Does democracy produce quality of government?

This article analyses the effects of political regimes over state capacity or the quality of government (QoG): Do democratic states perform better than authoritarian ones? Previous studies point to a nonlinear relationship between democracy and government quality. It is argued here that QoG is a function of both forces of supply (leaders who have the power to make reforms) and demand (citizens' desire for mid‐ to long‐term investments over short‐term needs), the latter of which is a function of economic development. In democratic states, leaders have stronger incentives to improve QoG after a certain degree of wealth is reached, while in poorer countries they have little incentive for long‐term bureaucratic investments. Thus it is predicted that the relationship between democracy and QoG is conditional, based on economic development. With over 125 countries in the sample, this hypothesis is tested using time‐series panel data and spatial models, and strong empirical support is found.     

Democracy and Bureaucracy: How their Quality Matters for Popular Satisfaction

This study focuses on how citizens’ satisfaction with democracy is affected by system factors related to the input side of the democratic system, i.e. the electoral dimension, as well as to factors related to the output side, i.e. the quality of government. The study investigates the extent to which different election system characteristics and degrees of policy representation (in terms of ideological congruence between voters and representatives) and the presence of effective, professional and impartial governmental institutions are related to citizens’ satisfaction with the way democracy works. The study uses data from CSES on individual voters and party system characteristics together with data on governmental institutions from the QoG Institute. Overall, the results indicate that factors such as government effectiveness are of greater importance for citizens’ satisfaction with the way democracy functions, compared to factors like ideological congruence on the input side. Impartial and effective bureaucracies matter more than representational devices.     

State First,Then Democracy: Using Cadastral Records to Explain Governmental Performance in Public Goods Provision

This article presents a theoretical argument of how and why democratization at different levels of state capacity matters for public goods provision and subjects the argument to empirical tests. Building on rational choice theories of public goods production, we argue that credible enforcement before credible commitment—democratizing after the state has acquired high levels of state capacity—leads to a more efficient social order than the opposite sequence. Using a theoretically grounded and novel indicator of historical state capacity—the extent and quality of cadastral records—the analysis shows that those countries where the state developed extensive enforcement capacities before democratization exhibit, on average, better provision of essential public goods and are less corrupt.     

When state‐level institutions cannot tell the whole story: An inquiry into municipal variations in quality of government

The lion's share of comparative research on corruption, good governance, and quality of government (QoG) has been cross‐country. However, a growing body of literature has begun to explore within‐country variations observed at the subnational level regarding corruption and social trust. The existence of such variations implies that state‐level institutions are not capable of telling the entire story and that quality of subnational‐level institutions might be important determinants of within‐country variations regarding, for instance, trust. This article delves into the Swedish case, an egalitarian country that scores high in international indices on lack of corruption and social trust; hence, a “least likely case” of subnational variations in both QoG and trust. Using two unique data sets, we find variations in both municipal QoG and social trust. In line with theory, we find that “local QoG” is associated with individual levels of community trust. This finding—in a low‐corrupt, high‐trust egalitarian society—strengthens the universality of the QoG‐perspective.     

How State Capacity Varies within Frontier States: A Multicountry Subnational Analysis

While there is a growing literature on state formation and the rise of state capacity over time, this literature typically deals with differences between countries, neglecting the fact that state formation also occurs differentially within a country over time. This article examines legacies of state formation spatially, by looking at variation within “frontier” states—countries that in recent centuries have extended rule over new territories adjacent to their core regions. Frontier zones are found to have ongoing lower levels of public order and deficient public goods provision. Several theories are examined to explain this discrepancy, including internal resettlement, costs of monitoring and enforcement, and the relationship between settlers and the indigenous population. It is argued that the formation of strong social institutions among settlers leads to resistance to attempts to impose governance over frontier regions, and to “select for” lower fiscal capacity and lower provision of public goods.     

What Is Quality of Government? A Theory of Impartial Government Institutions

The recent growth in research on “good governance” and the quality of government institutions has been propelled by empirical findings that show that such institutions may hold the key to understanding economic growth and social welfare in developing and transition countries. We argue, however, that a key issue has not been addressed, namely, what quality of government (QoG) actually means at the conceptual level. Based on analyses of political theory, we propose a more coherent and specific definition of QoG: the impartiality of institutions that exercise government authority. We relate the idea of impartiality to a series of criticisms stemming from the fields of public administration, public choice, multiculturalism, and feminism. To place the theory of impartiality in a larger context, we then contrast its scope and meaning with that of a threefold set of competing concepts of quality of government: democracy, the rule of law, and efficiency/effectiveness.     

Public sector efficiency: the roles of political and budgetary institutions, fiscal capacity, and democratic participation

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether efficiency in public service provision is affected by political and budgetary institutions, fiscal capacity, and democratic participation. In order to address this issue we take advantage of a new global efficiency measure for Norwegian local governments. We find that high fiscal capacity and a high degree of party fragmentation contribute to low efficiency. In addition there is some evidence that democratic participation increases efficiency, while a centralized top-down budgetary procedure is associated with low efficiency.     

Policy design without democracy? Making democratic sense of transition management

This article explores the complex relationship between democracy and long-term policy design for sustainability. At one extreme, democracy can be framed as problematic for policy planning because of the myopia fostered by some democratic institutions, such as regular elections. Alternatively, democracy can be seen as an ally of long-term policy design to the extent that it can generate public legitimacy and accountability, and potentially foster more equitable and just outcomes. Recent debates on how to ‘manage’ policy transitions to sustainability have been curiously silent on democratic matters, despite their potential implications for democracy. To explore what democracy might mean for transition management this article considers empirically how actors engaged in the Dutch Energy Transition Program make democratic sense of their activities. The analysis finds that in practice transition policies promote implicit narratives or democratic storylines on how reforms should be developed, who should participate in these, and how they should be legitimised and accountable to the public. The dominant narrative, which espouses elite theory and technocracy, privileges epistemic matters over democratic considerations. Other democratic storylines draw on representative democracy and interest group pluralism. The paper considers some possible ways to foster more productive interfaces between the governance structures of transition management, and the polycentric context of contemporary democratic systems.     

Democracy,Government Spending,and Economic Growth: A Political-Economic Explanation of the Barro-Effect

The paper develops a political economicargument for the recently observed inverseu-shaped relation between the level ofdemocracy and economic performance. A modelis constructed that shows why and howpolitical participation influences thespending behavior of opportunisticgovernments that can choose an optimalcombination of rents and public goods toattract political support. If the level ofdemocracy remains comparably low,governments rationally choose rents as aninstrument to assure political support.With increasing democratic participation,however, rents become an increasinglyexpensive instrument while the provision ofpublic goods becomes more and moreefficient in ensuring the incumbentgovernment's survival in power. As a consequence, an increase in democracy tends toraise growth rates of per capita income.However, the beneficial impact of democracyon growth holds true only for moderatedegrees of political participation. If –in semi-democratic countries – politicalparticipation increases further,governments have an incentive toover-invest in the provision of publicgoods. This model allows to derive and testthree hypothesis: Firstly, based on asimple endogenous growth model, weempirically substantiate our hypothesis ofa non-linear, inverse u-shaped relationbetween the level of democracy and growthof per capita income. Secondly, we showthat the impact of government spending oneconomic growth is higher in moredemocratic countries. Thirdly, wedemonstrate that the level of democracy andgovernment share of GDP are correlated in au-shaped manner.     

Hold your nose and vote: corruption and public decisions in a representative democracy

This paper analyzes how corruption alters policy decisions in democracy, and examines whether this distortion can result in a long-term persistence of corruption even when the voters are well informed and rational. By applying a citizen-candidate model of representative democracy, the paper analyzes how corruption distorts the allocation of resources between public and private consumption, altering the policy preferences of elected and nonelected citizens in opposite directions. The outcome is a reduction in real public expenditure and, if the median voter??s demand for public goods is sufficiently elastic, a reduction in taxes. In this case, some citizens benefit indirectly from corruption. The paper also presents some empirical evidence that, in democratic countries, corruption results in lower tax revenue, and proceeds to show that, when this occurs, citizens anticipating a shift in preferences in favor of public expenditure may support institutions that favor corruption. This result complements the findings of other studies that have attributed the persistence of corruption in democracy to some failure on the part of the voters or the electoral system. It also bears implications for developing effective anticorruption strategies and for redefining the role that can be played by the international community.     

Military Policies and the State System as Impediments to Democracy

Military policies impose severe limits on democracy and call into question the viability of the liberal democratic state. Military mentality undermines democratic culture; the complexity of warfare defies public understanding; speed required in decision-making prevents public debate; secrecy misleads the public while often disguising executive abuse of power; vested interests in high military expenditure skew political processes; and concentration of power among a few obstructs democratic participation. Even state sovereignty, which military policies bolster, obstructs democracy because interdependence requires governments to be held accountable, through transnational law and institutions, to 'foreign' as well as 'domestic' citizens since both are affected by national decisions.     

Democracy and State Capacity: Exploring a J‐Shaped Relationship

In this article we probe the effect of democratization on the state's administrative capacity. Using time‐series cross‐section data, we find a curvilinear (J‐shaped) relationship between the two traits. The effect of democracy on state capacity is negative at low values of democracy, nonexistent at median values, and strongly positive at high democracy levels. This is confirmed under demanding statistical tests. The curvilinear relationship is due, we argue, to the combined effect of two forms of steering and control; one exercised from above, the other from below. In strongly authoritarian states, a satisfactory measure of control from above can at times be accomplished. Control from below is best achieved when democratic institutions are fully installed and are accompanied by a broad array of societal resources. Looking at two resource measures, press circulation and electoral participation, we find that these, combined with democracy, enhance state administrative capacity.     

The importance of input and output legitimacy in democratic governance: Evidence from a population-based survey experiment in four West European countries

The study of subjective democratic legitimacy from a citizens’ perspective has become an important strand of research in political science. Echoing the well-known distinction between ‘input-oriented’ and ‘output-oriented’ legitimacy, the scientific debate on this topic has coined two opposed views. Some scholars find that citizens have a strong and intrinsic preference for meaningful participation in collective decision making. But others argue, to the contrary, that citizens prefer ‘stealth democracy’ because they care mainly about the substance of decisions, but much less about the procedures leading to them. In this article, citizens’ preferences regarding democratic governance are explored, focusing on their evaluations of a public policy according to criteria related to various legitimacy dimensions, as well as on the (tense) relationship among them. Data from a population-based conjoint experiment conducted in eight metropolitan areas in France, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom is used. By analysing 5,000 respondents’ preferences for different governance arrangements, which were randomly varied with respect to their input, throughput and output quality as well as their scope of authority, light is shed on the relative importance of different aspects of democratic governance. It is found, first, that output evaluations are the most important driver for citizens’ choice of a governance arrangement; second, consistent positive effects of criteria of input and throughput legitimacy that operate largely independent of output evaluations can be discerned; and third, democratic input, but not democratic throughput, is considered somewhat more important when a governance body holds a high level of formal authority. These findings run counter to a central tenet of the ‘stealth democracy’ argument. While they indeed suggest that political actors and institutions can gain legitimacy primarily through the provision of ‘good output’, citizens’ demand for input and throughput do not seem to be conditioned by the quality of output as advocates of stealth democratic theory suggest. Democratic input and throughput remain important secondary features of democratic governance.     

Public good provision under dictatorship and democracy

The allocation of a government budget between a public good and transfers is modeled under different systems of government. The relatively even distribution of political power among groups in a democracy favors spending on nonexclusive public goods. The more concentrated pattern of political power in a dictatorship favors spending on transfers targeted to powerful groups. The hypothesis on public good provision is examined using cross-country data on public good provision and empirical indicators of political regime. Dictatorial governments are found to provide public schooling, roads, safe water, public sanitation, and pollution control at levels far below democracies.     

An Examination of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and New Political Participation

The mobilisation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on New Years Day 1994 in Mexico attracted considerable attention from those concerned with the democratic deficits of neoliberal globalisation and the increasing sense of individual powerlessness as states synchronise economic and public policy with the ideas and institutions of global capital. The paper argues that as a critical social movement the EZLN explores the meaning and practice of economic, political and social democracy. The EZLN practises a politics of radical democracy that incorporates a variety of strategies for enriching the democratic project. However, the EZLN's democratic project has little in common with the inclusive democracy project and yet the EZLN's project of radical democracy does cultivate a useful way of rethinking the site and nature of democracy in an age of globalisation when such institutions seem so increasingly inept.     

Rethinking Democratic Procedures: Democracy and Deliberative Experiences in Turkey's LA21 Process

This paper attempts to describe the conditions necessary for the furthering of democracy in Turkey by focusing on a certain conception of democratic legitimacy that goes beyond formal arrangements. It argues that the effective participation of citizens in democratic procedures is necessary for the consolidation of democracy in public life. To defend this argument, the theoretical background developed in deliberative models of democracy is followed. The quality of 'talk', as a constitutive feature of democracy, is explored by following the critical perspectives in deliberative theory that focus on the discursive mechanisms of exclusion and on power relations intrinsic to deliberative procedures. For this purpose, the deliberative processes in a series of 'working group meetings', carried out as a part of the Local Agenda 21 project, are analysed. The democratic capacity of deliberative experiences and public dialogue is analysed by examining the inclusion/exclusion of opposing ideas, different identities and discourse styles during these working groups meetings.     

Economic Crisis and Support for Democracy in Europe

The study of the impact of the economic crisis on attitudes toward democracy tends to be focused on satisfaction with specific democratic institutions. This article expands upon previous research to explore how the current economic crisis can affect core support for democracy as a regime. Based on European Social Survey data for the Eurozone countries, the findings are twofold. It is shown, firstly, that perceptions of the state of the economy have an impact both on satisfaction with and support for democracy, and, secondly, that citizens’ support for democracy is greater in bailed-out countries. In countries that have experienced intervention, the more critical citizens and those less satisfied with the outputs of democracy are the stronger advocates of democracy. The article argues that this is connected with the tendency of critical citizens in bailed-out countries to blame external agents for the economic situation while increasing the saliency of democratic rules as a reaction to the imposition of unpopular measures.     

Reading's Impact on Democratic Citizenship in America

Polls conducted for the Times Mirror/Pew Research Center for The People & The Press enable us to explore reading's impact on democratic citizenship in the United States. After exploring literacy's meaning and significance, we assess how much Americans read and how reading affects key facets of democratic citizenship: attention to, knowledge of, and participation in public affairs and tolerance for unpopular groups. A measure of time spent reading the day before being interviewed is a significant predictor of democratic citizenship, even when other key factors' effects are taken into account. Reading remains essential to the quality of citizenship in modern democracy.     

Hayekian Political Economy and the Limits of Deliberative Democracy

Inspired by Habermasian critiques of liberalism, supporters of deliberative democracy seek an extension of social democratic institutions to further a reinvigorated communicative rationality against the 'atomism' of market processes. This paper offers a critique of deliberative democratic theory from a Hayekian perspective. For Hayek, the case against the social democratic state rests with the superior capacity of markets to extend communicative rationality beyond the realm of verbal discourse.     

Globalization and the erosion of democracy

Abstract Despite the apparent development and spread of liberal democratic state forms in the 1980s and 1990s, possibilities for genuine democratic governance overall are declining. Firstly, the emergence and consolidation of modern liberal democracy was inextricably intertwined with the development of the nation–state and is profoundly socially embedded in that structural context. Secondly, in today's globalizing world, cross–cutting and overlapping governance structures and processes increasingly take private, oligarchic (and mixed public/private) forms; hegemonic neoliberal norms are delegitimizing state–based governance in general; and democratic states are losing the policy capacity necessary for transforming democratically generated inputs into authoritative outputs. Consequently, robust constraints limit the potential for (a) reinstitutionalizing the 'democratic chain' between accountability and effectiveness, (b) rearticulating the multitasking character of authoritative institutions and (c) renewing the capacity of authoritative agents to make the side–payments and to undertake the monitoring necessary to control free–riding and assimilate alienated groups. Rather than a new pluralistic global civil society, globalization is more likely to lead to a growth in inequalities, a fragmentation of effective governance structures and the multiplication of quasi–fiefdoms reminiscent of the Middle Ages.