Authority Orientations and Political Support: A Cross-national Analysis of Satisfaction with Governments and Democracy

Abstract

In the mid 1970’s Samuel Huntington predicted that the new middle classes in many advanced industrial states would become more restless and “post-industrial politics” less benign (1974; also Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki 1975). The accumulated evidence provides some support for that prediction; citizens in a number of states have become more inclined to publicly express their dissatisfaction with governments (Inglehart 1997; Klingemann 1999; Dalton 1999). Occasional citizen dissatisfaction with a particular government is neither unusual nor necessarily problematic. More problematical is the possibility that deep and sustained dissatisfaction might corrode regime support. The worry is that dissatisfaction with particular governments might turn into dissatisfaction with the workings of democracy more generally. What are the determinants of dissatisfaction with governments? And, what is the connection between citizens’ evaluations of government performance and their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the workings of democracy more generally? This analysis examines these two separate but closely related questions. Neither research question is new, but we depart from