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Citizen Support for Democratic and Autocratic Regimes
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit www.ecprnet.eu
The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, University of Zurich.
OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES
Inequality After the Transition
Political Parties, Party Systems, and Social Policy in Southern and Postcommunist Europe
Ekrem Karakoç
Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties
Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair
From Party Politics to Personalized Politics? Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies
Gideon Rahat and Ofer Kenig
Multi-Level Electoral Politics
Beyond the Second-Order Election Model
Sona N. Golder, Ignacio Lago, André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil, and Thomas Gschwend
Organizing Political Parties
Representation, Participation, and Power
Edited by Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke
Reforming Democracy
Institutional Engineering in Western Europe
Camille Bedock
Party Reform
The Causes, Challenges, and Consequences of Organizational Change
Anika Gauja
How Europeans View and Evaluate Democracy
Edited by Mónica Ferrín and Hanspeter Kriesi
Faces on the Ballot
The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe
Alan Renwick and Jean-Benoit Pilet
The Politics of Party Leadership
A Cross-National Perspective
Edited by William P. Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet
Acknowledgments
This book has been in the making for many years, starting out as work on my dissertation and progressing into a book for almost two years after I finished my PhD. During this period, a great number of people have helped me develop the core ideas of this book, conduct the research therein, and present the findings in a clear and coherent fashion. I would like to gratefully acknowledge my intellectual and other relevant debts to these people.
I am most grateful to Edeltraud Roller, my dissertation advisor, for spending hours on end discussing the core ideas presented in this book and to ensure my work would be as rigorous as possible. My work has benefited greatly from her sharp mind and I deeply appreciate all the advice she was happy to offer even long after I had graduated.
During my time at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and, subsequently, at GESIS—Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Cologne, many colleagues have had their share in helping me write this book. I consider myself lucky to work in such stimulating environments and with such wonderful colleagues. I would particularly like to acknowledge the assistance and support of the following: Stephanie Bergbauer, for reading the entire manuscript and for offering both insightful comments on the core arguments and incredibly helpful stylistic advice; Nils Steiner, my longest-standing office mate, for listening to my ramblings and helping me straighten out my thoughts on countless occasions; Carl Berning, Jasmin Fitzpatrick, Sven Hillen, Mathias Lotz, and Kati Schiefer, for lending me their ears with any questions and grievances I might have had; and Heidi Schulze, for having my back whenever time was scarce and workload was high. Your unrelenting support and friendship has been invaluable to me.
I am further indebted to Theresa Bernemann, Ayse Gün, and Tizian Lehnert for providing excellent research assistance and helping me organize literature, recode data, format tables, and check references.
I would also like to thank Chris Welzel for offering his endorsement and guidance during the proposal stage, and Ingvill C. Mochmann for her helpful advice during revisions. Special thanks go to Jürgen W. Falter, who introduced me to political-culture research early on, and to Gerd Mielke, who has always been there when it mattered.
The book is based on public opinion surveys conducted by six large-scale research programs as well as aggregate data from a number of sources. I am deeply indebted to the following organizations and individuals for collecting this data and for making it publicly available: Afrobarometer; AmericasBarometer/LAPOP;
Arab Barometer; Asian Barometer Project; Latinobarómetro; World Values Survey; Varieties-of-Democracy Institute; Freedom House; World Bank; The Quality of Government Institute; Frederick Solt; The Political Terror Scale Project/Mark Gibney, Linda Cornett, Reed M. Wood, Peter Haschke, and Daniel Arnon; Alberto Alesina, Arnaud Devleeschauwer, William Easterly, Sergio Kurlat, and Romain Wacziarg; United Nations Development Programme; United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Oxford University Press has been an indispensable source of support. I would especially like to thank Dominic Byatt for providing guidance and reassurance throughout the entire process, and Sathiya Krishnamoorthy for her assistance in the publishing process, as well as Duncan Baylis for his thorough copy-editing. I would also like to express my gratitude to two anonymous reviewers, who took the time to read the entire manuscript and provide me with substantive comments and valuable suggestions for revision; their feedback much improved the book. My greatest appreciation goes out to Ferdinand Müller-Rommel. This entire publishing project would have been impossible without his unwavering support and encouragement.
Finally, my deepest gratitude goes out to Helge for his support, his understanding, and his firm belief in me.
3.2.
5. Levels and sources of regime support in democracies and autocracies 93
5.1. How much citizens support democratic and autocratic regimes 93
5.2. Why citizens support democratic and autocratic regimes I: individual-level sources 101
5.2.1. Global analysis of individual-level sources of regime support 102
5.2.2. Regional analyses of individual-level sources of regime support 113
5.2.3. Summary of findings on individual-level sources of regime support 127
5.3. Why citizens support democratic and autocratic regimes II: system-level sources 130
6. Conclusion 158
6.1. Analyzing popular support for democratic and autocratic regimes 158
6.2. Contributions to the literature on regime support 165
6.3. The stability of democratic and autocratic regimes 167
6.4. Implications for policymakers and advocates of democracy 169
6.5. Avenues for future research 171 Appendix A: Additional tables and figures on operationalization
4.2.
5.1.
5.2.
5.3.
5.5.
5.6.
5.7.
5.8.
5.9.
5.10.
5.11.
5.12.
5.13.
5.14.
A.1.
B.1.
B.2.
List of Figures
B.3. Conditional effects plots for societal value orientations in African and Asian democracies 196
B.4. Conditional effects plots for political value orientations and democratic performance evaluations in African and Asian autocracies 197
B.5. Conditional effects plots for societal value orientations in African and Asian autocracies 198
List of Tables
4.1. Democracies and autocracies
of
4.4. Operationalization of system-level determinants
4.5. Missing values in combined dataset
5.1. Individual-level sources of regime support in global democracies
5.2. Individual-level sources of regime support in global autocracies
5.3. Comparison of individual-level effects in democracies and autocracies, global analysis
5.4. Individual-level sources of regime support in African and Asian democracies
5.5. Individual-level sources of regime support in African and Asian autocracies
5.6. Comparison of individual-level effects in democracies and autocracies, supplementary analyses
5.7. Overview of results for individual-level sources of regime support
5.8. System-level sources of regime support in democracies
5.9. System-level sources of regime support in autocracies
5.10. Comparison of effects of system-level context factors on individual-level sources of regime support in democracies and autocracies
5.11. Comparison of system-level effects in democracies and autocracies
5.12. Overview of results for system-level sources of regime support 155
A.1. Dahl’s institutions of polyarchy and Freedom House’s criteria for electoral democracy 177
A.2. Question wordings for individual-level independent variables, combined dataset 179
A.3. Question wordings for individual-level independent variables, Afrobarometer 181
A.4. Question wordings for individual-level independent variables, Asian Barometer 182
A.5. Question wordings for individual-level control variables, combined dataset 184
A.6. Question wordings for individual-level control variables, Afrobarometer and Asian Barometer 186
A.7. Recoding of variable religious affiliation 188
A.8. Classification of political systems according to macro-cultural context
A.9. Actual democratic performance, actual systemic performance, and levels of socioeconomic modernization for individual country-years
190
191
B.1. Levels of regime support in individual countries 194
Introduction
1.1. Why study citizen support for democratic and autocratic regimes?
After the downfall of the Soviet Union had ended the Cold War and ensued the collapse of most of the world’s communist one-party regimes, political scientists and practitioners alike heralded the triumph of liberal democracy, expecting the demise of autocratic rule and proclaiming the “end of history” (Fukuyama 1992).
A quarter of a century later, however, little is left of this initial optimism. Not only have we witnessed the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism (see, e.g., Diamond 2002; Hale 2011; Levitsky and Way 2002; 2010a; Schedler 2002; 2015) but also have all forms of non-democratic political rule proven to be surprisingly resilient. What is more, autocratic political systems have assumed an increasingly influential role and have mounted a new “challenge to democracy” (Diamond, Plattner, and Walker 2016): regional hegemons like China, Russia, Iran, or Saudi Arabia are nowadays competing with Western liberal democracies not only for economic, but also political and military supremacy (Cooley 2015; Gat 2007; Kagan 2015; Nathan 2015; Plattner 2015; Walker 2016). This has led to a resurgence of scholarly interest in autocratic regimes, analyzing the conditions for their stability and success. Yet, while contemporary research has examined institutional and structural explanations and the impact of economic performance and natural resource availability on repression and co-optation mechanisms (e.g., Bak and Moon 2016; Boix and Svolik 2013; Escribà-Folch 2017; Knutsen, Nygård, and Wig 2017; Kokkonen and Sundell 2014; Schedler 2015; Tang, Huhe, and Zhou 2017; Tansey, Koehler, and Schmotz 2017), we still know little about the backing that autocratic regimes receive from their own populations. How do ordinary citizens see these regimes? Do they hold generally positive attitudes towards their respective political systems or do they disapprove of their autocratic rulers and regimes? Are autocratic forms of political rule actually supported by majorities in these countries?
Not only the stability and resilience of autocratic forms of political rule have received scholarly attention lately. Following the end of the Cold War, many third-wave democracies have been marked by democratic deficits and political turmoil, leading to concerns about their long-term stability and their ability to address the challenges ahead of them (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi 2005; Lührmann et al. 2019; Luna and Vergara 2016; O’Donnell 2007; Rose, Mishler,
and Haerpfer 1998; Weßels 2015). With recent authoritarian backlashes in Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, and most eminently Turkey, these concerns have taken a new and perhaps unprecedented urgency. At the same time, even the established liberal democracies of the West have come under pressure. For one, as has been repeatedly pointed out by the scholarship on “critical citizens” or “dissatisfied democrats”, publics in these countries have become increasingly critical of their incumbent governments and at least some of their political systems’ institutions (Dalton 2004; 2014; Dalton and Shin 2014; Norris 1999a; 2011; Pharr and Putnam 2000). Beyond that, recent phenomena like the rise of populist or even anti-democratic parties and politicians in much of Western Europe and the USA, widespread anti-government protests from Spain to Greece, or the new-found strength of separatist movements in Scotland, Catalonia, or the Basque Country have lent renewed impetus to the question and an academic debate of how firm citizens’ support for their democratic regimes—both new and old—really is (Alexander and Welzel 2017; Foa and Mounk 2016; 2017a; 2017b; Inglehart 2016; Norris 2017a; Voeten 2017). Are we really facing a “crisis of democracy” (Ercan and Gagnon 2014) from a political-culture perspective? Are these developments indicative of a drop in popular support for democratic regimes, or can the world’s democracies (still) rely on a broad base of political support among their citizens? This book wants to address these questions by investigating the levels as well as sources of political support in contemporary democracies and autocracies worldwide. Scholars have examined the relevance of a broad base of political support for the stability of political regimes primarily in the context of democratic consolidation and efficiency. Initially, this research emphasized institutional and economic factors (e.g., Haggard and Kaufman 1995; Linz and Valenzuela 1994; Mainwaring, O’Donnell, and Valenzuela 1992; Power and Gasiorowski 1997). Yet, political culture soon became a central topic in the discussion about the causes and conditions for successful democratic consolidation, with most scholars regarding widespread popular support for the democratic regime as a necessary condition for consolidation (Alexander 2002; Diamond 1999; 2008; Fukuyama 1995b; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Linz and Stepan 1996; for a very recent empirical substantiation, see Claassen 2019). In addition, scholars have long regarded a solid base of citizen support as essential in providing the basis for the smooth functioning of democratic political systems (Dalton 2004; Hetherington 1998; Letki 2006; Marien and Hooghe 2011; Scholz and Lubell 1998; Tyler 2011). Based on the seminal contributions by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1963) and David Easton (1965) as well as Seymour Martin Lipset (1959) and Harry Eckstein (1961; 1969), we can regard such popular support as indispensable for the persistence of any political system. Going beyond the research on democratic consolidation, recent conceptual contributions have rediscovered the role of political support in autocracies, suggesting that—next to repression and co-optation strategies—upholding at least a minimum of legitimacy beliefs among the population is essential also
for the long-term stability of autocratic regimes (Gerschewski 2013; also: Brooker 2009; Dimitrov 2013; Gilley 2009).
Gauging the level of political support can therefore help answer the fundamental question of how stable both democratic as well as autocratic regimes around the world are today and what direction they are likely to take. Hence, the first aim of this analysis is to assess how much support democratic and autocratic regimes receive from their respective populations.
From a normative perspective, democracies are considered to be inherently superior to autocracies (Barry 1991; Dahl 1971; 1989; 1998; Kolodny 2014; Rawls 1972; Sartori 1987; Shapiro 1999; 2003). Democracy is also empirically linked with greater liberty (Bova 1997; Møller and Skaaning 2013), greater efficiency and transparency (Stockemer 2012), less corruption (Kolstad and Wiig 2016), and fewer violent conflicts (Halperin, Siegle, and Weinstein 2005; Hegre 2014; Oneal and Ray 1997).
Do we find this apparent superiority reflected in levels of political support? Are there systematic differences in popular support between democratic and autocratic regimes? Are democracies indeed superior to autocratic forms of rule in the eyes of their citizens? Can the former rest on an ample base of popular endorsement grounded in an appreciation of their democratic legitimation, or are they susceptible to destabilization fueled by widespread citizen discontent grounded in, for example, meager economic performance? And are autocracies actually affected negatively by their lack of democratic legitimation? In order to shed light on these questions, the present analysis will not only assess the levels of popular support in democracies and autocracies, but also compare them systematically between the two types of political regimes
Such a systematic comparison of levels of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes allows assessing how much support either type of political regime receives from its citizens. In doing so, it helps draw conclusions about how much backing both democracies and autocracies have amongst their respective populations and can serve as a basis for predicting whether one type of political regime is likely to be more stable than the other. It thereby contributes to answering the question of whether “the authoritarian challenge to democracy” (Puddington 2011) also exists at the citizen level and whether “the age of democracy” is truly “over” (Fukuyama 2010) from a political-culture perspective. While there are a large number of analyses on political support in democracies (e.g., Fuchs and Klingemann 2006; Gilley 2006b; Klingemann 1999; Marien 2011) and at least some evidence on political support in certain autocracies, especially for China (e.g., Chen and Dickson 2008; Wang and Tan 2013; Zhong and Chen 2013), only little is known about how the two types of regimes compare to each other in the eyes of their citizens. The present analysis seeks to fill this gap and contribute new insights to the wider debate on the (future) stability of both democratic and autocratic political regimes.
A systematic comparison of levels of political support, however, can only be a first step in the study of popular support for democratic and autocratic political regimes. So far, we know that levels of political support vary greatly between individual countries (e.g., Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi 2005; Norris 2011; van der Meer and Hakhverdian 2017). Some democracies are much more strongly supported by their citizens than others, and the same is true for autocracies. But what makes the Danish view their political regime so much more favorably than the British? What distinguishes the overwhelmingly supportive Vietnamese from the much more critical Cambodians? In order to answer these questions, we need to identify the sources of political support for both democratic and autocratic political regimes.
Beyond their analytical interest, these questions are of practical relevance for policymakers and agents of democracy promotion. By exploring on what grounds citizens support their current political regime, the study and comparison of sources of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes provides information on the factors that make citizens view their political regime more favorably. Such insights can serve as a background for developing policy recommendations and programs aimed at strengthening support for the existing democratic political regime in countries where the survival of democracy might be at stake. At the same time, they can serve as a blueprint for measures aimed at discrediting existing autocratic political regimes in the eyes of their citizens in order to facilitate (peaceful) democratic transitions. In light of recent developments, both of these objectives appear more in demand today than maybe ever before. On the one hand, the stability of many democracies, both young and established, across the globe has come into question. The most apparent examples are the rise of (right-wing) populist parties, which claim to offer a “more democratic” alternative to representative, liberal democracy, and which have advanced into parliaments across Europe; the open rejection of a pluralistic media system and the rule of law by the president of the United States of America; or the dismantling of an independent judiciary and opposition rights by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A better understanding of the sources of citizens’ support for democratic political regimes can help substantiate efforts to inoculate existing democracies against anti-democratic threats by strengthening citizen support for the democratic political regime and make citizenries more immune to populist promises. On the other hand, with autocratic rulers not only in Russia and China but also in many parts of Africa and Asia strengthening their grip on power rather than loosening it, the third wave of democratization seems to have come to a halt in the first half of the twenty-first century. Identifying the determinants of popular support for autocratic regimes, then, can help democracy promoters develop programs aimed at weakening public support for existing autocratic regimes in order to create conditions that facilitate the breakdown of the autocratic regime.
As far as the potential sources of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes are concerned, we can distinguish two general types of sources: individuallevel characteristics such as citizens’ personal value orientations, and system-level features such as a country’s macroeconomic performance.
Prior research has so far focused mainly on the individuallevel sources of political support, with two principal traditions emerging: the “culturalist” tradition, which concentrates on citizens’ value orientations as sources of political support; and the “institutionalist” tradition, which concentrates on citizens’ evaluations of the political regime’s performance as sources of political support. For instance, researchers have examined how self-expressive value orientations relate to political support (e.g., Ma and Yang 2014; Nevitte and Kanji 2002), whether prodemocratic value orientations enhance or reduce political support (e.g., Nathan 2007; Singh 2018), what kind of effect positive evaluations of the national economy exert on political support (e.g., Cordero and Simón 2016; Wang 2005), whether the perception that government officials are corrupt dampens political support (e.g., Chang 2013; Wang 2016), or whether citizens satisfied with the current government express more political support than those who are not (e.g., Citrin and Green 1986; Grönlund and Setälä 2012).
Yet, despite prior research largely focusing on the individual-level sources of political support, a number of academic as well as practical debates also consider systemlevel determinants of political support. For one, following the famous claim of Singapore’s former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, that “Asian societies are unlike Western ones” (Zakaria 1994, p. 113), scholars have long debated whether or not an Asian or Confucian culture is incompatible with democratic ideas (e.g., Bell 2006; Bell and Hahm 2003; Fukuyama 1995a; Li 1997; Pye 1985; Sen 1997). East Asia and its citizens, as well as Islamic or Arab societies, are therefore often characterized as particularly hostile to the establishment of democratic rule, while Western societies are seen as providing fertile ground for the development and sustainment of democracy (most prominently: Huntington 1991a; 1991b; 1996). Others, conversely, do not share this view and purport that other forces, for example socioeconomic modernization, take precedence over cultural imprints in determining how likely democracy is to develop in a certain country (e.g., Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Lipset 1959; Welzel, Inglehart, and Klingemann 2003). Building on this latter line of argument, Larry Diamond (2012) has even proclaimed East Asia as the nucleus of a coming fourth wave of democratization, contradicting the pessimistic assessments of Huntington and others. The central question underlying these opposing claims is whether the macro-cultural context, or “cultural zone”, pre-determines citizens’ attitudes towards their political regime, i.e. whether the macro-cultural context actually makes a difference to how strongly citizens support their democratic or autocratic regime. Finding an answer to this question can, subsequently, help us assess the prospects for democratization and democratic consolidation in different cultural zones, contributing
to evaluate, for example, how likely it is that a new wave of democratization originates from Confucian East Asia. Determining how amenable or adverse certain societies are towards democratic or autocratic rule can further provide valuable indications on where democracy assistance might be both most successful and most crucial in establishing and sustaining democratic rule.
Another question pertaining to the system-level determinants of political support concerns the spread of political regimes that are neither fully democratic nor fully authoritarian (see, e.g., Bogaards and Elischer 2016; Carothers 2002; Hale 2011). In recent years, many autocratic regimes across the globe have embarked on a process of “controlled political liberalization” in which they opened up politically, granted their citizens more political rights and civil liberties, and allowed for opposition parties to compete in—nevertheless unfair—elections (Gandhi and Przeworski 2007; Levitsky and Way 2010a; Schedler 2015). Many of these regimes now classify as “hybrid” or “electoral authoritarian” regimes and combine formally democratic structures with authoritarian practices. How does this controlled political liberalization resonate with citizens? Do these partially liberalized regimes actually receive more citizen support than their unliberalized counterparts, and can controlled political liberalization therefore constitute a viable strategy for autocratic rulers to secure their grip on power? In general, how strongly is citizens’ political support affected by the characteristics of the political regime they live in? These questions not only shed light on future developments in liberalizing autocracies, but also tie in with the long-standing debate about the (lacking) quality of real-world democracies (see, e.g., Coman and Tomini 2014; Diamond and Morlino 2005; Foweraker and Trevizo 2016; Hutcheson and Korosteleva 2006; Levine and Molina 2011; Morlino 2011; O’Donnell, Vargas Cullell, and Iazzetta 2004; see also the post-democracy debate, e.g. Crouch 2016; Mair 2013; Pabst 2016). Do various “democratic deficits” actually make a difference with regard to how much popular support democratic regimes receive? What are the likely effects of recent democratic rollbacks in countries like Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, or Turkey on citizens’ views of their political regimes? Assessing how relevant the democratic quality of a political regime is for citizens’ attitudes towards this regime can thus help determine whether a deepening of democracy, i.e. an increase in democratic quality, would be an effective strategy to secure citizen support for the existing democratic political regimes. At the same time, it can tell us whether a curtailing of core democratic principles is likely to be met with a backlash from citizens, or whether these measures aimed at securing a particular party’s or incumbent’s grip on power will probably remain without consequences for citizens’ political support.
A third area of academic and public debate in which system-level determinants of political support play an important role concerns the effects of economic performance. On the one hand, autocracies like the modernizing regimes in East Asia, most prominently Singapore, or the oil-rich rentier states of the Arab
Peninsula seem to suggest that the provision of economic well-being and other public goods (like high-quality public administration or medical treatment) can outweigh even a severe lack of political rights and civil liberties, and generate popular support for autocratic rule. On the other hand, modernization theory predicts that a high level of socioeconomic modernization, which inevitably results from continued economic growth, gives way to demands for exactly these political rights and civil liberties, threatening the legitimacy of autocratic rule and, eventually, inducing democratization (classically: Lipset 1959). Autocratic rulers would then face a dilemma: if they do not provide citizens with economic and other public goods, support for their rule will plummet; yet if they do so for a longer period of time, rising levels of socioeconomic modernization will lead to the emergence of democratic demands and, eventually, the demise of autocratic rule (e.g., Diamond 2012). Is there really such a thing as a “modernization dilemma”? How do current economic performance and the level of socioeconomic modernization affect citizens’ attitudes towards their political regime? Answering these questions can add not only to the literature on political support as well as to the literature on democratization, but also contribute to assess how stable or unstable political regimes are likely to be in times of crisis. For instance, knowing how important it is for a political system to provide its citizens with certain public goods can help us predict how detrimental economic crises like the one in 2007/2008 may prove for the legitimacy of both democratic and autocratic regimes, or whether economic sanctions like the ones currently imposed upon Russia or Iran actually are viable tools for destabilizing autocratic rule.
Going beyond the existing literature on sources of political support, this contribution consequently not only wants to examine which individuallevel sources affect political support in democratic and autocratic regimes but also addresses what role systemlevel factors play in the formation of political support in democratic as well as autocratic regimes and how individual and systemlevel sources interact in shaping political support. Determining what kind of effect different individual- and system-level sources have on political support allows making more substantiated predictions about future developments in political support and, thereby, about the stability of democratic and autocratic regimes. It also gives way to implications for policymakers on how to strengthen citizen support for democratic and weaken citizen support for autocratic regimes.
Moreover, we must ask whether these individual- and system-level sources have the same effects on political support in both types of political regimes. As some of the questions raised in this introduction already indicate, democratic and autocratic regimes are based on fundamentally different structural conditions— the most obvious and defining one being the existence or lack of democratic legitimation and institutionalized mechanisms ensuring the responsiveness and accountability of the ruling vis-à-vis the ruled. Do these differences in structural conditions make a difference not only for the level of political support but also for
the foundations of this political support? Do the same individual- and system-level characteristics shape political support in democratic and autocratic regimes and are these characteristics equally important across both types of regimes? For example, do citizens attribute a higher relevance to democratic quality in democratic regimes than they do in autocracies? Do autocracies in exchange rely more heavily on upholding a strong economic performance? Determining whether some sources of support are more important in one type of political regime than the other improves our understanding of the processes forming political support. Furthermore, it provides valuable advice to policymakers and democracy promoters on what measures to focus their resources in each type of political regime. So far, research comparing the sources of political support between democratic and autocratic regimes is still nascent. Only a handful of studies have taken on this task (Chang, Chu, and Welsh 2013; Chu, Welsh, and Chang 2013; Huhe and Tang 2017; Mishler and Rose 2001a; Park 2013; Park and Chang 2013; Wang, Dalton, and Shin 2006) and these neither offer a coherent theoretical argument as to why and how the effects of different sources of political support should (or should not) vary between democratic and autocratic regimes, nor conclusive or generalizable empirical results (cf. section 1.2). In order to answer these open questions, this book not only tries to identify the individual and systemlevel sources of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes but also asks whether and how the effects of these individual and systemlevel sources vary between the two types of regimes
Coming from the initial vantage point of asking how stable democratic and autocratic political regimes are based on their citizens’ political attitudes, three core research questions hence lie at the heart of this study. The first research question aims to gauge the level of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes worldwide, asking:
How widespread is popular support for the respective regime among the populations of democracies and autocracies around the globe, and are there systematic differences in the levels of political support between democratic and autocratic regimes?
The second research question addresses the individuallevel sources of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes. It asks:
What individual-level sources is political support based upon in democracies and autocracies, which individual-level sources are relevant in which type of political regime, and how does the effect of these individual-level sources vary between democratic and autocratic regimes?
The third research question goes beyond the individual level to inquire about the systemlevel sources of political support in democratic and autocratic regimes, asking:
What system-level sources is political support based upon in democracies and autocracies, which system-level sources are relevant in which type of political regime, how do system- and individual-level sources interact in shaping regime support, and how does the effect of the system-level sources vary between democratic and autocratic regimes?
These research questions relate the present study to several ongoing discussions and contribute to the field of political-culture research in important ways. By analyzing and systematically comparing levels of political support between democratic and autocratic regimes across the world, it enhances our knowledge about how political support is distributed on a global scale. It gives us key insights into how citizens view their political regimes and whether the type of political regime actually matters for the amount of support citizens extend to it. Taking into account both individual- and system-level factors as sources of political support and in examining the linkages between these individual- and system-level sources, it further contributes to the development of a more comprehensive view on political support and its sources. By investigating what role different individual- and system-level sources play in the formation of political support, it enables us to draw general conclusions about the future development of political support for both democratic and autocratic regimes, and allows making predictions regarding the stability of either type of political regime. In line with the central research questions, this contribution will place particular emphasis on the differences between democratic and autocratic regimes in both the theoretical considerations and the empirical analysis.
Conceptually, this study draws on three main strands of research: one, the conceptualizations of political support developed by David Easton (1965; 1975) and Dieter Fuchs (2002; 2009); two, the “culturalist” and “institutionalist” literature on (mainly individual-level) sources of political support (e.g., Barry 1970; Eckstein 1988; Kornberg and Clarke 1992); and three, theories of attitude formation borrowed from social psychology (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980; Anderson 1971; 1981; Fishbein 1963; Fishbein and Ajzen 1975; 2010; Zaller 1992). The first job is to join these three strands of literature and develop an integrated, comprehensive theoretical framework that uses the conceptualizations of political support and theories of attitude formation to spell out the mechanisms linking different individual- and system-level determinants deduced from the culturalist and institutionalist traditions to political support. Furthermore, the present work integrates insights on the institutional structures and functional logics of democratic and autocratic political systems into this theoretical framework. It thereby presents the first systematic effort to build, on the one hand, an explanatory model of political support applicable to either type of political regime and, on the other hand, to specify how and why particular determinants may affect political support in different ways in democratic and autocratic regimes
This explanatory model expects five individuallevel sources to affect political support for democratic and autocratic regimes alike: societal value orientations,
political value orientations, incumbent support, democratic performance evaluations, and systemic performance evaluations. Societal value orientations comprise citizens’ beliefs about how society should be organized, for example whether the collective interest should be put before individual interests, while political value orientations encompass citizens’ beliefs about how the political system should be organized, for instance whether political leaders should be elected by universal suffrage or chosen by birthright. Incumbent support captures citizens’ views of the incumbent political leaders, especially how satisfied they are with the current government. Democratic performance evaluations consist of citizens’ assessments of how well their country provides political rights and freedoms, such as the extent to which parties can organize freely, while systemic performance evaluations include citizens’ assessments of how well their country provides more generic public goods like protection from violent crime or economic well-being. On the system level, it identifies four sources of political support: macrocultural context, macropolitical context, actual systemic performance, and level of socioeconomic modernization. Macro-cultural context captures a country’s cultural tradition, for example a Confucian or a Protestant heritage, while macro-political context incorporates a country’s level of democracy, i.e. to what extent it grants political rights and freedoms such as associational rights or freedom of speech. Actual systemic performance encompasses the extent to which a political system provides more generic public goods like economic well-being, protection from crime, or high-quality public administration. Finally, the level of socioeconomic modernization distinguishes between countries based on how socioeconomically developed they are, for example how educated their population is. Again, all of these system-level sources should play a role in shaping political support in either type of political regime. However, the explanatory model does not expect all of these individual- and system-level sources to affect political support in the same way in democratic and autocratic regimes; for some of the sources, it predicts that their effect varies depending on the type of political regime. This study hence proposes a universal explanatory model in the sense that the same sets of sources should affect citizen support for both democratic and autocratic regimes but specifies differences in how these sources affect political support.
Methodologically, the present work faces several challenges to which it presents innovative solutions that significantly enhance previous studies of political support. First, it compiles a unique dataset of both survey and aggregate data collected between 2010 and 2014 that covers an unprecedented geographical scope and permits the analysis of citizens’ political attitudes and their individual- and system-level sources on a global scale. Second, it develops an original research strategy that allows for a comprehensive analysis of political support and its sources. This research strategy combines a global maximum-scope analysis aiming to cover the largest possible geographical scope with several supplementary analyses aiming to secure the highest possible precision. Third, it finds a measure
of regime support applicable in both democratic and autocratic regimes and demonstrates that we can actually analyze democracies and autocracies in the same way. Finally, it employs sophisticated statistical techniques—most importantly, multi-level structural equation modeling—and, thereby, presents the first study to explicitly model the complex causal mechanisms and pathways through which individual- and system-level sources determine political support.
Empirically, this study makes three central contributions. One, it offers the first truly global and contemporary comparison of levels of citizen support for democratic and autocratic political regimes, covering political systems from Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, Central, South, and East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab World as well as a broad range of political, economic, and cultural contexts. Two, it examines a comprehensive set of individual-level explanatory variables of political support and compares how the effects of these determinants vary in both direction and strength between democratic and autocratic regimes. Three, next to the individual-level sources of political support, it also analyzes how system-level context factors impact political support and, thereby, provides insights into what role different political, cultural, and economic contexts play for citizens’ attitudes towards their political regime.
The empirical analysis shows that both democratic and autocratic regimes, on average, receive a medium amount of support from their citizens. It also finds that the same set of individual- and system-level sources—with the exception of actual systemic performance—affect this support in both types of regimes and, thereby, corroborates the notion of a generalizable explanatory model of political support. On the individual level, we can further observe not only that the same sources are relevant in forming political support, but also that the directions and strengths of their effects are largely the same in democratic and autocratic regimes. On the system level, in contrast, more pronounced differences between democratic and autocratic regimes emerge, with some sources exerting a positive effect in one type of political regime and a negative effect in the other. This study hence establishes that a universal explanatory model can be applied to both democratic and autocratic regimes and that the same sets of individual- and system-level sources are relevant in either type of political regime, but that how these sources affect political support is only universal on the individual level.
Before developing the integrated theoretical model of political support and its individual- and system-level sources in democratic and autocratic regimes (chapters 2 and 3) and conducting the respective empirical analyses (chapters 4 and 5), the remainder of this introductory chapter briefly reviews the literature on political support in democracies and autocracies (section 1.2), outlines the theoretical model proposed in the following chapters (section 1.3), and provides a short overview of the data, research strategy, and methods applied in the empirical analyses (section 1.4). The final section of this chapter describes the general organization of this book (section 1.5).
