Jonas Linde

Satisfaction with democracy: A note on a frequently used indicator in comparative politics

This article offers a critical investigation of one indicator of support for democracy frequently used by comparativists. Departing from a theoretical multidimensional model of political support, a ...

Understanding the rise of e-participation in non-democracies : domestic and international factors

While it has often been suggested that information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide an important means of increasing citizen participation (which is at the core of democratic governmen ...

Communist nostalgia and the consolidation of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe

In recent years, public opinion surveys have testified to increasing levels of ‘communist nostalgia’ in Central and Eastern Europe: that is, growing numbers of citizens who feel that ‘a return to communist rule’ would in fact be a preferable option. These apparently non-democratic sentiments have been subject to two alternative explanations – one related to political socialization and the other to system output. In fact, communist nostalgia is a multidimensional phenomenon, encompassing both generational differences and general discontent. However, it is clear that nostalgia is more closely related to dissatisfaction with the present systems ability to produce output than to genuine non-democratic values.

Democratic Discontent in Old and New Democracies: Assessing the Importance of Democratic Input and Governmental Output

Although the phenomenon of dissatisfied democrats has been frequently discussed in the literature, it has not often been empirically investigated. This article sets out to analyse the discrepancy between the strong support for democratic principles and the widespread discontent with the way democracy works. Drawing on earlier research on the sources of political support, using data from a wide range of democracies, the relevance of two contrasting explanatory perspectives are investigated. The first perspective argues that the sources of democratic discontent are found on the input-side of the political system in terms of representation. The contrasting view argues that the output-side of the political system is most important, where the quality of government plays the pivotal role. The results of the empirical analysis suggest that, in general, both types of factor are important, but also that these processes to a large extent are conditioned by the level of institutional consolidation.

The Dictator's New Clothes: The Relationship Between E-Participation and Quality of Government in Non-Democratic Regimes

It is often assumed that the development of e-participation and e-government initiatives aimed at stimulating citizen participation in the political process and fostering more efficient governmental services harbors a great potential for improved control of corruption and government performance. Thus, it is often argued that e-participation is an efficient instrument for increasing transparency and quality of government in non-democratic and developing countries. However, this article argues that these assumptions should be questioned on theoretical, empirical, and methodological grounds. The results of the empirical time-series cross-section analyses show that positive development in terms of e-participation in non-democratic countries does not lead to corresponding positive effects in terms of control of corruption and quality of government. Rather, in many cases the Internet offers political elites new opportunities in their quest for remaining in power.

Losing Happily? The Mitigating Effect of Democracy and Quality of Government on the Winner–Loser Gap in Political Support

ABSTRACT Although a winner–loser gap in political support is present in most democracies, in some countries losers are more content than in others. Earlier research has demonstrated that formal institutional arrangements may affect the size of the gap. In this article, we argue that the quality and performance of institutions are more important than type of institutional arrangements when it comes to the size of the winner–loser gap. A well-functioning democracy on the input-side of the political system and high quality of government on the output-side significantly narrows the gap in support between electoral winners and losers in European democracies.

Not so Fair after All? Perceptions of Procedural Fairness and Satisfaction with Democracy in the Nordic Welfare States

The Nordic countries are known for their well-functioning public administrations. In indices measuring control of corruption and the quality of the rule of law, they frequently occupy top positions. However, as we demonstrate in this article, a countrys top position in comparative indices does not automatically imply that citizens view the state of affairs in the same way as depicted by experts. The observation is in no way trivial: Drawing on theories of procedural fairness, we go on to show—statistically, using individual level data—that widespread public perceptions about the unfairness of civil servants may have a negative effect on the legitimacy of the political system even in so-called high-trust and “least corrupt” settings such as the Nordic ones.

Beyond the Transitology-Area Studies Debate

A combination of area studies and comparative social science approaches leads to rich studies of the transition to democracy.

Unravelling semi-presidentialism: democracy and government performance in four distinct regime types

ABSTRACT Do semi-presidential regimes perform worse than other regime types? Semi-presidentialism has become a preferred choice among constitution makers worldwide. The semi-presidential category contains anything but a coherent set of regimes, however. We need to separate between its two subtypes, premier-presidentialism and president-parliamentarism. Following Linz’s argument that presidentialism and semi-presidentialism are less conducive to democracy than parliamentarism a number of studies have empirically analysed the functioning and performance of semi-presidentialism. However, these studies have investigated the performance of semi-presidential subtypes in isolation from other constitutional regimes. By using indicators on regime performance and democracy, the aim of this study is to examine the performance of premier-presidential and president-parliamentary regimes in relation to parliamentarism and presidentialism. Premier-presidential regimes show performance records on a par with parliamentarism and on some measures even better. President-parliamentary regimes, on the contrary, perform worse than all other regime types on most of our included measures. The results of this novel study provide a strong call to constitution makers to stay away from president-parliamentarism as well as against the idea of thinking about semi-presidentialism as a single and coherent type of regime.

Socialization or Experience? Institutional Trust and Satisfaction with Democracy among Emigrants in Different Institutional Settings

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