Is There a Democratic Crisis or Deficit in European Democracies? A Longitudinal and Comparative Analysis

1 Is There a Democratic Crisis or Deficit in European Democracies? A Longitudinal and Comparative Analysis Conceição Pequito Teixeira, Professor of Political Science and Comparative Politics at Technical University of Lisbon & Jónatas Miguel Pires, Major in Political Science at Technical University of Lisbon (First draft. Please do not quote without permission) E-mail addresses: cteixeira@iscsp.utl.pt jonatasmiguelpires@gmail.com Paper prepared for the XXII nd IPSA World Congress of Political Science

2 Association, Spain, Madrid, July 8 to 12-16 2012 Abstract In this article, the authors study how Portuguese citizens assess the current democratic regime in a longitudinal and comparative perspective. They base their study on the Easton-Dalton-Norris analysis framework, which has as its starting point the multidimensional nature of the concept of system support, as well as the assumption that mass attitudes have a clear and direct impact on democracy s legitimacy and performance. The authors analyse the longitudinal trends and cross-national patterns in each system support dimension in order to discover the evolution of support for the political system in Portugal and EU state members in the last decade. Based on data from Eurobarometer, they conclude that public support has diminished significantly in Portugal in the last decade, but also in some European democracies, namely in Southern countries. Grounded on data from a Portuguese representative survey, they argument (by successive linear regression models) that on the demand-side explanations, social modernization and social capital theories have a direct effect on individuallevel democratic orientations, while on the supply-side explanations, shortterm economic factors and government policy outputs have a strong and statistically significant effect on support for democracy in Portugal. Keywords: Democracy; Political support; Political Institutions; Portugal; EU Member States

3 Introduction The study of democratic regimes within the scope of comparative politics has suffered significant change. Between the decades of 1970 and 1980, political scientists and comparative scholars became increasingly interested in democratic transition processes. They were trying to figure out the differences and similarities in the way regime changes occurred in different countries and geographical latitudes (O Donnell, Schmitter, & Whitehead 1986; Linz & Stefan 1996). With the broadening of the "third wave of democratization" to an increasingly large set of countries, the main concern of political scientists became the "democratic consolidation", i.e., the stability and persistence capacity of new democratic regimes (Diamond 1994; Gunther, Diamandouros, & Puhle 1995; Morlino 1998). In the meantime, studies of consolidated democracies began following a new academic agenda focused on the "quality of democracy", form the mid-1990s to the present day (Morlino 2004a, 2004b). The assumption underlying this view is that democratic consolidation is a necessary, though insufficient, condition for high-quality democracy. On the other hand, the same assumption is equally valid (or maybe even more so) for those European countries that have experienced more recently their own democratic transitions. Because of all this, the study of the quality of democracy today constitutes a new and challenging agenda, both in theoretical and empirical terms. As Adam Przeworski (2010) stated, "having followed liberalization, transition and consolidation, we have discovered that there is something still to improve: democracy" (p. xiii). However, this new academic research agenda is far from distant from

4 most recent political, socioeconomic, and cultural events. Instead, it addresses the questions and challenges brought up by them. In effect, the last two decades have been ruled by an apparent paradox, which is, according to some scholars, crosswise to the most advanced industrial democracies (Torcal & Montero 2006; Dalton 2007; Norris 2011). On the one hand, as a democratization wave swept across the world in the 1990s, there was a renewed and growing optimism regarding the global expansion and virtues associated to western-type democracy. The failure of its rival ideological systems, communism and fascism, even led to a discussion over a hypothetical "end of history" (Fukuyama 1992). On the other hand, an intense debate emerged regarding the "crisis of democracy" in the context of advanced industrial societies, which has been interpreted from different perspectives, opposing those authors who see in the contemporary crisis of democracy a serious threat to democratic political systems to those who consider this hypothetical crisis as an opportunity to strengthen the quality of democracy (Crozier, Huntington & Watanuki 1975; Crouch 2004; Hermet 2007). In effect, many scholars support that western democracies face a sort of malaise of the spirit, the causes of which are no longer exogenous but endogenous to advanced industrial democracies. This occurs because they seem to be strongly rooted in a growing distancing between civil society and the state's institutional sphere. National electorates hold a deep conviction regarding values and principles inherent to the democratic regime and do not question its legitimacy (Torcal & Montero 2006). However, they claim to be deeply dissatisfied with the way democracy works in their countries (Kinglemann 1999; Pahrr & Putnam 2000; Norris 1999, 2011; Torcal & Montero 2006; Dalton 2007, 2008). Observable symptoms seem to confirm that the previously mentioned paradox does exist. These are the growing reduction in electoral turnout, the increase in electoral instability and volatility, and the resulting fragmentation of party systems and emergence of populist leaders; the progressive decline of party identification (Dalton 2000; Franklin 2004; Lane & Ersson 2007), membership, and activism by citizens (Van Biezen, Mair, & Poguntke 2011); the growing demobilization of citizens from

5 the classic-type associational activism (Von Deth, Montero, & Westholm, 2007). Consequently, we must ask the following question: How can the quality of democracy be judged? Different theoretical and methodological approaches have been proposed and developed by various international organizations and researchers. Common to many studies is the fact that they are all fundamentally based on subjective assessments of ordinary citizens, assuming from the start that mass attitudes have a clear and direct impact on democracy (Welzel & Inglehart 2008). These scholars also assume that "highquality" democracies require citizens to demand that their political institutions and authorities supply the essential "goods" of democracy and that there be a trade-off between citizenry demands and the institutional supply of democracy (Norris 2011). Our analysis is based on national and international public opinion surveys. We try to understand how Portuguese citizens see, assess, and value the current democratic regime. We study the Portuguese case in comparative perspective, using a time frame that is both diachronic and synchronic. The relevance of the chosen theme derives not only from its growing centrality in current research but also from the scarce number of Portuguese academic work undertaken in this area until recently (Magalhães 2004, 2009). We use the framework initially developed by Easton (1965, 1975), Dalton (1999, 2007), and Norris (1999, 2011) in order to answer our main research questions: How do the Portuguese see, assess, and value their political system? Can we speak of a significant erosion of citizens support regarding the democratic system in the Portuguese case? If so, must we recognize that the so-called crisis of democratic legitimacy is a reality in Portugal? In the first section of the article, we address the meaning of political system support. Subsequently, we present the data and methodology used to operationalize the concept, demonstrating its multidimensional nature. In a third section, we try to relate conceptual distinctions between different levels of system support with the empirical evidence in order to find out to what

6 extent those distinctions are observable in Portuguese and European public opinion. Next, we update the available evidence by analysing trends in citizens attitudes towards the democratic regime, satisfaction with the functioning of democracy, and trust in political institutions and their incumbents, comparing Portugal with the other member states of the European Union. Finally, we test a set of hypotheses that may be deducted from demand-side and supply-side theoretical explanations for political system support. Meaning of system support: theoretical and conceptual framework The Eastonian conceptual framework was built on the idea that any allindependent nation-state can be regarded as a political system, as well as the notion that one of the ways that political systems have to deal with overload situations include citizens support. As Easton put it: (...) we can describe support as an attitude by which a person orients himself to an object either favourably o unfavourably, positively or negatively. Such an attitude may be expressed in parallel action. In short, in its common usage support refers to the way in which a person evaluative orients himself to some object through either his attitude or his behavior (Easton 1975: 436). It therefore became clear that this concept must be looked at as a psychological orientation from citizens towards democratic government (Norris 2011: 20). However, the concept of system support" is far from simple, since it has a multi-dimensional nature, i.e., it is composed of several dimensions or components, which have distinct causes and consequences both theoretically and empirically. In effect, David Easton (1965, 1975) drew a first and important conceptual distinction between two different levels of citizens support. Firstly, he stated that diffuse or generalized political support represents more abstract feelings towards nation-states, political systems, and their agencies. It is expected that diffuse and generalized attachments to the nation-state and political regime should remain stable, enabling officeholders to act based on a "long-term reservoir of favourable attitudes" or "affective citizens goodwill"

7 (Easton 1965: 273). In contrast, specific support focuses on elected and appointed officeholders responsible for making and implementing political decisions. Support for specific parties (government or opposition), as well as attitudes towards leadership elites and authorities, is expected to fluctuate over time in response to short-term and medium-term contextual factors, such as the performance of particular governments, major shifts in public policies, leadership changes, or merely a cyclical economic crisis. Equally important is Easton's conceptual distinction among three different objects of the political system, namely, the nation, the regime, and the incumbent authorities (Easton 1965, 1975, 1976). In this article, we not only acknowledge the multidimensional nature of the system support concept but also revised the original Eastonian conceptual framework to recognize four dimensions of political ranging on a continuum from the most diffuse to the most specific levels, to which corresponds a series of different operational empirical measures (Norris 2011: 24-25). Therefore, and attending the political objects that can be evaluated by citizens, it is possible to distinguish four dimensions of political system support: 1) The regime support, which refers to public attitudes towards the constitutional order of a nation-state, i.e., the agreement with the normative values and core principles on which the regime is based; 2) The evaluations of the overall performance of the regime, exemplified by satisfaction with the democratic regime put into practice and also by general assessments about the functioning of democratic processes and performance; 3) The confidence in political institutions, such as evaluations of the three branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial, as well as of political parties and other institutional actors; 4) The approval of political authorities or incumbent officeholders, including attitudes towards prime ministers, party leaders, legislators, and public officials. From this perspective, it is necessary to select the public opinion survey

8 questions that are commonly used in research to measure each of the four dimensions of "political system support." Data and methodology The data from the Eurobarometer allowed us to follow the evolution of political system support along some of its main dimensions during the last decade, as well as to approach the Portuguese case in a comparative perspective. The data from the last wave of the World Values Survey (2005-2007) enabled an approach to political system support from a more diffuse level, thus adopting a comparative perspective even if limited to a shorter and more distant period. Regarding the most specific level of political system support, the approval regarding political authorities, we used the data gathered in the European Social Survey (ESS). However, our main data source was a questionnaire-based survey applied between July and September of 2008 to a representative sample of the Portuguese population (N = 1 350). This survey was carried out within the international research project "Portuguese MPs in a Comparative Perspective: Elections, Leadership, and Political Representation" (FCT-MCTES PTDC/CPO/64469/2006), and one of its modules was entirely dedicated to citizens' attitudes towards democracy, institutions, and political agents. The approval of core democratic regime principles and values was measured through two alternative questions. Respondents were firstly asked about their degree of agreement with the following statement: Democracy may have its problems but is the best form of government. Secondly, aiming to explore more effectively whether democratic attitudes are robust and to measure more nuanced choices, we used trade-off items that asked citizens to express their preference for different types of democratic and autocratic regimes: Which of the following statements do you agree with most? Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. In certain situations, a military rule, a rule by bureaucratic elites or experts, and even a strong-man leadership unchecked by parliament and elections are preferable to a democratic regime.

9 To measure the evaluations of regime performance, we used a standard question in the Eurobarometer that seeks to measure these attitudes by asking: "On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the way democracy works in your country?" The Eurobarometer surveys enabled us to approach the other level of system support, which concerns trust in core political institutions of the democratic regime, including all major branches of government, and in political parties as essential pillars of contemporary representative democracies. In order to measure the orientations towards officeholders and political incumbents, we presented two different sources. At the national level, respondents were asked about the level of confidence and trust they had in political authorities, including the prime minister and each of the leaders of the main parties represented in the national parliament. At the European level, the authors used the data from the ESS, which includes in its questionnaire an item about trust in politicians. The precise wording of this question is as follows: Please tell me, using a scale of 0-10 how much you personally trust each of the institutions [... politicians] referred to in this card. 0 means you do not trust the institution at all, and 10 means you have complete trust in it. Despite the apparent theoretical differences between these four dimensions of "system support," many scholars have discussed, and are still discussing, whether ordinary citizens can distinguish between authority support and regime support (Dalton 2007: 58; Norris 2011: 42-43), in other words, whether they can differentiate what democracy means in normative and practical terms. Dimensions of system support: From the conceptual framework to the empirical evidence Next, we needed to determine whether the theoretical distinctions between different levels of system support" were empirically observable in public opinion. The 2005-2007 World Values Survey provided a valuable resource in addressing this issue in a comparative way. The same can be said about the Portuguese representative survey (2008), which largely

10 contained the same questions as the World Values Survey, but specifically for Portugal. In order to determine whether Portuguese citizens distinguish between different dimensions of "system support," we used principal components analysis to extract factors and a Varimax rotation of the factor structure based on substitution of the mean values for missing data, in a manner that allowed the creation of factor scores for each correspondent. [Insert Table 1] The factor analysis distinguishes between different dimensions of "system support" in Portugal s case. The first dimension in Table 1 reflects the approval of the democratic regime and the rejection of autocratic regimes, including the alternatives of rule by the military, by a dictatorship, and by bureaucratic elites unconstrained by electoral accountability. The second set of items corresponds to the evaluations of regime performance by Portuguese citizens. We want to stress that this item asks for evaluations of democratic processes and practices rather than broader principles or values. The third cluster of citizen attitudes reproduces the confidence in regime institutions. Finally, the fourth dimension taps authority support, i.e., trust in political incumbents or official officeholders. A comprehensive analysis of this issue, therefore, needs to take into account each of these components or dimensions. Political system support: Comparing Portugal with EU democracies This section compares the developments in the most specific levels of support and then considers more diffuse indicators of satisfaction with democratic regimes using the aforementioned theoretical framework. Our analysis begins with the standard European Social Survey question about trust in politicians. The data demonstrate that in the last decade, public trust in politicians has declined in most European countries, namely, in twelve of the fourteen cases included in the European Social Survey's sample. In three cases only (Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden) do we see a slight increase in

11 citizens trust. However, trust in politicians did not decline uniformly but fluctuated over the years among European states. The net decline between 2002 and 2010-2011 was higher in Portugal (-0,79), Spain (-0,69), and in some Eastern European countries, such as Slovenia (-0,82) and Hungary (- 0,76). This net decline, although very modest, was also statistically significant in Belgium and France. The empirical data regarding the answers to questions about citizen trust in political parties. According to the declinist thesis, party trust fell significantly during the last decade in seven European countries, with particular emphasis on Southern Europe (Spain, Greece, and Portugal) and some Eastern European countries (Slovenia and Romania). However, party trust increased in ten EU member states, showing statistically significant values in six: Sweden (+14%), Finland (+11%), Austria (+ 9%), Denmark (+3%), Poland (+13%), and Bulgaria (+3%). The Eurobarometer data also show the proportion of citizens who express trust in their national parliament every year and the overall net change from the start to the end of the decade taken into account. The trends in European trust in national parliaments indicate several important points. It is possible to talk about a negative tendency. Specifically, in 18 of the 27 EU member states, there was a decline in citizens trust in national parliaments between 2000 and 2011. This decline is stronger and statistically significant in Southern Europe, including Spain (- 39%), Greece (-32%), and Portugal (-19%), as well as in some Eastern European countries, such as Romania (-26%) and Slovenia (-29%). This declining trend becomes more moderate in the cases of Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom. On the other hand, this tendency of decline is reversed, especially in the cases of the Netherlands and Sweden, where public trust in national parliament shows a strong and statistically significant increase of 17% and 22%, respectively. Data from the Eurobarometer survey series reveal the proportion of Portuguese citizens who express trust in their national government every year and the overall net change. In average terms, between 2000 and 2011 around 34 per cent of Portuguese citizens claimed that they tend to trust the national government, which represents a very low percentage comparable to Ireland (33%), Greece (36,6%), Spain (39%), and curiously, Germany (35,9%). In the

12 countries here considered, only in five does trust in national governments vary between 40 and 50 per cent on average. It is only in Luxembourg (67,4%), Finland (60,2%), Denmark (53,8%), and Cyprus (51,4%) that the trust rating is above 50 per cent. If we take into account the overall net losses or gains that occurred during the decade, we see a more or less sharp decline in trust in 24 of the 27 EU member states. The reinforcement of public trust in national governments is positive in only three member states: Sweden (+5%), Estonia (+5%), and Poland (+17%), with Poland being the only statistically significant case, as seen in the column of unstandardized OLS regression beta coefficients. A decline in trust in national governments is not only verified in most countries; further, such tendency is strongly or moderately significant, particularly in Portugal, Greece, Italy, and Ireland, as well as in France and some Eastern European countries. In short, the analysed data allow us to state that there is a negative linear tendency and, consequently, a generalized decline in trust in national governments over the last decade for the set of 27 EU member states. The overall comparison between the 27 EU member states regarding trust in the main institutions of the democratic regime demonstrates that, contrary to what was observed in the case of European trust in politicians, in some countries there is systematic and consistent distrust towards political institutions, including the national government, parliament, and political parties. It should also be noted that in Portugal, these negative trends in institutional trust are all strong and statistically significant, which make them far from being irrelevant. Still, we cannot conclude that there is an inevitable and uniform downward spiral of public disenchantment with political institutions in all EU democracies in the last decade. Concerning a more diffuse level of system support, the Eurobarometer enables us to compare trends in satisfaction with the way democracy worked in the last decade in Portugal and all other European democracies. The results of the comparison of trends in satisfaction with democracy summarized in Table 2 share certain aspects of the findings already presented concerning trust in regime institutions. First, there remain diverse trends in democratic satisfaction in different European countries: while it is

13 true that satisfaction with the performance of democracy registers a statistically significant decline in countries like Greece (-36%), Spain (-30%), Cyprus (-24%), Portugal (-22%), Slovenia (-24%), and Czech Republic (- 17%), it is not less true that in countries like Finland (32%), Sweden (24%), Austria (17%), and Luxembourg (15%), there is a statistically significant increase in the trust level regarding the way democracy functions in these countries. Second, there continues to be annual volatility in public evaluations, and some contrasts persist among European societies. What matters most is that the overall direction of satisfaction with the performance of democracy among EU member states is negative and statistically significant. [Insert Table 2] Now that we have drawn a general picture, we are left with the question of whether these negative trends in institutional trust and citizen satisfaction with the democratic performance in Portugal constitute a real and serious threat to citizens support for the democratic regime. We can say that there is deep scepticism in Portuguese public opinion regarding politicians, and trust in political parties, parliament, and the government has clearly declined. Also, there is evident dissatisfaction with the way democracy works. But can we affirm that the more diffuse level of system support, as a fundamental reservoir of citizens' goodwill when the citizens are highly critical of specific democratic processes and its outputs, is also threatened? Table 3 shows the distribution of the respondents' normative support for democracy regime in Portugal and in some European democracies. When asked whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: "Democracy may have its problems, but is still the best political regime," about 37 per cent of respondents declared that they agree fully with this affirmation, while 55 per cent declared that they agree. Thus, it can be said that Portuguese citizens massively (92%) approve of the democratic regime in normative and core principle terms. This percentage is, on average, close to the one observed in the set of old democracies (94%), even being higher than in countries like the United Kingdom (89%), France (89%), and Finland (85%). At the same time, as can be observed in Table 3, the approval of the

14 democratic regime by the Portuguese is, on average, slightly higher than is seen in younger democracies (91%), although lower when compared to Spain. [Insert Table 3] Table 4 shows the percentile distribution of the answers, both for Portugal (2008) and for other European democracies, represented in the WVS (2005-2007). The data reveal that in Portugal, there is a massive preference for the democratic regime, while the rejection of other forms of regime varies. Therefore, 74 per cent of Portuguese citizens reject an army rule (this high percentage is not indifferent to the political legacy of the country); 34 per cent considers the possibility of having a strongman running the government is bad or very bad and, and 30 per cent says the same of a government run by experts. We have to highlight that around one third of Portuguese citizens showed sympathy towards autocratic forms of government, except for an army rule, at the end of 2008. Could this be a phenomenon exclusive to Portugal, or does it exist in other European democracies? [Insert Table 4] In Table 4, we can see that on average, the preference for a democratic regime is equally massive in old (93%) and new (91%) democracies. As for citizen attitudes towards alternative regimes, differences are fairly evident. Regarding an army rule, the difference reaches 7 per cent in the context of old democracies and doubles (14%) in new democracies. When discussing a strong leader regime, similar but more accentuated differences are observed, since only 23 per cent of citizens in old democracies consider this a tolerable option, while in new democracies, the figure doubles to 46 per cent. However, the biggest cleavage between old and new democracies is found in the possibility of a government ruled by experts. In old democracies, 47 per cent consider this acceptable, compared to 70 per cent in new democracies. Political system support explanations: cultural shifts, social capital, and

15 government performance How do we explain the apparent paradox that reflects Portuguese citizens massive support for the values of representative democracy and, at the same time, the high mistrust in and suspicion of its core political institutions, as well as the significant cynicism and scepticism towards politicians? Each of the interrelated dimensions of political system support generates logical general propositions that can be tested against the empirical evidence based on the data collected in the Portuguese representative survey (2008). Among the explanations that have become prevalent in the research literature, it is important to distinguish, on the one hand, the demand-side theories that focus on enduring cultural shifts (Inglehart 1977, 1990, 1997, 2003) and on the steady decline of social capital among the mass citizenry (Putnam et al. 1993; Putnam 2006), and the supply-side theories that emphasize the public dissatisfaction with either the policy performance of democratic government (Finke, Muller, & Seligson 1987; Weatherford 1987; Clarke, Dutt & Kornberg 1993) or the institutional arrangements (Anderson et al. 2005; Norris 2000, 2011). Ronald Inglehart (1977, 1997) is undoubtedly the most representative author of the culturalist approach, which attributes this apparent "paradox" to rising democratic aspirations in long-term processes of human development, especially growing levels of literacy, education, and cognitive skills, leading to emancipative values. In his view, the processes of societal modernization and human development encourage the growth of post-materialist and selfexpression values in post-industrial societies, which are behaviourally associated with direct forms of political activism and elite-challenging behavior. Based on social modernization theories, it is possible to deduct some hypotheses that can be tested against the micro-level evidence using the 2008 Portuguese representative survey. If the core general propositions of social modernization theories are correct, then:

16 H1. Portuguese citizens, especially the younger generation and bettereducated sectors of the population, and those who are more influenced by and more receptive towards post-materialist values should display a strong endorsement of the more diffused dimensions of system support. H2. Portuguese citizens, especially the younger generation and bettereducated sectors of the population, and those who are more influenced by and more receptive towards post-materialist values should be much more suspicious of core democratic institutions and more sceptical and cynical about politicians. Among the culturalist approaches, we also consider alternative theories of social capital that relate democratic values and attitudes to patterns of social capital. In Making Democracy Work (Putnam et al. 1993), social capital refers to features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of democratic institutions and government. Consequently, Putnam s version of social capital theory emphasizes that typical face-to-face deliberative activities and horizontal collaboration within voluntary associations far removed from the political sphere, such as sports clubs, religious and cultural associations, or philanthropic groups, promote interpersonal trust, fostering the capacity to work together in the future and thus creating the bonds of social life that are the basis for civil society and democratic governance (Putnam et al. 1993). Theories of social capital, therefore, predict that long-term erosion of social trust and community networks will undermine faith in democratic governance. If this is true, then: H3. Generalized social trust and associational activism, as a crucial dimension of the social capital concept, are both positively linked with stronger endorsement of democratic values, principles, and ideals, as well as with greater democratic satisfaction. On the other hand, the apparent paradox that illustrates the critical or disaffected citizen attitudes and values towards the democratic system

17 and its performance in post-industrial societies can also be explained by theories of political communication. Two alternative versions of these theories can be distinguished in the literature on this issue. The first arises from the theory of video-malaise (Robison 1976; Cappela & Jamieson 1997), which states that the combination of negative political coverage by the press and exposure to the media leads to political cynicism at the grass roots. This has been strongly disputed over the years by the theory of a virtuous circle (Norris 2000), which suggests that positive reinforcement effects arise from frequently watching TV news. In light of these two very contradictory approaches, it is possible to formulate the following hypotheses: H4. Regular TV news viewers tend to display more, not less, negative attitudes and higher suspicion and mistrust toward politics and democratic government ( video malaise hypothesis ). To explain why citizens today massively approve the values and principles of democracy but, at the same time, also criticize the way the democratic system works in their countries, we must bear in mind the supplyside accounts that see in the current public dissatisfaction a symptomatic manifestation of poor or failing policy performance of democratic governments or an outright and blunt criticism towards the structural arrangements, especially the party s monopoly of democratic life in Portugal. Therefore if these arguments are correct, we can formulate the following hypotheses: H5. If Portuguese citizens evaluated government performance very positively primarily in economic terms, greater satisfaction with democracy and more confidence in its core political institutions and incumbents can be expected. H6. If Portuguese citizens see themselves in an institutional arrangement of the state, conditioned by the rules of the game, greater diffuse support for the democratic regime can be expected. Testing the hypotheses on political system support in Portugal

18 In order to test these hypotheses, we used multivariate linear regressions predicting the factor scores for the four dimensions of political support (dependent variable) constructed from Table 1. Table 5 provides the full multivariate models analysing the individual-level determinants of system support in Portugal. In the first column, we can see that support for the principles and values of the democratic regime is not strongly linked to any of the predictors in the model. This means that this support dimension is relatively diffuse, or less or not at all connected with the whole set of individual predictors. In accordance with theoretical expectations, however, the empirical evidence provides partial support for the proposition arising from social modernization theory. There is a positive and statistically significant correlation between postmaterialism and adhesion to democratic values and principles (ß = 0.15). Since post-materialists are more critical of the three other dimensions of political support, it is significant than on the key dimension of democratic values, they are actually stronger adherents of the democratic rules of the game. There is also a weak but statistically significant correlation between interest in politics and the normative and value dimension of system support (ß = 0.09): the higher the citizens interest in political and public affairs, the greater their support for the democratic regime. Nevertheless, contrary to the core propositions of social modernization theory, there is no statistically significant correlation between age and education and support for democratic values and principles. Several factors are correlated with support for democracy's performance. On the one hand, the most critical and dissatisfied with the functioning of democracy are the younger, the better educated, and the unemployed, but also those who are more exposed to the news on television and hold post-materialist values. On the other hand, the strong and negative impact of economic factors regarding the democratic regime performance is notorious. In Portugal, the more negative the citizens assessment of the country s economy and the government s economic performance, the greater their dissatisfaction and frustration with the way democracy works. These results confirm, although not exclusively, the second hypothesis. They also confirm the intermediary accounts that emphasize the negative role

19 of mass media in shaping what people think about the democratic regime performance as well as and most importantly the supply-side theories that highlight the correlation between government outputs and public satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with democracy put into practice. This means that these findings apparently confirm not only hypothesis 2 but also hypotheses 4 and 5. Regarding support for political institutions, we see that the supply-side theories are partially confirmed. If there is a strong and statistically significant correlation between government policy performance and citizen trust in political institutions, this does not happen in the case of structural performance. In other words, the variables related to constitutional arrangements, including the recognition that elections are free and fair, as well the acknowledgement of party centrality in Portuguese democracy, have no impact on trust in political institutions. In contrast, the public disappointment with the capacity of the government to manage economic policies contributing to development and prosperity has a strong and negative impact on institutional trust. [Insert Table 5] The results presented in Table 9 confirm the importance of social capital; generalized social trust (ß = 0.13) and associational activism (ß = 0.19) are both positively linked with institutional trust. On the other hand, both demand-side explanations, namely, cultural shifts associated with elitechallenging behavior and video malaise arguments, gain new empirical confirmation here. In fact, citizen distrust of political institutions tends to be higher among those who are more influenced by post-materialist values (ß = - 0.17) and have greater exposure to television news (ß = -0.13). Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4 are therefore confirmed. Finally, regarding the dimension of political authorities approval, criticism and citizen scepticism vis-à-vis incumbent politicians tend to be higher among the younger, the better educated, and those who are more sympathetic to post-materialist values and consume more political information through television. Furthermore, those who are temporarily outside the labour

20 market (ß = -0.17) and make a negative evaluation of the economic situation of the country (ß = -0.41), as well as of government economic performance (ß = -0.34), tend to be much more critical and, eventually, even more cynical toward incumbent officeholders. Final Remarks In this article, we attempted to clarify the map of Portuguese citizens attitudes towards the political system. Firstly, we conclude that the concept of system support has a multidimensional nature and that each of its dimensions should be analysed separately. We also conclude that although the prevailing trend in EU member states suggests a decline in institutional trust and increasing dissatisfaction about how democracy operates, there are significant exceptions to this trend. Therefore, it seems to be precipitated and misleading to speak of a uniform and simultaneous decline in political system support in the context of the EU member states. Public support for the political system has not eroded consistently in the Scandinavian countries. In these countries, there has been a strengthening of confidence in political institutions and increasing satisfaction with the functioning of democracy, a complete contrast with Southern European countries and some Eastern European new democracies. In Portugal s case, the situation is singularly negative and very alarming in all dimensions of specific system support. In fact, some of the most dominant features of Portugal's political culture have become even more striking in the last decade. Portuguese people today have no faith in politicians; the central institutions of the democratic regime (especially established political parties) inspire increasingly less confidence, and the way Portuguese democracy works far from responds to their expectations and aspirations. If, until recently, the fact that a broad majority of Portuguese citizens endorse the values and principles of the democratic regime managed to keep away some of the most defeatist interpretations of democracy s loss of legitimacy, now the empirical evidence of progressive mistrust in politicians, a consistent decline in public confidence in political institutions, and a strong and negative perception about

21 democracy s performance makes those pessimistic and worrying views plausible. All this while not excluding the contagion effects hypothesis, from more specific to more diffused levels of system support and its consequences. In this respect, we need more recent empirical data to compare simultaneously all dimensions of support for the political system, because only then we will be able to explore the contagion effects hypothesis, or rather, the extent to which it would appear as a deep crisis of confidence in democracy and its main political institutions and actors according to 2008 data, could degenerate into a real crisis of legitimacy of democracy, undermining the Portuguese regime itself. To research this phenomenon, we ll have to wait for new Portuguese representative surveys, whose questionnaire design will meet our scientific concerns and interests, allowing the updating of existing data. Data reflecting the situation since the resignation of the government of the Socialist Party (center-left), the subsequent legislative elections in 2011 and the election victory of the Social Democratic Party (center-right). But above all, data covering the financial bailout of Portugal and the signing of the Agreement of Understanding between the two major Portuguese parties and the called troika (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission) as well as the application of structural adjustment plan imposed to our country. Finally, among the individual-level determinants of the specific dimensions of system support, there is a negative and statistically significant impact of short-term economic factors on system support, which is in line with the supply-side accounts. The more negative the public perception of the state of the economy and of the failings in the government economic performance, the greater the dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy, the mistrust vis-à-vis political institutions, and, especially, the suspicion and scepticism regarding those who occupy the essential positions of power and are responsible for the policy-making process and its outputs. In the face of the country s economic and financial situation described above, this is an inference that will be found today possibly further enhanced.

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