A basic level of trust in the political system is considered to be the cornerstone of modern-day democracy. Consequently, scholars and politicians have been concerned with low or declining levels of ...trust in political institutions. This article focuses on trust in parliament. Many theories have been offered to explain cross-national differences or longitudinal changes in trust, but they have not been subject to systematic empirical tests. This article aims to fill that theoretical and empirical gap. I conceptualize trust in parliament as citizens’ rather rational evaluations of the state—citizen relationship along four dimensions: competence, intrinsic care, accountability, and reliability. Next, I relate state characteristics to each of these four aspects, and hypothesize how they might affect political trust. These hypotheses are tested simultaneously by multi-level analysis on stapled data from the European Social Survey 2002—06. The tests show that three factors explain very well the cross-national differences in trust: corruption, the electoral system, and former regime type. Somewhat surprisingly, economic performance is not related to trust in parliament. Although the analyses do not explain changes in trust across time very well, they at least dismiss some of the existing explanations.
Points for practitioners
This article describes to what extent levels of trust in parliament differ across countries and change across time, and tests several explanations for comparatively low or longitudinally declining levels of trust. It offers practitioners a theoretical approach to make sense of trust issues by distinguishing four trust aspects. Moreover, it shows that objective state characteristics are crucial in explaining cross-national differences. Widespread perceptions of corruption are most harmful to trust in parliament, while democratic rule and a proportional electoral system are beneficial. Equally important, actual economic performance is unrelated to trust. Institutional designs that emphasize care and integrity appear to be more beneficial than ones that emphasize competence and performance.
This paper is concentrated on the characteristics and effects of the classical electoral systems, that is, the system of the relative majority, the system of the absolute majority and the ...proportional system. These systems, in addition to their positive, also result in negative effects which are not easy to eliminate as they are themselves the result of the nature of these same systems. Aiming to eliminate the negative effects of the electoral system, today we are more inclined towards combined systems and proportional systems of moderate proportionality. The author suggests that the future changes in the electoral system of the Republic of Serbia should be founded on the model of proportional electoral system of moderate proportionality with the introduction of more electoral units.
In Slovenia, political parties have been the key actors in opting for a proportional electoral system and constitutional choice of a parliamentary system, both of which are believed to help to ...develop a consensual type of democracy. However, a vicious circle involving a fragmented party system and a proportional electoral system has not only led to polarisation within the party system, but has also contributed to problems of democratic governability and legitimacy. The destabilisation of the party system since 2011 has not only caused a crisis of political legitimacy and accountability, but has also contributed to a recent trend of de-democratisation. At the moment, there does not appear to be a realistic alternative to the existing electoral rules in the near future, in spite of recurring calls by an anti-communist party (Slovenian Democratic Party) to introduce a majoritarian system.
The Social-Democratic Party «Harmony» won again at the parliamentary elections held on October 6, 2018 (the ninth since 1991). However, the new government is being once again formed without its ...participation. The article is devoted to the changing position of the «Harmony» party and the evolution of its political platform under the circumstances of the Latvian partypolitical landscape undergoing a new fragmentation being influenced by growing populism and anti-establishmentarianism.
Party corruption is not only a problem in developing democracies but also in developed ones. Since its establishment in 1991, corruption among political parties has been a key feature of Kurdish ...governance in the Kurdistan Region. This corruption can be categorized into two periods, the first from 1991 to 2003, and the second from 2005 to the present, mainly among the ruling parties the KDP and the PUK. These two parties have ruled the region for nearly three decades, each with its geographic hegemonic zone; since 2005 they have ruled the region jointly, therefore sharing the responsibility for the mismanagement and corruption in KRG institutions. This article argues that the system of a dominant party (or parties) within a weak multi‐party system, which in Kurdistan the KDP and (to an extent until 2009) the PUK have controlled, is responsible for increasing the scope of corruption. It also argues that the dominant party has utilized the electoral system, particularly the closed party list and recently semi‐open party list, within a single electoral cycle to secure governmental positions for its own officials for a prolonged time and thus escape the electorate's control.
On the 24th February 2019 took place the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova. Parliamentary elections represent one of the most important components of the political process. The ...distinct particularity of these parliamentary elections was determined by the fact that they took place, for the first time, in a mixed electoral system: 50 deputies were chosen on party lists, and 51 deputies in some uninominal constituencies. The changes of the electoral system are examined and the consequences of the implementation of the new system for the evolution of political processes in the Republic of Moldova.
The results of the 2011-12 Egyptian elections highlight the gap that exists between the 'emotional' and the 'rational' conceptions of the people and its representation. If the revolutionary moment ...had allowed some organizations to temporarily gain legitimacy to speak in the name of the people, these organizations have been ill-equipped to compete within the existing structure of the social cleavages. This article examines the electoral system, the lack of resources at the disposal of the revolutionaries, the polarization of the political field around the religious issue, and the difficulties involved in conciliating between the electoral campaign and street activism.
Does democratization help countries mitigate climate change? On the one hand, by increasing the value placed on quality of life, creating more opportunity for environmental actors to influence ...policymaking and holding elected politicians accountable, an increase in democratic institution and process should promote emissions reduction. On the other hand, the desire to safeguard individual freedom presumably brings with it an aversion to intervene in lifestyle and market decisions, thereby raising the risk of climate inaction. This outcome is further encouraged by the political need to balance (conflicting) environmental and energy interests.
This article evaluates the thesis that democratization promotes mitigation in light of national emissions levels from 1990 to 2012. Using data from the Freedom House, Polity IV and V-Dem indices, World Bank World Development Indicators and the World Resources Institute Climate Data Explorer it conducts a large-N investigation of the emissions levels of 147 countries. Although several quantitative studies have found that domestic political regimes affect emissions levels, this article goes beyond existing research by building a more sophisticated - multilevel- research design to determine whether democracy: (a) continues to be an important driver of emissions when country-level clustering is accounted for and (b) has uniform effects across countries. The results indicate that, even after controlling for country-level clustering and holding constant the other confounding factors, democracy is indeed a significant driver. More strikingly, they reveal that while democracies tend to have lower emissions than non-democracies, democratization spells within the same country do not have the same kind of inhibitory effects as they do between countries. This article also finds tentative evidence that the type of electoral system plays a critical role in shaping the effect of democratization on individual countries.
Key policy insights
Democracies tend to perform better in terms of emission levels than non-democracies.
Democratization has non-uniform effects across different countries, with the type of electoral system playing a key role in determining the effect that democratization has on national emissions.
Further research is needed to develop our understanding of how the political context influences emissions, especially with regard to the influence of pro and anti-decarbonisation actors.
The German mixed-member proportional (MMP) system is considered a role model worldwide. Nevertheless, it has a neglected side-effect: it may produce greatly enlarged parliaments, like the 2017 ...Bundestag with 111 additional seats. Thus, it is highly relevant to know under which conditions MMP systems lead to such seat enlargements. The article explores this question for the German Länder that have used various MMP versions and seen occasional parliamentary inflations. The analysis demonstrates that a two-stage model of party-system features and institutional factors explain enlargements under MMP systems in 156 Länder elections from 1947 to 2019. Concerning the party system features, enlargements are driven by high seat concentrations in single-member districts and low list-vote shares of the largest party. Institutionally, high ratios of SMD seats and full levelling of surplus seats affect parliamentary oversize. These results have important implications for MMP systems in Germany and other countries.
The promises of the 1996 peace accords - including the agreement on constitutional and electoral reforms - and successive attempts at electoral reform were intended to bring about greater ...transparency and participation of historically marginalized sectors of society (particularly the working classes and indigenous peoples) in the political life of the country. However, the party system and political representation in general in Guatemala continues to be marked by a lack of openness, clientelism and corruption. The prospects for the 2023 elections tend to confirm a great institutional weakness and a very limited democratic representation, threaten by a return to authoritarian forms of power.
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