You might be a disgruntled democratic citizen, who is tired of seeing politicians making "stupid" decisions. Maybe you're happy and grateful to be living in a democracy. Or maybe you just don't care, because the outside political world seems so far away, especially in lockdown. Wherever you place yourself on the satisfaction scale, your perception is shaped by your environment. The question is, what in your environment is making you feel that way?
"A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels of those around him." ~ Alexis De Tocqueville 1839
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Source of Inspiration
In my Political Analysis class at the University of Sydney, my lecturer presented an outline of their research to help the class understand how abstract theory about ontological and epistemological positions are reflected in a researcher's work. Dr. Sarah Cameron observed that Australians were becoming more dissatisfied with Australian democracy in the past decade. Compared to other Anglo-American democracies, Australia had the steepest decline in satisfaction (see Figure 1).
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| Figure 1: Comparison of satisfaction with democracy. Figure taken from GOVT2991 (S2, 2021) week 2 lecture slides presented by Dr. Sarah Cameron. |
Her research found that government performance (economic and political) contributed to the decline of democratic satisfaction in Australia (Cameron, 2020). Results were found using quantitative methods of analysis on the Australian Election Study dataset 1987-2019.
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| Figure 2: Economic perceptions and satisfaction with democracy in Australia. Figure taken from GOVT2991 (S2, 2021) week 2 lecture slides presented by Dr. Sarah Cameron. |
I found this study and its results quite interesting. I noticed that Professor Cameron's initial comparison of Australia with other democratic countries was sourced from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). Although I agree with Dr Cameron's premise that the cause of Australia's steep decline would be unique to Australian democracy, I wondered the degree to which these causes were unique to Australia.
Are there any similar causes for the steep decline in democratic satisfaction for different democracies?
What were the reasons for stability of democratic satisfaction for different democracies?
I decided to take a deeper look at that dataset myself...
Note: A question that came to mind was how is this research defining what people are classifying 'democracy' as? I understand that Dr Cameron's research is a positivist approach and clear definitions and boundaries of important terms are necessary. However, that is difficult because we are asking citizens their perceptions of democracy which is subjective. I am still under the process of reflecting on my own ontological and epistemological standings, so I am questioning whether an interpretivist or critical realist approach might provide greater insight.
Preliminary Exploration of Data
Some points of orientation:
- I picked the different countries to compare using the democratic index. Countries of interest other than Australia and the USA were those with the highest democratic indexes. I used the 2020 top 5 list from here. In doing so, I am able to compare 'strong' democratic nations to see if they had similar declining satisfaction trends.
- The x-axis of Figure 3 is the election year. The CSES dataset I was able to retrieve at the moment was from 1996 to 2015. I am looking into other datasets I might be able to merge with to get more recent data.
- The y-axis of Figure 3 is a measure of democratic satisfaction citizens reported. The percent of satisfaction was calculated by getting counts of those who selected satisfied or very satisfied divided by the total number of respondents (including missing and do not know responses).
- The vertical lines I added in Figure 3 highlights the time between 2007 and 2009.
Figure 3 shown below is the line graph I created using R programming. As mentioned before, I am using CSES data. The code to create this graph is linked on my GitHub or can be provided upon request.
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| Figure 3: Comparison of Anglo-American democracies and their satisfaction with democracy over time |
Observations and more questions:
In Dr Cameron's lecture, she pointed out that Australia had the steepest decline. Looking at Figure 1, I agree it does look like Australia has the steepest decline in the past decade. I acknowledge that the CSES dataset that I am using at the moment is limited in its timeframe and I need to merge with other election study datasets to get more recent data. However, from Figure 3, we can see that Iceland actually had the steepest decline between the 2007 and 2009 timeframe. In fact 2007 seemed to be a turning point for most countries.
Did the global financial crisis have something to do with declining democratic satisfaction levels? This would be supported by Dr Cameron's results, that economic performance influences satisfaction. Could Dr Cameron's unique drivers for declining democratic satisfaction be also applied to other Anglo-American democracies? Why did Iceland have the steepest decline compared to the USA, from where the financial crisis originated?
Interestingly, countries with higher democratic index ratings (Norway, Sweden, and New Zealand) either experienced no change in satisfaction levels or had an increase in democratic satisfaction. The most stark contrast can be seen between Australia and Sweden. There are almost opposite trends between the two countries. What does Sweden have that dramatically increased democratic satisfaction in the same timeline as compared to Australia's steeply declining democratic satisfaction? Maybe Australia can learn from countries like Sweden and Norway...
Next Steps
- Merge with other electoral studies for these selected countries to get more recent data and trends.
- Merge with datasets that show wealth of countries (GDP growth and other calculations) so I can investigate how the financial crisis period effected countries.
- Does socio-economic status impact the level of satisfaction a citizen will have with its country's democracy?
References
Mansfield HC, Winthrop D. Alexis de Tocqueville (2000) Democracy in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sarah Cameron (2020) Government performance and dissatisfaction with democracy in Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science. 55:2, 170-190.
Very insightful read!
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