ‘Before the emergence of critical citizens:

Economic development and political trust in China.’ International Review of Sociology 15(1): 155-71;

Tianjian Shi. ‘China: Democratic values supporting an authoritarian system.’ In Yun-han Chu, Larry Diamond,

Andrew J. Nathan, and Doh Chull Shin. Eds. 2008. How East Asians View Democracy. New York: Columbia

University Press.

16 See also Steven Van de Walle, Steven Van Roosbroek, and Geert Bouckaert. 2008. ‘Trust in the public

sector: is there any evidence for a long-term decline?’ International Review of Administrative Sciences

74(1): 47-64.

17 Similar regression analysis models were run to monitor trends in confidence 1981-2007 in the judiciary,

civil service, and police, but none proved significant.

18 Christopher J. Anderson, and Christine A. Guillory. 1997. ‘Political institutions and satisfaction with

Democracy.’ American Political Science Review 91(1):66-81; Neil Nevitte and Mebs Kanji. 2002. ‘Authority

orientations and political support: A cross-national analysis of satisfaction with governments and

democracy.’ Comparative Sociology 1(3-4):387-412; Christopher J. Anderson, Andre Blais, Shaun Bowler,

Todd Donovan and Ola Listhaug. 2005. Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy. New York:

Oxford University Press; Alexander F. Wagner, Friedrich Schneider, and Martin Halla. 2009. ‘The quality of

institutions and satisfaction with democracy in Western Europe: A panel analysis.’ European Journal of

Political Economy 25 (1): 30-41; Kees Aarts and Jacques Thomassen. 2008. ‘Satisfaction with democracy:

Do institutions matter?’ Electoral Studies 27(1): 5-18.

19 For a debate concerning the meaning, see D. Canache, J.J. Mondak and Mitch A. Seligson. 2001. ‘Meaning

and measurement in cross-national research on satisfaction with democracy.’ Public Opinion Quarterly 65:

506–528; Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman. 2003. ‘Satisfaction with democracy: A note on a frequently used

indicator in comparative politics.’ European Journal of Political Research 42(3): 391 – 408.

20 Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman. 2003. ‘Satisfaction with democracy: A note on a frequently used indicator

in comparative politics.’ European Journal of Political Research 42(3): 391 – 408.

21 Naoimi Chazan. 1988. “Democracy and democratic rule in Ghana.” In Democracy in Developing Countries:

Africa, ed. Larry Diamond, Juan Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner; Joseph Aye.

2000. Deepening Democracy in Ghana. Freedom Publications.

22 William Mishler and Richard Rose. 1995. ‘Trajectories of fear and hope: support for democracy in Post-

Communist Europe.’ Comparative Political Studies 28:553-81; Richard Rose and William Mishler. 1996.

‘Testing the Churchill hypothesis: popular support for democracy and its alternatives.’ Journal of Public

Policy 16:29-58; Richard Rose, Richard, William Mishler, and Christian Haerpfer. 1998. Democracy and Its

Alternatives in Post-Communist Europe: Testing the Churchill Hypothesis. Cambridge: Polity Press; Roderic

Camp. ed. 2001. Citizen Views of Democracy in Latin America Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press;

Michael Bratton and Robert Mattes. 2001. ‘Support for democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or Instrumental.’

British Journal of Political Science 31(3); Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi. 2004. Public

Opinion, Democracy, and Market Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Russell J. Dalton and Doh Chull

Shin, eds., 2006. Citizens, Democracy and Markets around the Pacific Rim Oxford: Oxford University Press;

Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner. 2008. How People View Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

Press; Yun-han Chu, Larry Diamond, Andrew J. Nathan, and Doh Chull Shin. Eds. 2008. How East Asians

View Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press.

23 Andreas Schedler and Rudolpho Sarsfield. 2007. ‘Democrats with adjectives: Linking direct and indirect

measures of democratic support.’ European Journal of Political Research 46 (5): 637-659.

24 Ronald Inglehart. 2003. ‘How solid is mass support for democracy: and how do we measure it?’ PS:

Political Science and Politics 36:51-57; Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds). 2008. How People View

Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

25 Donald Emmerson. 1995. ‘Singapore and the 'Asian Values' Debate.’ Journal of Democracy 6, 4: 95-105.

26 Z. Wang. 2005. ‘Before the emergence of critical citizens: Economic development and political trust in

China.’ International Review of Sociology 15(1): 155-71.

27 Russell Dalton and Doh Chull Shin, eds. 2006. Citizens, Democracy and Markets around the Pacific

Rim Oxford: Oxford University Press; Yun-han Chu, Larry Diamond, Andrew J. Nathan, and Doh Chull Shin.

Eds. 2008. How East Asians View Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press.

28 Larry Diamond. 2008. ‘Introduction’. In How People View Democracy. Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner

(eds). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. P.xi.

29 Mark Tessler and E. Gao. 2005. ‘Gauging Arab support for democracy’. Journal of Democracy. 16(3): 83-

97; Mark Tessler. 2002. ‘Do Islamic orientations influence attitudes toward democracy in the Arab world?

Evidence from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Algeria’. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 43(3-

5): 229-249; Amaney Jamal and Mark Tessler. 2008. ‘The Arab Aspiration for Democracy.’ Table 1. In Larry

Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds). How People View Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University

Press.

30 Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds). 2008. ‘Introduction’. In How People View Democracy.

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

31 Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds). 2008. In How People View Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns

Hopkins University Press.

32 Andreas Schedler and Rudolpho Sarsfield. 2007. ‘Democrats with adjectives: Linking direct and indirect

measures of democratic support.’ European Journal of Political Research 46 (5): 637-659.

33 William Mishler and Richard Rose. 1995. ‘Trajectories of Fear and Hope: Support for Democracy in Post-

Communist Europe.’ Comparative Political Studies 28:553-81; William Mishler and Richard Rose. 2002.

‘Learning and re-learning regime support: The dynamics of post-communist regimes.’ European Journal of

Political Research 41: 5. Richard Rose, William Mishler, and Christian Haerpfer. 1998. Democracy and Its

Alternatives in Post-Communist Europe: Testing the Churchill Hypothesis. Cambridge: Polity Press.

34 Sophie Duchesne and Andrè-Paul Frognier. 1995. ‘Is There a European Identity?’ In Public Opinion and

Internationalized Governance. Edited by Oskar Niedermayer and Richard Sinnott. Oxford: Oxford University

Press; Angelika Scheuer. 1999. ‘A Political Community?’ In Political Representation and Legitimacy in the

European Union. Ed. Hermann Schmitt and Jacques Thomassen. Oxford: Oxford University Press; T. Risse.

2001. ‘A European identity? Europeanization and the evolution of nation-state identities.’ In Transforming

Europe. Eds. M.G. Cowles, J. Caporaso and T. Risse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. See also B. Nelson,

D. Roberts and W.Veit. (eds). The Idea of Europe: Problems of National and Transnational Identity. Oxford:

Berg; Lauren M. McLaren. 2005. Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration. London: Palgrave

Macmillan.

35 See, for example, Bruce Russett. 1993. Grasping the Democratic Peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press; Michael E. Brown, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller. 1996. Debating the

Democratic Peace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. 2005. Electing to

Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

36 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart. 2009. Cosmopolitan Communications. New York: Cambridge University

Press.

37 Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. 2007. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies go to War.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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