Conclusion

The chapter shows that the impact of populism on democracy depends on the variety of populism in power: the worst outcomes in democratic performance are found under unconstrained populism. By contrast, when populism in power is constrained, democracy will largely survive. To support this claim, the chapter traces two democracy indices under populism in power in the Andes, which as expected, show a marked deterioration of democracy under unconstrained populist governments, while remaining largely unchanged under contained populism. The central proposition of the theory—unconstrained populism in power leads to regime change whereas constrained populism does not—is then explored in cases beyond the Andes. The chapter finds examples of unconstrained populism in Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega and Hungary under Viktor Orbán, their governments having transitioned away from democracy. In other cases where populism was constrained, that was not the case.

Fiddling while Democracy Burns: Partisan Reactions to Weak Democracy in Latin America

Democracy is weakened when citizens and elites do not criticize actions or actors that undermine its principles. Yet this study documents a widespread pattern of partisan rationalization in how elites and the public evaluate democratic performance in Latin America. Survey data show that those whose party controls the presidency consistently express positive evaluations of the current state of democratic competition and institutions even when democracy in their country is weak. This pattern emerges in both mass survey data and among elected elites. These data have a worrying implication: if only the political opposition is willing to publicly acknowledge and sound the alarm when democracy is under attack, public pressure to protect democracy is likely to be dramatically reduced.

A Shift Towards Digital and Participatory Performance Practice Post-Pandemic

This perspective analyses and reflects upon the experience of conceiving, curating and participating in Bodies:On:Live Magdalena:On:Live, the first online multi-platform Magdalena Festival, bringing together digitally competent artists with creative roots in the immateriality of the internet, in dialogue about current shifts in performance making with performers, writers, and directors declaring their uneasiness towards online adaptations of live work. As part of the global reaction to the standstill brought about by the Covid pandemic, we argue that shifts in practice for women in contemporary theatre associated with the Magdalena network – whether as an attempt for immediate artistic survival or a conscious experimental choice – were not exclusively determined by the available sharing of technical knowledge, or by the need to increase awareness of the digital medium in order to gain experience of different working modalities, but served a participatory and social purpose. These conditions were surfacing due to the digital space manifesting as a specific format of gathering through the Zoom windows and other platforms, which framed the encounters within a democratic performance arena, making the boundaries between participation and spectatorship porous. Therefore, the shift provoked by the festival not only pertains to the aesthetic sphere, but it is dynamically and organically geared towards the recognition of new working contexts arising from the unsettling experience of ‘disembodiment’ – as an ontological paradox of the original in-person Magdalena festival - and the embedded argument of the creative use of new technologies for a more sustainable and accessible future of performance making, both live and digital. 

Monitoring Democracy in the Eastern Neighbourhood: When Are the EU’s Assessments Lenient and Why?

How reliable are the EU’s reports when assessing its Eastern neighbouring countries’ progress towards democracy? To explore this question, I first developed an original scale that enables to identify the variation in the quality of the EU’s assessment reports across the partner countries and over time. Subsequently, by employing both quantitative and qualitative research techniques, I carried out a systematic analysis of the key structural factors that tend to influence and compromise the quality of the EU’s assessments. The main results of the study suggest that the more dependent partner countries are on the EU as a source of development aid and export market, the less lenient the EU’s institutions appear in their assessment reports. Furthermore, the findings of the study show that somewhat counter-intuitively, the more authoritarian the regime in question is, the less willing the EU appears in criticizing the country’s poor democratic performance. However, when a certain level of political liberalization is underway, the EU institutions become rather critical in their assessment reports by explicitly and openly denouncing the country’s poor democratic performance.

Economic Crisis and Attitudes Towards Democracy: How Ideology Moderates Reactions to Economic Downturns

This paper studies the extent to which economic crises bust different reactions depending on individual ideological identity. Our argument is that individual left-right identification shapes how citizens evaluate the functioning of democracy, and consequently, it moderates the impact of economic crises on democratic discontent. We argue that left-wing individuals’ views on democratic performance would be more heavily affected by economic results and strongly shaped by the (in)capacity of a democracy to represent its citizens in its reaction to the economic crisis. After testing our argument with data from the ESS, we provide evidence from a survey experiment conducted in Spain. Both analyses show that economic crises are relevant in explaining democratic dissatisfaction, but the strength of their impact depends on ideological identities. Economic results have a stronger effect on the satisfaction with democracy of left-wing individuals by negatively affecting their perception of the functioning of democratic representation.

EXPLAINING DEMOCRATIC DECONSOLIDATION: EVIDENCE FROM ASIAN DEMOCRACIES

Are Asian democracies deconsolidating, in line with world-wide trends? This article examines four consolidated democracies in Asia: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus Indonesia, whose own consolidation has been problematic. Using public opinion data, we evaluate two competing models�civic culture and political economy�to test whether there is a decline in democratic support. We report that the political economy model is more persuasive. Declines in democratic support are associated more consistently with democratic performance and education. Because education levels are tending to rise, and political socialization continues into adulthood, we conclude that there should be little fear that Asian democracies will deconsolidate.

Political Action, Protest, and the Functioning of Democratic Governance

The current debate on the vitality of affluent democracies often cites the changing patterns of citizens’ political participation as signs of this malaise. Fewer citizens are voting, and more are turning toward contentious and more direct forms of participation. What are the consequences? I describe the participation patterns in affluent democracies and then consider whether these changes in citizen participation are linked to the quality of democratic performance. Some scholars see a more assertive public as overloading the political system or destroying collective views of politics. Others see contentious politics as giving citizens an additional and more effective method of influencing policymakers. The evidence on citizen participation comes from two waves of the International Social Survey Program. Measures of the functioning of government come from the Economist Intelligence Unit and the World Bank. The analyses show that a more active public is correlated with a better functioning government. Moreover, these relationships are stronger for protest and other forms of direct action than for voting in national elections. The results suggest that an assertive and elite-challenging public is more of a boon than a curse for democratic politics.

Media diversity and the analysis of qualitative variation

Diversity is recognised as a significant criterion for appraising the democratic performance of media systems. This article begins by considering key conceptual debates that help differentiate types and levels of diversity. It then addresses a core methodological challenge in measuring diversity: how do we model statistical variation and difference when many measures of source and content diversity only attain the nominal level of measurement? We identify a range of obscure statistical indices developed in other fields that measure the strength of ‘qualitative variation’. Using original data, we compare the performance of five diversity indices and, on this basis, propose the creation of a more effective diversity average measure. The article concludes by outlining innovative strategies for drawing statistical inferences from these measures, using bootstrapping and permutation testing resampling. All statistical procedures are supported by a unique online resource developed for this article.

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

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.