This study developed a comprehensive model of residents' trust in government actors and political support for tourism based on social exchange theory, institutional theory of political trust, and ...cultural theory of political trust. The model was tested on a sample of 391 residents of Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada, using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Findings suggested that residents' perceptions of the benefits and costs of tourism and their trust in government actors were significant determinants of political support. Their perceptions of the political and economic performance of government actors significantly predicted trust in government actors. Interpersonal trust, perceived costs of tourism, and perceived power in tourism decision-making were insignificant determinants of trust. The study found partial support for social exchange theory. Cultural theory of political trust was not found to be relevant, while strong support was found for institutional theory of political trust.
► Trust in government is a good determinant of political support. ► Political performance of government is the strongest predictor of trust. ► Social exchange theory is partially supported. ► No empirical support for cultural theory of political trust. ► Strong empirical support for institutional theory of political trust.
Although scholars have focused primarily on transnational terrorism, much of the terrorism occurring worldwide is domestic terrorism carried out by rebel groups fighting in civil wars. This article ...examines variation in terrorism across civil wars, asking why some rebel groups use terrorism, while others do not. Rebel groups make strategic calculations, assessing how their government opponents and their own civilian constituencies will react to terrorism. Rebel groups challenging democratic governments are more likely to use terrorism, believing that their opponents will be sensitive to civilian losses and, therefore, likely to make concessions in response to violence. Rebel groups also consider the costs of violence, which depend on characteristics of the rebel group’s civilian constituency. Rebel groups with broad civilian constituencies select lower-casualty civilian targets to minimize public backlash. Evidence from a new data set on rebel-group terrorism in civil wars from 1989 to 2010 provides support for these arguments
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.
A widely neglected phenomenon consists in the fact that large population segments in many countries confuse the absence of democracy with its presence. Significantly, these are also the countries ...where widespread support for democracy coexists with persistent deficiencies in the latter, including its outright absence. Addressing this puzzle, we introduce a framework to sort out to what extent national populations overestimate their regimes’ democratic qualities. We test our hypotheses applying multilevel models to about 93,000 individuals from 75 countries covered by the cross-cultural World Values Surveys. We find that overestimating democracy is a widespread phenomenon, although it varies systematically across countries. Among a multitude of plausible influences, cognitive stimuli and emancipative values work together as a psychologically activating force that turns people against overestimating democracy. In fact, this psychological activation not only reduces overestimations of democracy; it actually leads toward underestimations, thus increasing criticality rather than accuracy in assessments. We conclude that, by elevating normative expectations, psychological activation releases prodemocratic selection pressures in the evolution of regimes.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic boosted political trust in many countries. This article tests the relevance of fear of infection as the micro-level mechanism behind this rally round the flag. This ...study employs three-wave panel data in the Netherlands, collected days before the first lockdown (early March 2020), during that lockdown (April/May 2020), and after that lockdown (October 2020). Growth curve models isolate the rally effect and its determinants. The article reaches three main conclusions. First, fear of infection is a constituting element of the rally effect: the rise in political trust is more pronounced among people who fear infection. Second, the rise occurs in response to the direct, external threat (health concerns), not in response to the secondary threats (social isolation, economic stagnation). Third, adherents of the radical right are particularly sensitive to the external threat, but only in the short run.
Academics and practitioners are increasingly interested in deliberative minipublics and whether these can address widespread dissatisfaction with contemporary politics. While optimism seems to ...prevail, there is also talk that the use of minipublics may backfire. When the government disregards a minipublic's recommendations, this could lead to more dissatisfaction than not asking for its advice in the first place. Using an online survey experiment in Belgium (n = 3,102), we find that, compared to a representative decision‐making process, a minipublic tends to bring about higher political support when its recommendations are fully adopted by the government, whereas it generates lower political support when its recommendations are not adopted. This study presents novel insights into whether and when the use of minipublics may alleviate or aggravate political dissatisfaction among the public at large.
Using data covering most European Union Member States, we study how the support for national governments has unravelled in the first months of the COVID pandemic. Motivated by the growing evidence on ...the uneveneconomic impact of this crisis across genders, we study if suchunequal economic burden is related to differences in support for public authorities between men and women. While the support for national governments has overall faded in the period considered, the decline has been more pronounced for women and working women in particular. We find indication that the decline in support signals a shift in concerns among Europeans and women in particular, from the health emergency to the economic consequences of the pandemic. We impute up to a third of the widening gender gap in support for government to the shift of emphasis from the health to the economic dimension of the crisis.
It is argued in this article that citizens in democracies use their subjective well‐being (SWB) as an evaluative criterion when deciding how willing they are to support and comply with government ...dictates (political system support). When life is satisfactory, government authorities are rewarded with support, when it is not, citizens punish authorities by withholding their support. To make sense of the relationship, it is suggested that citizens act as if they have signed a happiness contract with ‘those in power’. In support of this argument, comparative survey data shows that SWB predicts attitudes on political system support across country contexts and under strong control conditions. Establishing that the relationship is causal, panel data documents that attitudes on political system support can be undermined following the termination of a close personal relationship, and that the causal effect is mediated via changes in SWB. Finally, as predicted, the happiness‐support relationship is weaker among individuals who are high on spirituality/religiousness and attribute blame for external events to both worldly and non‐worldly powers.
Accepting defeat in the aftermath of elections is crucial for the stability of democracies. But in times of intense polarization, the voluntary consent of electoral losers seems less obvious. In this ...paper, I study whether affective and perceived ideological polarization amplify the winner–loser gap in political support. Using multilevel growth curve modelling on pre and post‐election panel data from the British Election Study Internet Panel collected during the 2015 and 2019 UK general elections, I show that the winner–loser gap is indeed more pronounced amongst voters with higher levels of affective and perceived ideological polarization. Moreover, the results illustrate that polarized voters experience a stark decrease in their support for the political system following their electoral loss. Given the high and, in some Western democracies, rising polarization levels, these findings have important implications for losers’ consent and the stability of democracies in election times.
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