scholarly journals How might reform of the political system appeal to discontented citizens?

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Seyd ◽  
John Curtice ◽  
Jonathan Rose
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Limited Range ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Using Data

In Britain, levels of political trust have declined, stimulating policy makers to explore ways of appealing to discontented citizens. One such initiative involves reform of the political system. Yet, this raises the question of which types of political reform are likely to appeal to discontented citizens. Existing studies have examined how individuals respond to political reforms, yet these studies only consider a limited range of institutional changes. Scholars and policy makers thus know little about the popular appeal of a wider set of institutional reforms. Taking advantage of proposals for political reform in Britain, this article considers public reactions to a wide range of institutional changes. Using data from the 2011 British Social Attitudes survey, we find that direct democratic reforms are not the only changes that appeal to discontented citizens. Instead, policy makers may also appeal to the distrustful via reforms that allow voters more control over their political representatives.

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 18-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Dahlberg ◽  
Jonas Linde ◽  
Sören Holmberg
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Political Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Input Side ◽  
Contrasting View ◽  
Output Side ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Democratic Principles

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.

Economic ‘Stagflation’ and Public Support for the Political System

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Stephen Weatherford
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Index Level

Declining trust in politicians and political institutions is one of the most dramatic and well-documented trends in American public opinion. Confidence in religious, educational and other institutions has also waned, but emphasis has focused on diminished political trust, both because it may summarize a wide range of diffuse grievances and because it might indicate an increased potential for disruptive action, political violence and instability. In the decade from 1968 to 1978, the level of political trust (measured by the conventional five-item CPS/NES index) was halved, the proportion of the public expressing moderate or high levels of trust falling from 64 to 33 per cent. The greatest decline in the index level (a drop of 14 points) occurred between 1972 and 1974.

The Mensheviks and NEP Society in Russia

1982 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 347-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Brovkin
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
New Period ◽  
History Of

AbstractContemporary scholarship on the development of the Soviet political system in the 1920s has largely bypassed the history of the Menshevik opposition. Those historians who regard NEP as a mere transition to Stalinism have dismissed the Menshevik experience as irrelevant,1 and those who see a democratic potential in the NEP system have focused on the free debates in the Communist party (CP), the free peasantry, the market economy, and the free arts.2 This article aims to revise some aspects of both interpretations. The story of the Mensheviks was not over by 1921. On the contrary, NEP opened a new period in the struggles over independent trade unions and elections to the Soviets; over the plight of workers and the whims of the Red Directors; over the Cheka terror and the Menshevik strategies of coping with Bolshevism. The Menshevik experience sheds new light on the transformation of the political process and the institutional changes in the Soviet regime in the course of NEP. In considering the major facets of the Menshevik opposition under NEP, I shall focus on the election campaign to the Soviets during the transition to NEP, subsequent Bolshevik-Menshevik relations, and the writings in the Menshevik underground samizdat press.

Dignitary Interests Groups are the Biggest Obstacles to Solve China’s Environmental Problems

2014 ◽  
Vol 962-965 ◽  
pp. 2023-2026
Author(s):  
Wen Qi Lin ◽  
Ming Fei Ma
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Injustice

China has carried out its reform since 1978. With economic booming, reform in political system followed behind so that three dignitary interests groups have formed: monopolistic entrepreneurs of state-owned companies, bigwig capitalists and bureaucratic corrupters. They are the biggest beneficiary under such a political system and they are also the original cause of social injustice and conflicts. In order to preserve their existing right, they spare no efforts to support current privileged system. They are opposed to the political reform by disturb legislation system and law enforcement. How to break the obstacles from dignitary group and achieve the goal of political reform is one of the most difficult challenges in China.

Electoral system as a motivation to reforming political system- The Iraqi model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamall Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
The Masses

The flaws and major flaws in the political systems represent one of the main motives that push the political elite towards making fundamental reforms, especially if those reforms have become necessary matters so that: Postponing them or achieving them affects the survival of the system and the political entity. Thus, repair is an internal cumulative process. It is cumulative based on the accumulated experience of the historical experience of the same political elite that decided to carry out reforms, and it is also an internal process because the decision to reform comes from the political elite that run the political process. There is no doubt that one means of political reform is to push the masses towards participation in political life. Changing the electoral system, through electoral laws issued by the legislative establishment, may be the beginning of political reform (or vice versa), taking into account the uncertainty of the political process, especially in societies that suffer from the decline of democratic values, represented by the processes of election from one cycle to another. Based on the foregoing, this paper seeks to analyze the relationship between the Electoral and political system, in particular, tracking and studying the Iraqi experience from the first parliamentary session until the issuance of the Election Law No. (9) for the year (2020).

Redefining the Political System of the USSR: Mass Support for Political Change

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 857-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ada W. Finifter ◽  
Ellen Mickiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Political ◽  
Opinion Survey ◽  
Core Component ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cross Tabulation ◽  
Using Data ◽  
New Institutions

Using data from a national public opinion survey carried out in the Soviet Union during November and December 1989, we explore two attitudes relevant to the revolutionary changes there: (1) attitudes toward change and political democracy and (2) attitudes toward a core component of socialist ideology, the locus of responsibility for social well-being (the state or individuals?). These variables are unrelated, with the sample relatively evenly divided among the intersecting cells of a cross tabulation. While social conflict may be mitigated by the small sizes of absolutely opposing groups, consensus may also be hard to reach. Ethnicity, education, income, age, party membership, and life satisfaction have important effects on these attitudes. We discuss how attitude patterns in our data may be related to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and to problems faced by the independent successor states as they develop new institutions and foster new values.

Reforming the Presidency: Nonproblems and Problems

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (03) ◽  
pp. 643-649
Author(s):  
Bert A. Rockman
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Mountain Lake ◽  
The Political ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Time Warp ◽  
Reform Proposal ◽  
Means And Ends

Riddle: Why is political reform like a clear mountain lake? Answer: When we look into both we see ourselves.The Means and Ends of ReformsWhat should be the ends of presidential reform? Obviously, such a question assumes that something is wrong and can be remedied through reform, which I define here as an intentional act (or acts) of institutional engineering to restructure incentives in the political system. Naturally, any effort to engage in reform, therefore, raises numerous issues. What are the purposes of reform? What are the problems a reform proposal or package of proposals presumes to address and to remedy? What are the feasibilities for implementation? What are the consequences and implications of reform? Will its purported benefits be larger than the costs incurred? To what extent does thinking about reform help lead to or clarify a theory of the presidency and, more generally, a theory of government? To what extent, above all, when thinking about reform can we escape the time warp in which our present preferences or momentary dissatisfactions lie? A would-be reformer must struggle to disassociate short-term preferences and judgments about an incumbent from longer-term conceptions as to how institutions should operate. In this regard, a would-be reformer must think like a constitution-maker. Is this the system one would prefer under worst case conditions?

scholarly journals Quality of Democracy Makes a Difference, but Not for Everyone: How Political Interest, Education, and Conceptions of Democracy Condition the Relationship Between Democratic Quality and Political Trust

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Mauk
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
The Political ◽  
Development Indicators ◽  
Democratic Quality ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Performance

In light of recent crises, not least the COVID-19 pandemic, citizen trust in the political system has been highlighted as one of the central features ensuring citizen compliance and the functioning of democracy. Given its many desirable consequences, one of the key questions is how to increase political trust among ordinary citizens. This paper investigates the role of democratic quality in determining citizens’ trust in the political system. While we know that citizens’ evaluations of democratic performance are a strong predictor of political trust, previous research has shown that trust is not always higher in political systems with higher democratic quality, indicating that democratic performance evaluations do not always correspond to actual democratic quality. Several moderating factors may account for this disconnect between democratic quality and citizens’ evaluations of democratic performance and, ultimately, political trust. For one, citizens may receive different information about the political system; second, they may process this information in different ways; and third, they may have different standards of what democratic quality ought to be. Using survey data from three rounds of the World Values Survey (2005–2020) and aggregate data on democratic quality and other macro determinants of political trust from the V-Dem project and World Development Indicators for 50 democracies around the world, this contribution empirically investigates the complex relationship between democratic quality, democratic performance evaluations, and political trust in multi-level moderated mediation models. Its findings demonstrate that democratic quality affects political trust indirectly through citizens’ democratic performance evaluations and that this indirect effect is stronger for citizens with higher political interest, higher education, and especially those with more liberal conceptions of democracy.

Features of the formation of political trust in Ukraine: the macrolevel of political relations

2017 ◽  
pp. 372-383
Author(s):  
Alina Todoriko
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political System ◽  
Party System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
The Political ◽  
Adoption And Implementation ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Significant Deficit

The article defines the features of the formation of political trust in Ukraine at the macrolevel of political relations. It is established that the formation of political trust at the macrolevel of political relations in Ukraine is reflected in the attitude of citizens toward democracy as a new format of the political system, the main mechanisms of its formation and the functioning of political institutions that ensure the process of transformation and dynamic renewal of the political system. It is substantiated that the essential aspect that characterizes the political trust of the macrolevel in modern Ukrainian society is the weakness of the connections of a significant number of citizens with political parties as a traditional institution of aggregation of interests and is reflected in the limited understanding of the essence of the multi-party system and its need for political development of Ukraine. It is proved that the existing indicators of confidence in the institutions of power in Ukraine, actualize the question of its optimal boundaries. As practice shows, both the lack of trust and the surplus of trust are barriers to strengthening the democratic foundations of the political system and political process. A significant deficit of confidence limits the power and reduces the activity of citizens, hinders the development of integration processes in society, inhibits the adoption and implementation of constructive reforms. Excessive trust in institutions of power and political institutions, creating uncontrolled and permissive behavior, can not lead to anything else, as to the arbitrariness of power, which is the first step towards the restoration or strengthening of authoritarianism. Therefore, in order for political confidence to contribute to the development of democratic processes, its level should not approach either the lowest or the highest possible values. Keywords: Political trust, macro level of politics, Ukraine, political institutions, democracy, democratization

Race, Trust, and the American Presidency

2021 ◽  
pp. 45-71
Author(s):  
Shayla C. Nunnally
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political System ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Black President

This chapters asks, Does having a Black president, compared to previous administrations occupied by White presidents, lead to aberrational trust in government for Blacks and Whites? I posit that the Obama presidency indeed had this effect. During the years of the Obama presidency, we saw changes in perceptions of trust and political efficacy among Black Americans. Using national public opinion data from the American National Election Study from 1992 to 2014, this chapter gauges how Black Americans perceived their influence(s) on the political system during different years to determine what, if any, lasting impact Obama's presidency may have on Black political involvement and trust in the political system. The results of the public opinion analyses indicate that trust attitudes during the Obama presidency were more positive for Blacks than Whites; however, compared over the forty-year period, the results are not consistently aberrational. Subsequently, I examine the racial implications of these results for Americans’ political trust after the Obama era, especially during the early years of the Donald J. Trump presidency.

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