Suchergebnisse

The aim of this article is to examine the link between the quality of social protection and citizens' satisfaction with the functioning of democracy — an association that has received very limited attention in the rich body of empirical research on popular satisfaction with democracy. To test the hypothesis that social protection levels influence citizens' satisfaction with democracy, the article conducts a multi-level regression analysis using European Social Survey (2008/9) data from 24 countries. The results of the analysis demonstrate that between-country differences are linked to variation in social protection levels, and within-country differences depend on individual satisfaction with social provision, while controlling for other relevant factors. The findings indicate that people do expect democratic regimes to provide social protection along with economic performance and thus suggest that democratic governments face a challenge in meeting simultaneous demands for social protection and economic prosperity. Altogether, the study contributes to debates about the implications of welfare policies and citizen satisfaction with regime performance.

An important precondition of successful democratic consolidation is voters' confidence that political institutions do not abuse their privileged position of power. Seeking to identify variables that explain trust in political institutions, the paper tests different theories of institutional trust with individual-level survey data from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Building on prior research, two competitive theories—the cultural and performance explanation—are identified and tested, while also controlling for the effects of party preference, ethnicity, and socio-demographic factors. The results show that both cultural and performance variables influence citizens' trust in political institutions. In other words, institutional trust depends on how much the individual trusts other people as well as on how well they believe the economic and the political system to function. Besides cultural and performance variables, most control variables also proved to be significantly associated with institutional trust, confirming the need to include correct control variables in models of institutional trust.