{"title":"When Democracy Brings Insecurity: The Political Legacies of Regime Change","authors":"Hans Lueders","doi":"10.1353/wp.2024.a916343","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"abstract: The circumstances under which a country democratizes can have long-lasting consequences for citizens' political attitudes. To develop this argument, the author links East Germans' satisfaction with the functioning of democracy today to their experiences during German reunification: East Germany democratized under conditions of extreme economic uncertainty, which has had enduring effects on how economic evaluations are linked to democracy satisfaction. An original survey experiment finds that qualitatively similar experiences of current economic insecurity have stronger effects on East than West Germans' democracy satisfaction. Household panel data show that this effect is stronger among those East Germans who experienced more economic hardship during the transition. Surveys of East Germans prior to reunification demonstrate that a similar pattern did not exist before the transition. Finally, cross-national survey data document similar patterns among Eastern Europeans more broadly. These findings complement existing work on the legacies of authoritarian rule by emphasizing the lasting attitudinal effects of authoritarian breakdown.","PeriodicalId":48266,"journal":{"name":"World Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"World Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.2024.a916343","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
abstract: The circumstances under which a country democratizes can have long-lasting consequences for citizens' political attitudes. To develop this argument, the author links East Germans' satisfaction with the functioning of democracy today to their experiences during German reunification: East Germany democratized under conditions of extreme economic uncertainty, which has had enduring effects on how economic evaluations are linked to democracy satisfaction. An original survey experiment finds that qualitatively similar experiences of current economic insecurity have stronger effects on East than West Germans' democracy satisfaction. Household panel data show that this effect is stronger among those East Germans who experienced more economic hardship during the transition. Surveys of East Germans prior to reunification demonstrate that a similar pattern did not exist before the transition. Finally, cross-national survey data document similar patterns among Eastern Europeans more broadly. These findings complement existing work on the legacies of authoritarian rule by emphasizing the lasting attitudinal effects of authoritarian breakdown.
期刊介绍:
World Politics, founded in 1948, is an internationally renowned quarterly journal of political science published in both print and online versions. Open to contributions by scholars, World Politics invites submission of research articles that make theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature, review articles, and research notes bearing on problems in international relations and comparative politics. The journal does not publish articles on current affairs, policy pieces, or narratives of a journalistic nature. Articles submitted for consideration are unsolicited, except for review articles, which are usually commissioned. Published for the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Affairs