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Democracy support in EU candidate countries: a reality check

2009; Routledge; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19448950902920889

1944-8961

Vincenzo Memoli, Francesca Vassallo,

European Union Policy and Governance

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 For more information on the Copenhagen criteria and their interpretation as EU conditions for membership, see H. Arikan, Turkey and the EU, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006, pp. 32–38. 2 A. Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO, 2006. 3 G. O'Donnell, ‘Delegative democracy’, Journal of Democracy, 5(1), 1994, pp. 55–69. 4 J. Blondel, R. Sinnot and P. Svensson, People and Parliament in the European Union, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. 5 V. Memoli, ‘Legitimacy, satisfaction and political disaffection in Europe’, PhD Thesis, University of Siena, unpublished, 2006. 6 P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999. 7 R. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004. 8 D. Held, Models of Democracy, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996. 9 D. Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life, Harper, New York, 1965. 10 V. Memoli, op. cit., Note 5, and D. Easton, ‘A re-assessment of the concept of political support’, British Journal of Political Science, 5, 1975, pp. 435–457. 11 The Freedom House uses a 1 through 7 scale for each index, with 1 being the best possible score for both political rights and civil liberties, representing a free country. At the other end of the spectrum, 7 is a score for not a free country. For more information, see Freedom in the World 2006 report at < www.freedomhouse.org>. 12 The 2006 scores the four countries included in this research received from the Freedom House organization for their (a) political rights and (b) civil liberties are: Croatia (2.2), Bulgaria (1.2), Romania (2.2), Turkey (3.3). 13 D. Easton, A Systems Analysis, op. cit., Note 9. 14 G. Pasquino and D. Campus, Maestri della scienza politica, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2004. 15 D. Easton, A Systems Analysis, op. cit., Note 9, p. 159. 16 J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1996, p. 7. 17 D. Easton, A Systems Analysis, op. cit., Note 9, p. 178. 18 W. Mishler and R. Rose, ‘Political support for incomplete democracies: realist vs. idealist theories and measurement’, International Political Science Review, 22(4), 2001, pp. 303–320. 19 R. Rose, W. Mishler and C. Haerpfer, Democracy and its Alternatives: Understanding Post-communist Societies, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998. 20 D. Canache, J. Mondak and M. A. Seligson, ‘Meaning and measurement in cross-national research on satisfaction with democracy’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 65, 2001, pp. 506–528. 21 See D. Easton, A Systems Analysis, op. cit., Note 9, p. 215. 22 D. Easton, ‘The analysis of political systems’, in R. Macridis and B. Brown (eds), Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings, The Dorsey Press, Homewood, IL, 1968, pp. 86–96. 23 J. A. Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligations, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1979. 24 J. A. Simmons, Justification and Legitimacy: Essay on Right and Obligations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001. 25 P. Norris, Critical Citizens, op. cit., Note 6. 26 As showed in H. Milner, Civic Literacy: How Informed Citizens Make Democracy Work, University Press of New England, Hanover, 2002. 27 See specifically M. Lewis-Beck, Economic and Election: The Major Western Democracies, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1988; H. Clarke, N. Dutt and A. Kornberg, ‘The political economy of attitudes toward polity and society in Western European democracies’, Journal of Politics, 55, 1993, pp. 998–1021; W. Mishler and R. Rose, ‘Five years after the fall: trajectories of support for democracy in post-Communist Europe’, in P. Norris, Critical Citizens, op. cit., Note 6. 28 P. Norris, Critical Citizens, op. cit., Note 6. 29 R. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, op. cit., Note 7. 30 R. Dalton, ‘Political support in advanced industrial democracies’, in P. Norris, Critical Citizens, op. cit., Note 6. 31 P. Norris, Critical Citizens, op. cit., Note 6. 32 Some doubts could emerge concerning the validity of these two measures, specially if we compare old democracies with new democracies: in the former, satisfaction with democracy tends to be more stable than in the latter—see C. J. Anderson, ‘Parties, party system, and satisfaction with democratic performance in the New Europe’, Political Studies, XLVI, 2001, pp. 572–588. 33 According to different preferences, some scholars prefer to measure support for regime institutions using only public institutions (see R. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, op. cit., Note 7), while others include both private and public institutions in the analysis. See also P. Norris, ‘Support for democratic governance: multidimensional concept and survey measures’, paper for the LAPOP–UNDP workshop on Candidate Indicators for the UNDP Democracy Support Index (DSI), Center for the Americas at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 2006. 34 D. Adamany and J. Grossman, ‘Support for the Supreme Court as a national policymaker’, Law & Policy Quarterly, 5, 1983, pp. 405–437. 35 See, for instance, J. Gibson, ‘Understandings of justice: institutional legitimacy, procedural justice, and political tolerance’, Law & Society Review, 23, 1989, pp. 469–496; T. R. Tyler, Why People Follow the Law: Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and Compliance, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1990. 36 R. Dalton, ‘Political support’, op. cit., Note 30. 37 See also D. Easton, ‘A re-assessment’, op. cit., Note 10, p. 437. 40 A. MacIntyre, ‘Is patriotism a virtue?’, in R. Beiner (ed.), Theorizing Citizenship, State University of New York Press, New York, 1995. MacIntyre criticizes the term ‘Liberal’ because the Utilitarian and Kantian morals at the base of their ideology contrast with the concept of patriotism. 41 W. Damon, ‘To not fade away: restoring civil identity among the young’, in D. Ravitch and J. P. Viteritti (eds), In Making Good Citizen: Education and Civil Society, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2001. 38 D. Easton, ‘An approach to the analysis of political systems’, World Politics, 9(1), 1957, p. 394. 39 G. Almond and S. Verba, The Civic Culture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1963. 42 R. Dalton, ‘Political support’, op. cit., Note 30; Democratic Challenges, op. cit., Note 7. 43 T. W. Smith and L. Jarkko, ‘National pride in cross-national perspective’, GSS Cross-national Report No. 19, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, 2001. 44 The specific question used is: ‘How proud are you to be (nationality)?’ 45 Britain, West Germany, Sweden and Spain. D. McCrone and P. Surridge, ‘National identity and national pride’, in R. Jowell, J. Curtice, A. Park, L. Brook, K. Thompson and C. Bryson (eds), British—and European—Social Attitudes: The 15th Report: How Britain Differs, Ashgate, Aldershot, 1998. 46 G. Orren, ‘Fall from grace: the public's loss of faith in government’, in J. S. Nye, P. D. Zelikow and D. C. King (eds), Why People Don't Trust Government, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997. 47 S. M. Lipset and W. Schneider, The Confidence Gap: Business, Labour and Government in the Public Mind, Free Press, New York, 1983. 48 R. Putnam, ‘Bowling alone’, Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 1995a, pp. 64–78; R. Putnam, ‘Tuning in, tuning out: the strange disappearance of social capital’, Political Science and Politics, 28(4), 1995b, pp. 664–683; R. Dalton, Citizen Politics in Western Democracies: Public Opinion and Political Parties in the United States, Britain, Germany and France, CQ Press, Washington, DC, 2005. 49 See A. Gol, ‘Turkey's Euro-vision’, paper presented at The National Europe Centre, 2003. 50 L. P. Arnn, Constitution, Character, and National Identity, Heritage Lecture # 891, 2005. 51 European Commission, Attitudes Towards European Union Enlargement, Special Eurobarometer 255, 2006, p. 63. 52 See Dalton, Citizen Politics, op. cit., Note 48. 53 P. Converse, ‘The nature of belief systems in mass publics’, in D. E. Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent, Free Press, New York, 1964. 54 B. Berelson, F. P. Lazarsfeld and W. McPhee, Voting. A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1954. 55 For the role of television, see P. Norris, A Virtuous Circle: Political Communications in Postindustrial Societies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000. 56 P. Humphreys, ‘Power and control in the new media’, paper presented at the ECPR Workshop ‘New Media and Political Communication’, Bern, 1997. 57 M. X. Delli-Carpini and S. Keeter, What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996. 58 R. Dahl, ‘Procedural democracy’, in P. Laslett and J. Fishkin (eds), Philosophy, Politics, and Society, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1979. 59 See specifically P. Norris, Critical Citizens, op. cit., Note 6. 60 See specifically, H. Milner, op. cit., Note 26. 61 See on this point specifically F. Vassallo, ‘Political participation and the gender gap in European Union member states’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 14(3), 2006, pp. 411–427. 62 R. Topf, ‘Beyond electoral participation’, in H. D. Klingemann and D. Fuchs (eds), Citizen and States, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995. 63 R. Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Societies, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990. 64 See G. Almond and S. Verba, op. cit., Note 39. 65 S. P. Turner, Liberal Democracy 3.0: Civil Society in an Age of Experts, Sage, London, 2003. 66 R. G. Niemi and J. Junn, Civic Education: Who Makes Students Learn?, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 1. 67 A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Harper and Row, New York, 1957. 68 H. D. Klingemann, ‘Mapping political support in the 1990s: a global analysis’, in P. Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999. 69 M. S. Levendusky and S. D. Jackman, ‘Reconsidering the measurement of political knowledge’, Online Working Paper, 2003. 70 L. Barteles, ‘Messages received: the political impact of media exposure’, American Political Science Review, 87, 1993, pp. 267–286. 71 J. J. Mondak, ‘Developing valid knowledge scales’, American Journal of Political Science, 45, 2001, pp. 224–238; B. T. Gomez and M. J. Wilson, ‘Political sophistication and economic voting in the American electorate: a theory of heterogeneous attribution’, American Journal of Political Science, 45, 2001, pp. 899–914. 72 J. R. Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, Cambridge University, Cambridge, 1992. 73 The responses for factual knowledge items are an indicator of how much cognitive effort is required to correctly recall political knowledge. It is likely that a respondent who has difficulty with factual knowledge (especially if the knowledge level being tested is low) will also have low levels of relevant political information. One can imagine that if a respondent is uncertain about who can elect members to the European Parliament or when the last European election took place, that same person would also have a low interest and weak understanding of the European political system. Response latency to political knowledge can be used as another dimension of political expertise, as individuals will very likely try to provide correct answers, when able to. 74 While single-nation surveys increasingly include a battery on common political knowledge, the same cannot be said for comparative research. In the absence of specific questions on national political knowledge, the study uses European political knowledge, focusing on three components that citizens would normally need to know in order to make informed choices in voting or otherwise participating in politics. 75 The Freedom of the Press scores relative to 2004 arrange our countries in the following order: Bulgaria (35), Croatia (37), Romania (47), Turkey (52). The scores are compiled according to (i) laws and regulations that influence media content, (ii) political pressures and controls on media content (including harassment or violence against journalists or facilities, censorship, self-censorship, etc.), and (iii) economic influences over media content. All the countries are partially free because their scores are between 31 and 60. See < www.freedomhouse.org> for more details. 76 M. X. Delli-Carpini and S. Keeter, op. cit., Note 57. 77 L. Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1999. 78 C. J. Anderson and C. Guillory, ‘Political institutions and satisfaction with democracy’, American Political Science Review, 91, 1997, pp. 66–81. 79 See R. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, op. cit., Note 7. 80 UNECE, Economic Survey of Europe, No. 1, United Nation Publication, Geneva, 2003. 81 For instance, from the original claim made by S. M. Lipset, ‘Some social requisites of democracy: economic development and political legitimacy’, American Political Science Review, 53(1), 1959, pp. 69–105, to W. Rostow, The Process of Economic Growth, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960, and even more recently A. Leftwich, ‘Two cheers for democracy?’, Political Quarterly, 67(4), 1996, pp. 334–339. 82 N. Munro, ‘National context or individual differences? Influences on regime support in post-communist societies’, Studies in Public Policy, No. 347, CSPP Publications, Edinburgh, 2001. 83 M. Bratton, R. Mattes and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market-Reform in Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005. 84 See specifically, J. Gray, John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, p. 238. 85 S. Hillygus, ‘The missing link: exploring the relationship between higher education and political engagement’, Political Behavior, 27(1), 2005, pp. 25–47. 86 R. Inglehart, The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1977. 87 See Table 8. 88 On this specific aspect, see R. Inglehart, op. cit., 1977. 89 As already explored in D. Easton, A Systems Analysis, op. cit., Note 9.