Are we witnessing the twilight of democratic institutions around the world?
This is the question Acemoglu et al. examine in this paper. They use survey data from 113 countries, covering around 540,000 respondents between 1981 and 2018. Interviews are conducted in the local languages and questions are designed to assess respondents’ attitudes on a range of issues, including attitudes toward democracy and social and economic attitudes. The authors focus on within-country between-age group variation and in particular on differences in the timing of democratization and democratic reversals, as well as variation in economic and social outcomes under democracy. They find that:
- An increase in exposure to (successful) democracy makes an individual more likely to support democracy, oppose a strong leader, oppose army rule, become more willing to defend the democratic system, and put more trust in the government rather than non-elected experts.
- Support for democratic institutions matters: when there is greater support for democratic institutions, democratic political instability and coups are less likely, and democracies perform better in the face of negative shocks.
(Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support
Authors: Daron Acemoglu, Nicolás Ajzenman, Cevat Giray Aksoy, Martin Fiszbein, Carlos Molina
From: MIT, São Paulo School of Economics-FGV, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Boston University
Inequality and political trust
In this paper, Agranov et al. use a simple political model that allows them to investigate the relationship between inequality and trust and its impact on elections. In their model there are two groups: an elite minority group, which forms endogenously, and has an informational advantage over the majority. There are two politicians running for office: one of them is pro-elite and the other is unbiased; the candidates’ bias is common knowledge. Voters know that elite members have better information about the quality of political candidates, but are as interested as the elite is, in electing the candidate of higher quality. Nevertheless, when the uninformed majority makes the choice, it takes into account that the elite is interested not only in the high quality of the candidate, but also in a candidate that is tilted towards elite’s interest. They find:
When inequality is relatively low, the interests of the elite and median voter in electing a competent leader are aligned, and valuable information is successfully transmitted in equilibrium. In contrast, when inequality is relatively high, there is a complete breakdown of trust, which results in no information transmitted from the elites to the median voter.
This result is driven by the fact that when inequality is high and re-distribution costs are high as well, the elite picks the candidate that minimizes taxation losses and as a result their endorsement is less informative.
A Political Model of Trust
Authors: Marina Agranov, Ran Eilat, Konstantin Sonin
From: Caltech, Ben-Gurion University, University of Chicago
The Italian case
Meléndez and Portales ran a nationally representative survey of 1,500 Italian citizens aged over eighteen from 14-21 September 2022 in order to analyze how the political attitudes of supporters of Fratelli d’Italia compare to those of other Italian parties. They found that:
- Around 7.7% of Italians “agree” or “completely agree” with the argument that fascist ideas can contribute in some way to the politics of their country. This proportion increased to 16.3% among individuals that decided to vote for a party in the right-wing coalition (Fratelli d’Italia, Lega or Forza Italia) in the 2022 elections.
- Around 79% of the national sample considers democracy to be the best system, among Fratelli d’Italia supporters this percentage fell to just 66%.
Survey evidence: Are Fratelli d’Italia voters less democratic than supporters of other Italian parties?
By: Lisa Zanotti, Carlos Meléndez – Diego Portales University (Chile)
