Confidence In Political Institutions Research Articles

The Political Scar of Epidemics

Abstract Epidemic exposure in an individual's ‘impressionable years’ (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. This loss of trust is associated with epidemic-induced economic difficulties, such as lower income and unemployment later in life. It is observed for political institutions and leaders only and does not carry over to other institutions and individuals. A key exception is a strong negative effect on confidence in public health systems. This suggests that the distrust in political institutions and leaders is associated with the (in)effectiveness of a government's healthcare-related response to epidemics. We show that the loss of political trust is largest for individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments with low policymaking capacity, and confirm that weak governments in fact took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to COVID-19. We report evidence that the epidemic-induced loss of political trust discourages electoral participation in the long term.

Institutional Trust by Gender: Personal Indicators of Confidence in Political Institutions in Countries with Different Gender Gaps

Güven kavramı, siyaset bilimi literatüründe çok farklı bağlamlarda ve farklı türleri ile ele alınmıştır. Kurumsal güven bireylerin yaşadıkları ülkenin kurumlarına duydukları güvene işaret eder ve siyasal sistemlerin devamlılığı açısından da demokratikleşme bağlamında da etkili bir faktör olarak öne çıkmaktadır. Kurumsal güvenin belirleyicileri tartışmasında öne çıkan argümanlardan biri de toplumdaki dezavantajlı grupların kurumlara yönelik daha düşük güvene sahip olduklarıdır. Bu çalışma, bahsi geçen argümandan hareketle, kadınların erkeklere göre daha düşük kurumsal güvene sahip olup olmadığını sorgulamayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu sorgulamayı Dünya/Avrupa Değerler Araştırmalarının birleştirilmiş son dalgalarından gelen veri ile yapmaktadır. Bu noktadaki beklenti en azından cinsiyet eşitsizliğinin yüksek olduğu ülkelerde bu beklentinin doğrulanmasıdır. Ancak bulgular, kadınlar ve erkekler arasındaki farkın göz ardı edilebilecek kadar küçük olduğunu, bunun yerine literatürde işaret edilen iki önemli faktörün - siyasal sistemden memnuniyet ve toplumsal güven - öne çıktığını göstermektedir.

Promiscuously partisan public servants? Publicly defending and promoting the government’s reputation to the detriment of bureaucratic impartiality and truthfulness

PurposeFor many, the claim that a new approach to bureaucracy—new political governance (NPG)—is underway reads as if it was written by Stephen King: Frightening fiction. While the thought of promiscuously partisan senior public servants publicly defending and promoting the government’s reputation to the demise of impartiality is disturbing, the evidentiary record has led most to dismiss the idea as empirically false. This article questions, and empirically investigates, whether dismissing the idea of promiscuous partisanship has been premature.Design/methodology/approachA case study of the loyalty displayed by Canada’s most senior public servant during a highly publicized parliamentary committee is analysed with a novel theoretical and empirical approach in three steps. First, the Clerk of the Privy Council (Clerk)’s committee testimony is analysed against analytical constructs of impartial and promiscuous partisan loyalty that focuses on the testimony’s direction and substance. Second, the objectivity and truthfulness of the testimony is analysed by comparing what was publicly claimed to have occurred against evidence submitted to the committee that provids an independent record of events. Third, the perception the Clerk’s testimony had on some committee members, political journalists and members of the public is analysed through print media and committee Hansard.FindingsWhile the Clerk’s testimony displays an awareness of upholding impartiality, it also comprises promiscuous partisanship. Throughout his testimony, the Clerk redirects from the line of questioning to defend and promote the sitting government’s reputation. Moreover, to defend and promote the government’s reputation the Clerk’s testimony moved away from objectivity and engaged in truth-obfuscating tactics. Finally, the nature of the Clerk’s testimony was perceived by some committee members and the public—including former senior public servants—as having abandoned impartiality to have become a public “cheerleader” of the government.Research limitations/implicationsEmploying an in-depth case study limits the extent to which the findings concerning the presence of promiscuously partisan loyalty can be generalized beyond the present case to the larger cadre of senior public servants.Originality/valueEmpirically, while most research has dismissed claims of promiscuous partisanship as empirically unfounded, this article provides what is possibly the strongest empirical case to date of a public incident of promiscuous partisanship at the apex of the bureaucracy. As such, scholars can no longer dismiss NPG as an interesting idea without much empirical leverage. Theoretically, this article adds further caution to Aucoin’s original narrative of NPG by suggesting that promiscuous partisanship might not only involve senior public servants defending and promoting the government, but that doing so may push them to engage in truth-obfuscating tactics, and therein, weaken the public’s confidence in political institutions. The novel theoretical and empirical approach to studying senior public servants’ parliamentary testimony can be used by scholars in other settings to expand the empirical study of bureaucratic loyalty.

IT as an instrument for democratization of parliamentary activities: Latin American practice

IT as an instrument for democratization of parliamentary activities: Latin American practice

Placing the 2020 Belarusian Protests in Historical Context: Political Attitudes and Participation during Lukashenko’s Presidency

AbstractIn the wake of the most recent protests in Belarus following the 2020 Presidential Election, it is useful to explore patterns of satisfaction with the political system, confidence in political institutions, and political participation at different points in time during President Lukashenko’s rule. We utilize Wave 3 of the World Values Study (WVS) and Wave 7 of the Joint European Values Study (EVS)/WVS to (1) analyze whether citizens’ dissatisfaction with the Belarusian government differed between 1996 and 2018, and (2) whether there was a change in political participation during that period. Responses over time suggest that satisfaction with the government and confidence in institutions was not lower in 2018 than it had been in 1996. However, as we discuss in the article, this may be an artifact of authoritarian consolidation and concern/fears about revealing preferences. We also find that the willingness to engage in protests remained more or less the same between these two time periods, especially among those dissatisfied with the political system. These results suggest that once highly dissatisfied citizens took to the streets in 2020, a number of internal and external factors might have triggered a bandwagon effect that pushed other citizens to also join the demonstrations.

Emerging Repertoires of Political Participation in Lithuania: A Latent Class Analysis

Most scholars argue that the decline of citizen participation and confidence in political institutions might be explained as the transformation of traditional forms of political participation to new ones. However, some authors indicate that citizens are not exclusively oriented towards institutionalized or de-institutionalized forms of participation and use all available mechanisms of influence by participating in various forms of action. The focus of this article is an empirical investigation of repertoires of political participation in Lithuania. The article, which is based on the data of the fifth wave of the European Values Study, concludes that repertoires of political participation in Lithuania are diversified and complex. They are significantly associated with gender, age, education, income, place of residence, interpersonal trust, confidence in political institutions, materialist/postmaterialist values, authority orientations, democratic support, autocratic orientations, and family socialization. The repertoires of the all-around activists, the duty-based participants, and the low-involved protesters are mixed and include all forms of political participation. However, there is a slightly noticeable trend toward the repertoire of an assertive citizen among the low-involved protesters and the apolitical volunteers.

Crisis del modelo democrático en el siglo XXI

The objective of the text is to serve as an editorial to the edition volume 40, number 72, January-June 2022 of Political Issues. Methodologically, it is an editorial essay of a reflective nature based on documentary sources consulted in digital format. The crisis of the democratic model is in some way a global phenomenon that affects, to a greater or lesser extent, all modern societies that have adopted the government of the people and the power of the people as a form of state and government with constitutional status. It is concluded that democracy, beyond its different expressions and modalities, is the only political system that allows the enjoyment and enjoyment of human rights in a social framework of freedom, quality of life and dignity, but despite its benefits it is not exempt from contradictions such as: the crisis of representation, the loss of confidence in political institutions and the corruption of political parties and their respective leaderships; these contradictions put at stake the legitimacy of this form of government and also create the conditions of possibility for the production of neo-populist or neoconservative leadership that vindicate authoritarian ways of exercising power to the detriment of the rule of law.

Experiences matter: A longitudinal study of individual-level sources of declining social trust in the United States

The US has experienced a substantial decline in social trust in recent decades. Surprisingly few studies analyze whether individual-level explanations can account for this decrease. We use three-wave panel data from the General Social Survey (2006–2014) to study the effects of four possible individual-level sources of changes in social trust: job loss, social ties, income, and confidence in political institutions. Findings from fixed-effects linear regression models suggest that all but social ties matter. We then use 1973–2018 GSS data to predict trust based on observed values for unemployment, confidence in institutions, and satisfaction with income, versus an alternative counterfactual scenario in which the values of those three predictors are held constant at their mean levels in the early 1970s. Predicted values from these two scenarios differ substantially, suggesting that decreasing confidence in institutions and increasing unemployment scarring may explain about half of the observed decline in US social trust.

The Political Scar of Epidemics

What political legacy is bequeathed by national health crises such as epidemics? We show that epidemic exposure in an individual’s “impressionable years” (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. The effect is specific to the impressionable ages, observed only for political institutions and leaders, and does not carry over to other institutions and individuals with one key exception. That exception is strong negative effects on confidence in public health systems, suggesting that the loss of confidence in political institutions and leaders is associated with the (in)effectiveness of a government’s healthcare-related responses to past epidemics. We document this mechanism, showing that weak governments took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and demonstrating that the loss of political trust is larger for individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments. Finally, we report evidence suggesting that the epidemic-induced loss of political trust may discourage electoral participation in the long term.

Support for insider parties: The role of political trust in a longitudinal-comparative perspective

European democracies have experienced drastic changes in electoral competition. Voter support for insider parties that have traditionally governed has declined while support for radical and populist parties has increased. Simultaneously, citizens’ declining political trust has become a concern, as confidence in political institutions and actors is low across numerous countries. Interestingly, the linkage between political trust and support for insider parties has not been empirically established but deduced from the fact that outsider parties are often supported by dissatisfied citizens. We address this gap adopting both an institutional- and an actor-centered approach by investigating whether trust in parliaments and in parties is associated with the electoral performance of insider parties on the aggregate level. Combining different data sources in a novel way, we apply time-series cross-section models to a dataset containing 30 countries and 137 elections from 1998 to 2018. Our results show that when political trust is low, particularly institutional trust, insider parties receive less electoral support. Hence, we provide empirical evidence that decreasing levels of political trust are the downfall of insider parties, thereby opening a window of opportunity for challenging outsider parties.

The Political Scar of Epidemics

What will be political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? We find that epidemic exposure in an individual’s “impressionable years” (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. We find similar negative effects on confidence in public health systems, suggesting that the loss of confidence in political leadership and institutions is associated with healthcare-related policies at the time of the epidemic. In line with this argument, our results are mostly driven by individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments with less capacity to act against the epidemic, disappointing their citizens. We provide evidence of this mechanism by showing that weak governments took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. These results imply that the Coronavirus may leave behind a long-lasting political scar on the current young generation (“Generation Z”).

The Political Scar of Epidemics

What will be political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? We find that epidemic exposure in an individual's "impressionable years" (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. We find similar negative effects on confidence in public health systems, suggesting that the loss of confidence in political leadership and institutions is associated with healthcare-related policies at the time of the epidemic. In line with this argument, our results are mostly driven by individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments with less capacity to act against the epidemic, disappointing their citizens. We provide evidence of this mechanism by showing that weak governments took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. These results imply that the Coronavirus may leave behind a long-lasting political scar on the current young generation ("Generation Z").

The Political Scar of Epidemics

What will be political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? We find that epidemic exposure in an individual’s “impressionable years” (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. We find similar negative effects on confidence in public health systems, suggesting that the loss of confidence in political leadership and institutions is associated with healthcare-related policies at the time of the epidemic. In line with this argument, our results are mostly driven by individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments with less capacity to act against the epidemic, disappointing their citizens. We provide evidence of this mechanism by showing that weak governments took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. These results imply that the Coronavirus may leave behind a long-lasting political scar on the current young generation (“Generation Z”).

“Польско-польская война”: причины и последствия для политической системы

The “Polish-Polish War” metaphor describing relations between two major political parties – the “Civic Platform” and “Law and Justice” – has become a regular item in Polish political discourse. The article starts with explaining the origins of this conflict. The authors compare political programs of the two parties and highlight the key stages of the “war”, describing it in detail, focusing on events and factors that contributed to its escalation. The final section explores the effects of the conflict for the political system. Reviewing the background of the “Polish-Polish War” the authors point out that initially, in the late 1980s, major political actors in Poland – the Polish Communist Party and the Trade Union “Solidarity” – reached an agreement which contained core elements for consensus to be developed on the future soft political transition. However, the parliamentary elections of 1993 were won by left-wing parties due to the ongoing fragmentation of the groups derived from the “Solidarity”, as well as transition difficulties that accompanied Poland during radical economic reforms. The early 2000s created a new balance of power in the party system stemming from the disappearance of left-wing parties which had lost electoral support. The two right-wing parties lead by former political companions in the resistance for many years – Kaczynsky brothers and Donald Tusk – became major political rivals. Exploring the development of the “Polish-Polish War” the authors demonstrate how an abusive political rhetoric and aggressive political actions determined the political discourse and changed the sociopolitical atmosphere in Poland later on. More significantly, the mutual aversion continued even when the party leaders had changed, and it is reproduced in public speeches of the new leadership at present. It is concluded that the “Polish-Polish War” had a number of negative effects on the political system. Among them there are: a growing lack of public confidence in political institutions; constraining political development due to the lack of political actors with new ideas and values on the left side of the ideological spectrum, who could potentially re-evaluate the political confrontation, set aside old divisions and supply new socio-political agenda.

How Does Information About Elite Tax Evasion Affect Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania

We present results of a randomised field experiment where voters in Tanzania were given information about elite use of tax havens. Information provided in a neutral form had no effect, while information phrased in more morally charged terms led to a reduction in voting intentions. Rather than increase the perceived importance of voting, charged information tends to undermine confidence in political institutions and the social contract. The effects are particularly pronounced among the less well off, indicating that increased transparency in the absence of perceived agency may not improve political participation.

Conflicting conceptualisations of ‘democracy’ in the German Bundestag during the anti-nuclear demonstrations, 1995–2001

SUMMARYA vigorous anti-nuclear movement emerged in Germany in the mid 1990s, when spent nuclear fuel elements began to be transported to the interim storage facility in Gorleben, Lower Saxony. Resistance to nuclear transportation continued to grow in strength throughout the 1990s. The protests expressed people’s distrust and lack of confidence in political institutions and decision-making processes. In the German Bundestag, these events relating to Gorleben caused significant political struggles over the principles and meanings of German democracy. Parliamentarians voiced competing counterarguments about the legitimacy of these demonstrations, on the one hand, and the legitimacy of the nuclear energy policy of the federal government, on the other. Ideas about liberal democracy and the tradition of the 1968 generation and new social movements clashed in the Bundestag. By applying methods of conceptual analysis to parliamentary research, this article discusses conflicting conceptualisations of democracy in the German parliament. Analysis of political language enables discussions on competing ideas, attitudes and conceptions in policy-making. The Bundestag argued about democratic beliefs and values, which legitimated parliamentary policy-making. In particular, interpretations of violence in a democratic state, the principle of majority rule and the legitimacy of decision-making were explicitly debated in the German parliament.

Crisis of trust: Socio-economic determinants of Europeans’ confidence in government

Europeans’ confidence in political institutions has dropped precipitously since the onset of the Euro-crisis in 2009. The decline in trust in government varies across countries and occupational and educational groups. Economic factors explain much of the cross-national and over-time variation. The baseline level of trust is influenced by a person’s position in the labor market: across European countries, citizens with more education and higher levels of skills trust government more than those educational and occupational groups that have benefited less from European integration. Residents of debtor countries with high unemployment rates are also much less likely to trust national government than those in creditor countries that have fared better during the economic crisis, while the unemployed have lost faith in government to a greater degree than other parts of the population. Cultural, ideational, and political factors remain important for baseline levels of trust, but cannot explain the acute, asymmetr...

La manipulación del marco legal de las elecciones en América Latina entre 2000 y 2012: una aproximación metodológica

Hay una larga lista de malas prácticas electorales que desnivelan el piso sobre el cual compiten partidos y candidatos en muchas democracias emergentes, dañando la confianza en las instituciones políticas y en la legitimidad de los gobiernos electos. ¿Cómo entender, medir, comparar, algunas de esas prácticas? En este trabajo se presenta un marco analítico para examinar y medir una de las formas más generalizadas de manipulación en América Latina: la del diseño de las leyes electorales. En este marco se examina el caso de 16 países de la región en el periodo comprendido entre 2000 y 2012 en cuatro áreas críticas para la integridad de las elecciones: la cobertura de los medios de comunicación, las finanzas de campaña, los organismos electorales y el uso de recursos del Estado.

Crisis of Trust: Socio-Economic Determinants of Europeans' Confidence in Government

Europeans’ confidence in political institutions has dropped precipitously since the onset of the Euro-crisis in 2010. However, the decline in public trust in government varies tremendously across countries and occupational and educational groups. Analyzing more than 600,000 responses from 23 waves of the Eurobarometer conducted from 2004-2015, we find that economic factors explain much of the cross-national and over-time variation. The baseline level of trust is influenced greatly by a person’s position in the labor market: across European countries, citizens with more education and higher levels of skills express more trust in government than those educational and occupational groups that have benefited less from European integration. The acute decline in the level of public trust in the past decade also has strong economic foundations. Residents of debtor countries that have seen unemployment rates skyrocket in recent years are now much less likely to trust national government than those in creditor countries that have fared better during the economic crisis, while the unemployed have lost faith in government to a greater degree than other parts of the population. Cultural, ideational, and political factors remain important for baseline levels of trust, but on their own they cannot explain the acute, asymmetrical decline in citizen trust observed over the last decade.

Political Trust as the Evaluation of Process and Performance: A Cross-National Study of 42 European Countries

This article extends and tests the trust-as-evaluation approach that is dominant in political science. Citizens supposedly grant and withhold trust in politics based on an assessment of its merits. We argue that the relevance of performances and processes should be conditional on the values that citizens hold dear and the accuracy with which they perceive them. Through multilevel analyses of the European Value Survey 2008, we model the (conditional) effects of a wide range of macro-economic outcomes and procedural characteristics on two aspects of political trust: satisfaction with democracy and confidence in political institutions. We find that macro-economic outcomes do not relate to political trust once we control for corruption. The effects of corruption and macro-economic outcomes are indeed stronger among the higher educated. However, the effect of macro-economic outcomes is not conditional on citizens’ values. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings for the use of the trust-as-evaluation approach.