Effective Government and Evaluations of Democracy

Ineffective governance is known to weaken support for governments and leaders. However, it is less clear whether these effects spill over to the regime and erode support for the democratic system. This article returns to this classic question, now using time-series, cross-sectional data to test whether the effectiveness of governments in sustaining economic growth, providing quality healthcare, and tackling violent crime affects popular attitudes to democracy. We find that satisfaction with democracy is driven by fluctuations in economic performance and violent crime (but not healthcare quality). Diffuse support for democracy, in contrast, remains relatively impervious to changes in government effectiveness. Violent crime is the only indicator of effectiveness which has an impact on democratic support, and does so indirectly, via its influence on democratic satisfaction. These findings confirm that democratic support—which, unlike democratic satisfaction, is thought to help sustain democracy—is mostly immune to crises of performance.

Judicial Legitimacy, Political Polarization, and How the Public Views the Supreme Court

As of late 2020, the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court consists of six generally conservative Republican appointees and three generally liberal Democratic appointees, one of the first times such a configuration has occurred in decades. In addition, contentious recent confirmation battles may have fundamentally altered public views about the Supreme Court. When it comes to public opinion about the Supreme Court, understanding the institution’s legitimacy and its relationship with political polarization is critical. Institutional legitimacy is a key currency for political bodies—and courts in particular—even as scholarly conceptions of legitimacy differ from popular commentary on the topic. To understand the nature of public opinion toward the Court in a polarized era, one must distinguish between specific support, a type of short-term satisfaction or approval, and diffuse support, commonly known as institutional legitimacy. Recent developments, including controversial confirmation battles and rulings, suggest that partisan and ideological cleavages may increasingly shape the Court’s legitimacy. Scholarship must continue to grapple with Supreme Court legitimacy in a time of political polarization.

Affective attachment to the EU: Questioning the importance of childhood socialization

In a time of rising Euroscepticism across Europe, diffuse support for the European Union (EU) is an especially important concept as it provides a source of stability for the EU. How important is childhood political socialization for the development of diffuse support? The extant literature emphasizes the role of childhood socialization. However, these studies are based on analyses that cannot fully distinguish between the cohort effect and the life-cycle effect. This study overcomes this limitation by looking at a more suitable case (the European Union) and by using a novel technique that effectively distinguishes the cohort effect from the life-cycle effect. The findings show that individuals who experienced early life political socialization in the EU have equal levels of diffuse support as individuals who grew up outside the EU. I thus argue that diffuse support develops through experience in adult life, and childhood political socialization is not essential for its development.

Keep Your (Horse) Hair On? Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Exposure to Legitimising Symbols on Diffuse Support for the High Court

Positivity theory posits that the courts rely on powerful legitimising symbols—such as elaborate judicial attire, honorific forms of address and imposing courtroom design—to ensure legitimacy in the eyes of the public in the absence of an electoral mandate. The argument is that such legitimising symbols evoke images of learning and pageantry and create the presumption that the process by which the decision was made was fair. Typically, positivity theory has been tested by examining whether people who have a greater awareness or knowledge of the courts express higher diffuse support for their decisions. Yet, such an approach assumes that those who know more about the courts will have greater exposure to their legitimising symbols. It does not directly test if exposure to the courts’ legitimising symbols causes people to be more acquiescent with decisions with which they disagree. In this article we use a survey-based experiment to examine if exposure to the legitimising symbols of the High Court makes people more willing to accept decisions of the Court with which they disagree. We assess whether the decision of the High Court Justices to simplify their attire, including, since 1988, ceasing to wear wigs when sitting on the Bench, has adversely affected the Court’s institutional legitimacy by removing some of the mystique associated with the decision-making process. We find that exposure to the Court’s legitimising symbols is associated with higher acquiescence with decisions which people disagree with, but the Court’s decision to simplify the Justices’ attire has not adversely affected diffuse support for its decisions. Our findings are important because the Court is reliant on maintaining legitimacy to enforce the rule of law. Our results speak directly to how the Court can best take steps to increase its institutional legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

Quality of governance and political support in China, Japan, and South Korea

Based on the theoretical distinction between specific and diffuse support, this study examines and compares the effects of governance quality on political support in China, Japan, and South Korea. As regime type is an important contextual factor, the three countries provide ideal cases for testing how the effects of governance on political support vary across different political systems in East Asia. The results show that both economic and political governance affects specific support in the three countries. Political governance is more important for specific support in Japan and South Korea than in China, though regime type does not moderate the effect of political governance on diffuse support. In addition, economic governance is more important for diffuse support in China than in Japan and South Korea. In the field of specific support, economic governance is more important for support for government officials in Japan and South Korea than in China. Points for practitioners Public support is critical to a political system’s effectiveness, stability, and even survival. Quality of governance determines the fate of authoritarian regimes. It is because of bad governance that the masses cannot continue to tolerate the authorities and take actions to overthrow authoritarian leadership. Echoing Fukuyama’s (2013) argument that an authoritarian regime can be well governed, the Chinese government attempts to improve the quality of governance so as to sustain autocratic leadership by promoting technical innovation in administrative management. However, the intrinsic defects in authoritarian systems, such as the absence of constitutional constraints on power, undermine their capacity to improve political governance. It is questionable how much good political governance in an authoritarian system can achieve without democratic reform of the political system.

Political Distrust and its Discontents: Exploring the Meaning, Expression and Significance of Political Distrust

Political distrust has been the norm, rather than the exception, in many established democracies in recent decades. Despite a wealth of data tracking deteriorating citizen attitudes towards their governments, representatives and political systems in general, there is still a debate regarding the meaning of distrust and its significance for the health of democracies. This article contributes to the discussion by providing qualitative evidence that map the meaning, evaluative dimensions and spill-over process of distrusting political attitudes. It finds, across the three national contexts studied, that citizens express political distrust using similar language and employing the same evaluative structure. Evidence suggests that political distrust is intertwined with the failure of representation and entails a fundamentally ethical dimension. This article concludes with a discussion regarding the implications of these findings for research on diffuse support in democratic systems.

Augmentation of Dural Defect Repairs Strength With an Acrylic Plate in a Porcine Ex Vivo Model

Background Large skull base defects can be challenging to repair. This study uses a controlled ex vivo model to examine the failure pressures of various dural repairs of large skull base defects using mucosa with fibrin glue under 3 conditions: No Additional Support of the repair, support with a Foley catheter (Direct Support), and with Foley catheter contact over a rigid acrylic plate (Diffuse Support). Methods Failure pressures of dural repairs with and without support were determined in a porcine model using an ex vivo closed testing apparatus. In addition, 20 mm × 15 mm dural defects were created. Skull base repairs were performed using porcine dura as an underlay graft followed by a septal mucosa overlay. Saline was infused at 30 mL/h, applying even force to the underside of the graft until repair failure occurred for each condition (none, direct, and diffuse support). Five trials were performed per repair type for a total of 15 repairs. Results The mean failure pressures were as follows: No Additional Support, 6.494 ± 2.553 mm Hg; Direct Support, 5.103 ± 3.913 mm Hg; and Diffuse Support, 15.649 ± 2.638 mm Hg. A post hoc Bonferroni-Holm test demonstrated significant difference between No Additional Support and Diffuse Support ( P = .001), as well as Direct Support and Diffuse Support ( P = .002). Conclusion Support of dural repairs in this model withstood higher pressures when the Foley catheter’s support is distributed evenly using a flat acrylic plate. Use of this plate is the only repair tested in this model that tolerated normal adult supine intracranial pressures.