Bürger und Demokratie im vereinigten Deutschland

Since the early 1990s, the future development of the political culture of unified Germany was a matter of debate. According to some scholars, a fit between political structure and political culture is a necessary condition of a well performing and stable democracy. At the same time it was doubted, whether such a configuration would develop in Germany in the near future. Generalized support of a democratic regime and of the particular type of democracy institutionalized in the nation under observation are regarded as particularly relevant elements of a democratic political culture. Regarding the distribution and development of these attitudes, there are no indications of an increasing congruence between political structure and political culture in unified Germany. In the Eastern part of the country, the democratic regime in general, but even more the German variant of democracy is facing considerable scepticism. The particularly strong scepticism of the East Germans towards the form of democracy institutionalized in Germany particularly rooted in a distant attitude to democracy as a type of political regime. Other relevant factors are dissatisfaction with the performance of democracy in Germany, a negative view of the responsiveness of political leaders, a persisting support of socialism and a negative perception of the prevailing economic conditions.     

Learning and re-learning regime support: The dynamics of post-communist regimes

Abstract. The political support of citizens of new democracies reflects two sets of experiences. Initially, people are socialized into an undemocratic regime; then, they must re-learn political support in relation to a new regime. In an established democracy, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of early socialization and current performance because both refer to the same regime. However, this is both possible and necessary in countries where there has been a change in regime. Critical questions then arise: When, whether and how do citizens determine their support for their new regime? At the start of a new regime past socialization should be more important but, after a few years, current performance should become more important. We draw on 47 Barometer surveys between 1991 and 1998 in ten more or less democratic post-communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to test the relative importance of early socialization influences, the legacy of the communist past, and the political and economic performance of new regimes. We find that economic and political performance explains the most variance in support and, secondarily, the communist legacy. Early socialization is insignificant. However, contrary to economic theories of voting, the impact of political performance is greater than the impact of economic performance in post-communist countries – and its impact is increasing.     

Confidence in Institutions in Post-Communist Societies: The Case of the Baltic States

The transition from totalitarian to democratic rule in the Baltic states raises the question of conditions for regime legitimacy and stability. The article focuses on the level of confidence people have in institutions after change of regime. The confidence in political and social institutions is at a surprisingly low level. The data suggest that people have more confidence in institutions producing symbols than they have in policy-making and implementing institutions. There is also evidence to show that leaders are more trusted than institutions as such. A survey of the potential background variables shows that people with higher education have lower confidence in institutions than the less well educated. But low confidence in institutions does not necessarily spell gloomy prospects for procedural democratic development, as long as the elites do have some popular support and the capacity for consensual integration.     

Context matters: Economics,politics and satisfaction with democracy

Economic and political considerations are important in determining citizens' level of satisfaction with their democratic system, but research analyzing which criteria prevail in which contexts is still limited. We examine under what conditions citizens chiefly rely on economic or political considerations in assessing their level of satisfaction with democracy. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems dataset covering 72 elections in 45 unique countries (1996–2016), we show that the relative weight of economic and political criteria in citizens' evaluation of their democratic regime is a function of their nation's affluence. On the one hand, citizens in poorer countries mostly rely on the economy to assess their level of satisfaction with democracy. On the other hand, political considerations are crucial in citizens' evaluations of richer societies. Our results entail strong implications to understand why citizens' recipes for satisfaction for democracy vary across time and space.     

The hazard rate of political regimes

We present a preliminary study on the stability of political regimes. In a longitudinal data set we study the effect of some observable economic and political conditions on the hazard rate of different types of political regimes. We find that economic development has a stabilizing effect in countries with democratic political institutions, but rich autocracies do not show a lower hazard rate than less developed autocracies. While the stability of autocracies is not affected by their degree of economic development, it is greatly associated with the degree of popular discontent. Widespread discontent with leaders in autocratic regimes highly increases their hazard rate. This relationship is much weaker for regimes with democratic institutions. We also find a non-monotonic time dependence pattern for the hazard rate of political regimes. Political regimes are found to be at an increasing risk of collapse during the first years, with their hazard rates reaching a peak around the fourth year.     

Determinants of policy change: a cross national analysis

Abstract. This study is an attempt to explain redistributive policy changes in democratic political systems. The two major competing paradigms of such determinants are the 'political environments matter' hypothesis and the economic resources model. This study attempts to show that there is an interdependent or exchange relationship between the choices of the policy makers and the policy takers, and that the periodic elections and the parties are important institutional mechanisms which make the exchange relationship possible. Several propositions about the conditions of policy change emerge from the assumptions about the behaviour of the policy makers and the policy takers. These propositions along with those emerging from the socio-economic and the political factors are tested using data from 21 contemporary democratic regimes beteen 1952–1980. The two dependent variables in the model are expenditures on the direct transfers to the households, and revenue from the direct taxes. Multiple regression analyses are utilized in the statistical tests. These analyses confirm the contention that political exchange plays an important part as a determinant of policy outcomes. It explains as much, if not more, variation in the model as the socio-economic or political environment variables.     

Institutional change and stability in postcommunist countries, 1990–2002

Abstract.  This article deals with the institutional change of 27 political systems in postcommunist countries, 1990–2002. The authors show that institutional change after the institutionalization of the postcommunist regime is limited and lock-in effects are strong. This applies to the more democratic and affluent countries as well as to the more authoritarian regimes. The authors do not find evidence for theories of institutional change that see institutional development as a linear function of socio-economic factors such as affluence or of domestic political power distribution. The European Union and NATO have an effect that is limited to the overall democratic character of the system.     

A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability

Examining onsets of political instability in countries worldwide from 1955 to 2003, we develop a model that distinguishes countries that experienced instability from those that remained stable with a two-year lead time and over 80% accuracy. Intriguingly, the model uses few variables and a simple specification. The model is accurate in forecasting the onsets of both violent civil wars and nonviolent democratic reversals, suggesting common factors in both types of change. Whereas regime type is typically measured using linear or binary indicators of democracy/autocracy derived from the 21-point Polity scale, the model uses a nonlinear five-category measure of regime type based on the Polity components. This new measure of regime type emerges as the most powerful predictor of instability onsets, leading us to conclude that political institutions, properly specified, and not economic conditions, demography, or geography, are the most important predictors of the onset of political instability.     

Alltag oder Vergangenheit? Einstellungen zur herrschenden politischen Ordnung in den Neuen Bundesländern, Polen, Tschechien und Ungarn

“What determines attitudes towards the current regime in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the former GDR (Neue Bundesländer)?” — is the main concern of this paper. If people’s attitudes are based on belief systems formed under socialism (hypothesis of socialisation), the transformation will be a long-lasting process, and one is not yet justified to speak about consolidated democratic political systems. On the other hand, if attitudes are more likely to stem from people’s situation of life (hypothesis of situation of life), it is the performance of the political system that can bring about consolidation. The empirical analysis is based on the Central European Database for Social Policy. The results raise some doubts, whether the regimes surveyed are already resistant to crises.     

The Measurement of Democracy: Towards a New Paradigm

Mainstream political science on democracy has been criticised for ‘regime bias’. This has led political scientists to draw on a narrow range of democratic theory that considers democratic potential only at the cost of ignoring democratic purpose, to ignore other units of observation than the regime, notably the individual citizen, and to overlook advances in measurement theory. A robust normative account of democratic quality, it is argued, should rest on three foundations. First, measurement should start with observations of the regime. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of the degree of democracy in the regime. This analysis should be grounded in standard democratic theory. Secondly, the measurement effort should follow through to observations of how the potential in the regime is manifested in the lives of citizens. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of how well the system delivers for citizens. This analysis should be grounded in a theory of the purpose of democracy. Thirdly, pronouncements on democratic quality should finally be made only from some combination or index of information from both systems analysis and individual analysis. That combined analysis should be grounded in measurement theory, specifically the law of methodological individualism and the principle of double book-keeping.     

Cognitive Heterogeneity and Economic Voting: A Comparative Analysis of Four Democratic Electorates

This article examines the cognitive foundations of economic voting in four diverse democratic electorates: Canada, Hungary, Mexico, and Taiwan. We present a theory of heterogeneous attribution, where an individual's level of political sophistication conditions his or her ability to attribute responsibility for economic conditions to governmental actors. In contrast to previous literature, we argue that higher, not lower, levels of political sophistication prompt citizens to "vote their pocketbook." Using data from surveys done in conjunction with recent elections in all of these countries, we find that more politically sophisticated respondents are more likely to make use of pocketbook evaluations in their decisions to support or oppose the incumbent government. These findings both present a significant challenge to the conventional wisdom on political sophistication and economic voting and shed light on the necessary cognitive preconditions for democratic accountability.     

Popular initiatives in Uruguay: confidence votes on government or political loyalties?

Among stable democracies, Uruguay is one of the most prodigious users of direct democratic devices at the national level. If we analyze the relationship between the share of “yes” votes received by any popular initiative and the share of votes received by politicians who politically supported it, we observe a strikingly high positive correlation of 0.9. Explaining this correlation is the central objective of this paper. Three alternative hypotheses are plausible: First, such a correlation could be a spurious association due to aggregation bias. Second, PI results could be reflections of economic conditions. Third, Uruguayans are extremely consistent in following their political parties' advice. This paper finds that when Uruguayans go to the polls to vote on a popular initiative, their vote choice is primarily the result of their party loyalty, rather than their reaction to economic conditions. In testing my hypotheses I rely on the following statistical methods: King's “Ecological Inference,” multivariate regression, and path analysis. The data come from seven popular initiatives in Uruguay since 1985 (133 observations).     

Determinants of public support for EU membership: Data from the Baltic countries

Abstract. Focusing on individual–level determinants of public support for EU membership, this paper brings the literature on Western European integration to bear on the Eastern and Central European accession. Existing theories have focused on utilitarian expectations, political values, and domestic politics as determinants of public attitudes toward European integration. The paper discusses the applicability of the proposed theories and measures in the Eastern European context and develops a model that identifies micro–level economic expectations, support for democratic norms, trust in the national government, and perceptions of ethnic tension as possible determinants of public support for EU membership. These propositions are tested with survey data from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, using logistic regression. The results lend strong support to the expected gains and domestic politics hypotheses but suggest that individual competitiveness, a frequently used proxy for economic expectations, may be a poor predictor of attitudes toward the EU in the CEE context. Perceptions of increased ethnic tensions were found to decrease minority support for EU membership in Latvia, the Baltic country that has pursued particularly stringent citizenship and minority policies. Identification with democratic norms did not influence opinions in Latvia and Estonia, while having an unexpected negative effect on the attitudes of the Lithuanian public.     

Sustainable local democracy

To identify what is needed to sustain local democracy we need a model of democratic government and an idea of the kind of social and economic context that is supportive of democracy. Local democracy requires a combination of a liberal democratic model of local government and the prerequisites of democratic stability: economic development, equality, political culture and the development of civil society. However, a number of factors, non-local as well as local, may undermine local government and local democracy, especially centralization, economic decisions, external conflicts, dependency on civil servants, the dilution of elected representation, formalistic participation, skewed representation, class conflict and official attitudes. However, democratic local government can contribute to economic development, the reduction of inequality, a democratic political culture and the development of civil society, thereby strengthening local democracy.     

Determinants of public support for EU membership: Data from the Baltic countries

Focusing on individual–level determinants of public support for EU membership, this paper brings the literature on Western European integration to bear on the Eastern and Central European accession. Existing theories have focused on utilitarian expectations, political values, and domestic politics as determinants of public attitudes toward European integration. The paper discusses the applicability of the proposed theories and measures in the Eastern European context and develops a model that identifies micro–level economic expectations, support for democratic norms, trust in the national government, and perceptions of ethnic tension as possible determinants of public support for EU membership. These propositions are tested with survey data from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, using logistic regression. The results lend strong support to the expected gains and domestic politics hypotheses but suggest that individual competitiveness, a frequently used proxy for economic expectations, may be a poor predictor of attitudes toward the EU in the CEE context. Perceptions of increased ethnic tensions were found to decrease minority support for EU membership in Latvia, the Baltic country that has pursued particularly stringent citizenship and minority policies. Identification with democratic norms did not influence opinions in Latvia and Estonia, while having an unexpected negative effect on the attitudes of the Lithuanian public.     

What explains the dynamics of citizens’ satisfaction with democracy? An integrated framework for panel data

Literature on political support broadly offers three micro-level models: socio-economic status, democratic process evaluations, and political performance evaluations explain people's differences in satisfaction with democracy. While tests show that these explanations complement each other, we do not know how. We combine for the first time all three models into one common longitudinal framework by explicitly considering aspects of time. We argue that relatively stable factors, such as socio-economic status, only explain general levels, whereas more time-sensitive factors, such as evaluations, explain differences between citizens at specific points in time. The results of latent growth curve modelling applied to nine-wave panel data support our general hypothesis of a common longitudinal framework. These results also show that economic evaluations play a prominent role as do some (but not all) electoral results. The findings have theoretical and methodological implications, and they offer a new perspective on the meaning of ’satisfaction with democracy’.     

The 1990 Presidential Election in Poland

This article examines the conditions that appear to have influenced political preferences of Poles during the presidential election in November 1990. The first section offers a short introduction to the political and economic situation of Poland after the rise to power of Solidarity. A short presentation of the main candidates, Walesa, Mazowiecki and Tyminski, and their political profiles is also provided here. Then results from a survey conducted one week before the first round of the presidential elections are presented and discussed. It is concluded that there were some systematic differences in socio-economic status and values of the supporters of the main candidates. Specific features of Mazowiecki's electorate were: high social position, high level of education and high income. Typical values for this group were political and economic liberalism. Characteristic of Walesa's electorate were a low level of education, higher age, and an occupation as a small businessman. Conservative Catholic morality, anti-Semitism and pro-market attitudes were overrepresented among Walesa's supporters. Tyminski's supporters, finally, were disproportionately working class and young persons. His electorate was anti-liberal in both the political and the economic meaning of the word. His supporters were often opponents of traditional Catholic morality.     

Corruption, Political Allegiances, and Attitudes Toward Government in Contemporary Democracies

Using surveys conducted in sixteen mature and newly established democracies around the globe, this study examines the effect of corruption on people's attitudes toward government. The analysis demonstrates that citizens in countries with higher levels of corruption express more negative evaluations of the performance of the political system and exhibit lower levels of trust in civil servants. However, the results also show that the negative effect of corruption on evaluations of the political system is significantly attenuated among supporters of the incumbent political authorities. These findings provide strong and systematic evidence that informal political practices, especially those that compromise important democratic principles, should be considered important indicators of political system performance. Moreover, they imply that, while corruption is a powerful determinant of political support across widely varying political, cultural, and economic contexts, it does not uniformly diminish support for political institutions across all segments of the electorate.     

Lokale Politik und die Sozialisation demokratischer Einstellungen in Europa

The legitimacy of European democracies is challenged by a fading away of their citizens’ support (see Putnam et al. 2000). This phenomenon of declining support might even become more severe when formerly national political competencies are moved away to supranational institutions like the European Union. In this situation the local level gains importance. Can local government be a “training-ground” for positive democratic attitudes that strengthens political support also at higher levels of government? And is local autonomy a tool to foster this support function of local politics? Using comparative survey data on local and national political attitudes in Europe as well as macro data on local autonomy these questions will be investigated. The results show a remarkable socialization function of local politics, which is especially strong concerning feelings of local political competence. However, positive effects from local autonomy that support this democratic support function of local politics are hardly to be found.     

How does government performance influence political support?

Much of the literature on political support is of little use to policy makers or those attempting to understand ordinary politics, because the concepts guiding research have focused attention on extreme cases of little relevance. If we are to interpret political support in terms of regime stability, then it is seldom at issue in advanced democratic societies; but if it indicates only approval for authorities, then direct measures of popularity do the job better. This paper works toward an empirical conceptualization of political support intermediate along that continuum by investigating the relationship between support orientations and the public's evaluation of governmental policy performance. Empirical hypotheses are drawn from an elaboration of the policy-relevant aspects of political support, and of the support-relevant aspects of policy evaluations. These hypotheses are tested against the American public's responses to the government's management of the economy, and they reveal several patterns useful to interpreting changes in the level of political support.