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1 The Democratic DeficitCanada and the United States in Comparative Perspective P I P P A N O R R I S

Imperfect Democracies focuses upon the quality of contemporary democ- racy in Canada and the United States. The list of symptoms highlighted by the Canadian Democratic Audit highlights issues of low and eroding voter turnout, widespread disaffection with political parties, and weak linkages connecting citizens and the state.1 William Cross summarizes the initial motivation to establish the audit:

Much was written in the 1990s and early years of the 21st century concern- ing a “democratic deficit” and “democratic malaise” in Canada. There was substantial evidence that many Canadians were dissatisfied with the state of their democratic practices and institutions. The Canadian party system was in the midst of significant upheaval, voter turnout rates had reached a rec- ord low and public confidence in democratic institutions was in significant decline. At the same time, new phenomena such as increased pressures of globalization and changing communications technologies were posing new challenges to Canadian democracy.2

Before looking in detail at Canada and the United States, however, it is use- ful to reflect more generally upon broader comparisons, not least with re- gard to what concepts and benchmarks underlie any attempt to evaluate the quality of democratic governance. Developments in North America can best be understood by comparing them with a wide range of established

Imperfect Democracies : The Democratic Deficit in Canada and the United States, edited by Patti Tamara Lenard, and Richard Simeon, UBC Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=3412812. Created from apus on 2020-03-18 08:46:08.

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democracies in Western Europe. Observers in many Western European and Anglo-American states echo similar concerns to those expressed in Canada.3

The longitudinal evidence available within the United States and Western Europe challenges conventional claims that an inevitable downward spiral of public disenchantment with politics has occurred across all established democracies. Confidence in political institutions and satisfaction with dem- ocracy usually displays a pattern of trendless fluctuations over time rather than any simple erosion. Nevertheless, a broader perspective suggests that a democratic deficit – reflecting a sizeable and persistent gap between cit- izens’ aspirations for democracy and their evaluations of the performance of democratic governance – is also evident in many societies.4 The notion of a “democratic deficit” first arose in debates about the legitimacy of the Euro- pean Union. Some commentators have regarded the core decision-making institutions in the European Union as falling well short of the standards of democratic accountability and transparency that exists at the national level within each of the member states.5 The original idea was to judge the legit- imacy of decision-making processes within the European Union against the democratic standards of European nation-states. But this useful idea is not confined to this context: it can be applied wherever the perceived demo- cratic performance fails to meet public expectations, whether concerning a specific public-sector agency or institution, the collective regime or consti- tutional arrangements governing the nation-state, or the agencies of global governance and multilateral organizations, including the United Nations.6 The idea of a democratic deficit also builds upon work, developed more than a decade ago, that first identified the phenomenon of “critical citizens.”7 This group of citizens holds democracy to be the ideal form of government, yet, at the same time, it remains deeply sceptical when evaluating how dem- ocracy works in its own country. As David Beetham interprets this phenom- enon (Chapter 3, this volume), any deficit raises concern about the failure of democratic governance to meet public expectations of democracy. Logically, any deficits between public aspirations and evaluations of democratic performance may arise due to rising public expectations, the role of the news media as the key intermediary, or the failure of gov- ernments to perform as expected.8 The democratic deficit is a matter of con- cern as it is thought to have important consequences, including for polit ical protest, for allied forms of political behaviour and rule of law and, ultim- ately, for processes of democratization. A leaking reservoir of political trust is seen as tying policy makers’ hands and limiting voluntary compliance

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with government authority.9 Dissatisfaction with democratic performance is also usually regarded, at least implicitly, as an important cause of civic dis- engagement, encouraging an erosion of conventional participation among citizens. At worst, fragile regimes lacking a broad and deep foundation of legitimacy among the mass public are widely believed to face a serious risk of instability and even breakdown.10 Whether deficits become politically salient among citizens, whether they spur expressions of activism such as protest politics, whether they subsequently trigger institutional reforms in the public policy agenda, and whether they even catalyze regime transi- tions, however, depends upon multiple conditions. No simple and straight- forward line connects democratic deficits with contemporary phenomena such as the “Occupy Canada” movement, the rise of the Tea Party, or thou- sands of protestors’ rallying against austerity measures and corporate greed on the streets of Athens, Madrid, Rome, and Brussels. The assumption that the general public in Canada, the United States, and European democracies has become deeply disillusioned with government and politics is so pervasive today that many accounts jump straight into the discussion of consequences and solutions without critically questioning the evidence for the trends and causes of disaffection. To understand these claims, in the first section I summarize what is known about system support from the previous research literature, which indicates that concern over trust and confidence in governing institutions has usually waxed and waned over the years, reflecting the impact of contemporary political events, real politik, and global waves of democratization. In the second section I set out the framework used to describe and interpret trends in citizens’ orienta- tions, emphasizing the importance of paying close attention to the “when,” “where,” and “what” of change. In this chapter I focus upon comparing established democracies, as it is for them that the longest and richest time-series survey data are available. Longitudinal trends are documented in the United States and the nation- states of Western Europe, all affluent societies with extensive historical ex- perience of democracy. My analysis compliments that in other chapters in this volume, which focus upon trends in the Canadian evidence. Using an expanded version of the Eastonian framework of system support, I first compare developments in the most specific levels of support, including at- titudes towards particular government agencies, and then move upwards to consider more diffuse indicators of satisfaction with the general perform- ance of democratic regimes and the strength of core attachments to the nation-state.

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The trend evidence available in the United States and Western Europe demonstrates that, when changes in system support do occur, it is usually far more common to observe fluctuations over time in successive surveys rather than straightforward linear or uniform decline. Some cross-national chan- ges in system support do occasionally occur simultaneously – symbolized by the events of 9/11, after which support for government appears to peak simultaneously across many countries – but these are the exception, not the rule. In terms of “where” changes occur, persistent cultural differences can be observed over many years, even among relatively similar nations (e.g., contrasting levels of confidence in government in Italy and Spain, different levels of trust in parties in the Netherlands and Belgium, and diverse pat- terns of national pride in Germany and France). During the last decade, a few established democracies (notably the United Kingdom and Portugal) experienced a rising tide of mistrust of government institutions, which should raise concern; yet, during the same period, Belgium and Finland ex- perienced the reverse.11 Last, with regard to “what” changes occur, instead of a uniform general pattern, contrasts in public attitudes towards different branches of government are apparent within each country, including the United States, and are exemplified by different levels of trust and confi- dence in the legislature and in the courts. Perhaps most important for an accurate diagnosis, at the most diffuse level, public satisfaction with the general performance of democracy in Western Europe has usually strength- ened over time, not weakened. Affective attachments to the nation-state remain strong and stable.

Theories of Eroding Public Trust and Confidence in Government The earliest surveys of American public opinion towards government were conducted during the decade after the end of the Second World War, at a time when the role and functions of the federal government had expanded greatly under the New Deal Roosevelt administration and when the United States had recently emerged as victorious and economically dominant in the world. It was often assumed that, during this era, American public opinion was relatively favourable towards the role of government. Rather than a “gold en age,” however, the earliest studies conducted by Hyman and Sheatsley in 1954, McClosky in 1958, and Mitchell in 1959 describe Amer- ican postwar attitudes as ambivalent towards government. Public opinion typically expressed pride in American democracy and yet considerable scep- ticism about the morality and honesty of elected politicians. The Amer ican,

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Mitchell concluded, “tends to expect the worst in politics but hopes for the best.”12

Systematic comparative work on public opinion towards government originated during the late 1950s and early 1960s, with Almond and Verba’s landmark study entitled The Civic Culture. The theoretical impetus for this work reflected contemporary concern to understand the underlying causes of regime instability during the second great reverse wave of democracy.13 The context involved the rise of Nazi Germany and Italian fascism and the global disruption of the Second World War as well as the 1960s collapse of fledgling parliamentary democracies in many newly independent African states emerging from colonial rule and the checkered political experience of Latin America due to a succession of military coups, populist dictators, and communist revolutions.14 The central message emerging from The Civic Cul ture emphasizes that political stability requires congruence between culture and structure. Almond and Verba argue that the democratic public needs to be finely balanced between the dangers of either an excessively deferential, apathetic, and disengaged citizenry, on the one hand, and an over ly agitated, disenchanted, and heated citizenry, on the other. They posit an optimal level of political trust in stable democratic states, such as Britain and the United States, where active and watchful citizens check the power- ful without succumbing to the destabilizing forces of either excessive loyalty and deference or excessive disaffection and alienation. The idea that soci- eties differ in their political culture is hardly novel; indeed, it has been the subject of philosophical speculation from Montesquieu to de Tocqueville. But one of the more radical aspects of Almond and Verba’s work is the way that they derive support for their theory from a path-breaking cross-national opinion survey, thus demonstrating that citizens’ orientations could be ex- amined empirically. They analyze the mass publics in Mexico, the United States, Italy, Britain, and Germany during the late-1950s. Almond and Verba conclude that the United States (and, to a lesser ex- tent, Britain) exemplifies their notion of a civic culture:

Respondents in the United States, compared with those in the other four nations, are very frequently exposed to politics. They report political dis- cussion and involvement in political affairs, a sense of obligation to take an active part in the community, and a sense of competence to influence the government. They are frequently active members of voluntary associations. Furthermore, they tend to be affectively involved in the political system:

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they report emotional involvement during election campaigns, and they have a high degree of pride in the political system. And their attachment to the political system includes both generalized system affect as well as satis- faction with specific government performance.15

By contrast, Italy (and, to a lesser extent, Mexico) exemplifies an alienated political culture:

The picture of Italian political culture that has emerged from our data is one of relatively unrelieved political alienation and distrust. The Italians are particularly low in national pride, in moderate and open partisanship, in the acknowledgment of the obligation to take an active part in local com- munity affairs, in the sense of competence to join with others in situations of political stress, in their choice of social forms of leisure activity, and in their confidence in the social environment.16

The Civic Culture therefore emphasizes cross-national variations, even among relatively similar postindustrial societies such as Italy and Germany. This influential study did much to establish the conventional view that, dur- ing the Eisenhower era, a period of economic abundance and cold war pol- itics, Americans held positive views about their political system. The mid-1960s and early-1970s, however, saw mounting concern over the capacity of democratic institutions to serve as an outlet to contain pub- lic dissent in the United States and in Western Europe. The era experienced the outbreak of tumultuous protest politics, with urban riots in Philadelphia, Watts, Newark, and Detroit symbolizing a radicalization of race relations and a breakdown of social control in the United States. Mass demonstra- tions on the streets of London, Paris, and Bonn catalyzed similar concerns in Western Europe. These events triggered new cross-national survey research that sought to understand the causes of protest activism.17 The gloomy prog- nostications that became common during these decades received their strongest endorsement from Crosier, Huntington, and Watakuki, who, in the mid-1970s, published a major influential report for the Trilateral Com- mission that diagnosed a “crisis” of democratic legitimacy afflicting not just the United States but many other postindustrial societies as well.18

This wave of concern ebbed somewhat during the early-1980s, reflect- ing some subsidence of radical social movements and the more quiescent mass politics characteristic of the Thatcher-Reagan era. During these years, Lipset and Schneider compare a wide range of American public opinion

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polls regarding government, business, and labour.19 They conclude that mass support for many types of political institutions in the United States had indeed eroded over time but that most criticisms were levelled at the behaviour and performance of specific power-holders rather than at the underlying structure and function of American institutions. The latter, more positive, interpretation was reinforced by the Beliefs in Government pro- ject, a multi-volume comparison of broad trends in Western Europe from the early-1970s to mid- or late 1990s. A thorough and detailed collaborative study, the Beliefs in Government project dismisses talk of a “crisis of dem- ocracy” as exaggerated. In particular, the chapters in these volumes that examine institutional confidence and trust in politicians conclude that there is little evidence of a steady secular erosion of systems support in Europe during these three decades; rather, the authors arrive at relatively sanguine conclusions that emphasize the existence of persistent cross-national differ- ences in systems support across different European member states and a pattern of trendless fluctuations over the years.20

The debate over the depth of any problem was far from settled, however, and during the early to mid-1990s, as already noted, a host of American scholars continued to express worries about “disenchanted democrats,” “critical citizens,” and growing civic disengagement. Similar concern about political mistrust, voter apathy, and democratic disaffection echo among commentators in many other postindustrial societies as well.21 Russell Dalton provides the most comprehensive recent summary of the cross- national survey evidence from the 1960s until the late 1990s across a range of established democracies and postindustrial societies. Dalton concludes that, during these years, citizens became increasingly detached from polit- ical parties, more sceptical towards governing elites and institutions, and less confident about parliaments, although public support for democratic ideals had not flagged.22 Scholarly research mirrors popular commentary on contemporary phenomena in Western societies that appear to underline cit- izen anger, exemplified during 2009 by the public reaction to the Westminster expenses scandal in Britain and, in the United States, by the simmering rage and breakdown of civility towards elected representatives expressed by “Tea Party” activists at town hall meetings debating health care reform, the fed- eral deficit, and the stimulus package.23

The Interpretive Framework: What Has Declined, When, and Where? Before plunging into analyzing the causes of democratic deficits, it is im- portant to establish a clear picture of trends in the evidence. Analysts need

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to pay attention to the depth, breadth, and timing of any changes in citizens’ orientations towards democratic politics and government in the United States and Western Europe. What has declined, where and when? In terms of what, bearing in mind the Eastonian framework already dis- cussed, we need to establish whether erosion of support has occurred only at the most specific level of trust in politicians, party leaders, elected offi- cials, and public-sector workers or whether it has spread upwards to dam- age confidence in many core political institutions and state agencies and even, at the most diffuse level, managed to fragment common identities within multinational communities. In terms of where, we need to demonstrate whether general patterns of declining trust and confidence are evident across many comparable estab- lished democracies – suggesting general causes – or whether any serious problem of eroding system support is confined to just a few nations. Most research literature on this topic concerns the United States, but the US Constitution was founded upon classical liberal principles, emphasizing mis trust of government. Lipset notes that American culture may prove ex- cep tional in this regard, as in so much else.24

Finally, in terms of when, close attention needs to be paid to the exact timing of any fluctuations in systems support. It is insufficient to look at net changes in different societies since countries may arrive at a similar end point by divergent paths. Moreover, the starting and ending date for many series of observations is often arbitrary, even though this can clearly colour interpretations of the trends (e.g., if the series of survey measurements com- mences on a relatively high point or on a relatively low point). It is more rigorous to examine whether changes happen simultaneously across states or whether trends vary in their timing. Prior attention to the “what, where, and when” helps us to select the most plausible competing theoretical hypotheses, which can then be analyzed fur- ther in subsequent chapters. For example, any evidence of a glacial erosion of political support for parties and parliaments that persists over successive decades in many similar Western societies would suggest looking for evi- dence of long-term causes, such as processes of social-psychological change in cultural values among individual citizens or, on the macro-level, the im- pact of societal modernization, human development, the penetration of the mass media, and globalization. On the other hand, if patterns of trendless fluctuations and short-term volatility are observed, with dynamic peaks and troughs that vary across relatively similar types of societies and among dif- ferent branches of government, this points towards the need to investigate

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specific performance- and event-based explanations within each country, such as the government’s success or failure in handling the economy, the outbreak of a major parliamentary scandal, the end of an unpopular war, the rise of new parties, the polarization of party politics, or an election that has thrown the governing party out of office. The longest continuous time-series evidence is available from the Amer- ican National Election Studies (ANES), and it allows us to track half a cen- tury of trends in the standard American indicators of trust in government officials. The US General Social Survey (GSS) also regularly monitored in- stitutional confidence in public- and private-sector agencies from 1972 to 2006. To see whether similar trends are apparent in other established dem- ocracies, we can draw upon the series of biannual Eurobarometer surveys conducted since the early 1970s. The Eurobarometer survey regularly mon- itors confidence in national institutions, satisfaction with the performance of democracy, and feelings of national pride and identity. It should be noted, however, that cross-national European trends can often only be examined for short periods, and the results of any estimates of net change and linear trends remain sensitive to the particular years and countries under review. It remains possible that rising European disaffection occurred in the longer- term period, but the evidence is too limited to allow researchers to refute or confirm this claim. Given the immense outpouring of scholarly research and popular com- mentary, is there anything new to say? Surprisingly, perhaps a lot. Many studies of the empirical evidence provide only a partial view because they select only one aspect of the underlying multidimensional concept of sys- tems support or focus upon only a few countries or a single global region. Much of the literature lacks a clear and comprehensive conceptual frame- work focused on support for the political system. In studies of the empirical evidence, both attitudinal and behavioural indicators are commonly mixed together. Equally important, even half a century after Almond and Verba’s original Civic Culture survey, items carried in the time-series survey evi- dence used for identifying trends are often of limited duration and cross- national breadth, making it impossible to determine with any accuracy whether general trends have indeed occurred. To update the analysis, we can start by monitoring developments in the United States and Western Europe, which possess the longest series of indicators and the largest body of previous research. This sets the context for the broader comparison of contemporary societies worldwide presented in the next chapter.

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Longitudinal Trends in the United States and Western Europe

Trust in Public Officials in the US Federal Government As discussed earlier, the standard ANES questions about political trust ask whether the “government in Washington” or “people running the govern- ment” can be trusted to “do what is right,” whether they “waste taxes,” whether government is run “for a few big interests,” or whether public offi- cials are “crooked.” These questions seek to tap public attitudes towards the national government, including perceptions of the ethical standards, pro- bity, and integrity of elected officials. They also occur in other American and cross-national surveys.25 As Russell Hardin points out, however, these ques- tions are often used in empirical studies without anyone’s having reflected upon whether they actually relate to the underlying notion of political trust.26 For Hardin, trustworthiness rests on both motivations and compe- tencies: do government officials seek to act in the public interest and, if so, do they actually have the capacity to do so? For example, people may be- lieve that elected officials are trustworthy in their motivations for public service (e.g., that the local Congressional representative from their local district is honest and hardworking or that the president is well-meaning and likeable), and yet they may also feel that these individuals often prove generally incompetent or ineffective (e.g., when managing a major econom- ic or foreign policy crisis). Or, conversely, citizens may logically believe that politicians are usually competent and effective but also venal (in that they may be thought to line their own pockets or those of special interests). The standard ANES battery of items mostly concerns the trustworthiness of the motivations of public officials (to “do the right thing”) rather than their competencies. Reflecting a long-standing debate, the meaning of these indicators is open to alternative interpretations. Hence, for Jack Citrin, they provide signs of specific support for incumbent office holders, with limited conse- quences. In this view, the erosion of American political trust that occurred during the 1960s can best be understood as an expression of public dissatis- faction with the performance of particular incumbent political leaders and public policies, representing part of the regular cycle of normal electoral politics and real world events.27 From this perspective, the public popularity of members of Congress and particular presidents can be expected to ebb and flow over time, without indicating that Americans are willing to support constitutional reforms. For Arthur Miller, however, the ANES indicators tap

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into diffuse support. Any erosion suggests that the roots of public dissatis- faction extend more deeply to indicate a crisis of legitimacy in American democracy, representing a loss of faith that US political institutions are the most appropriate ones for American society.28 Others suggest that, because government institutions are operated by incumbents, in practice it is diffi- cult, if not impossible, to disentangle support for agencies and actors.29 The ambiguity and potential measurement error when operationalizing the complex concept of political trust means that relying solely upon these indi- cators is unwise, and it would be prudent to see whether similar trends are evident in alternative data.30 If the dynamics of public confidence in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of American government reflect the peaks and troughs of confidence in the federal government, this would lend greater confidence to time-series trends and would indirectly support Miller’s interpretation. If, however, there are marked variations in citizens’ reactions towards different institutions, then this suggests the need to search for more performance- and event-driven explanations. The first question in the ANES battery comes closest to the notion of general trust in public-sector officials who work within the federal govern- ment, relating to Easton’s notion of specific support rather than diffuse sup- port. It also provides the longest time-series. If we compare trends over time in the proportion of the American public reporting that it trusted the fed- eral government to do what is right “most of the time” or “just about al- ways,” as shown in Figure 1.1, the evidence suggests that American trust in government leaders plummeted steadily every election year from the mid- 1960s to the late-1970s, during the period of hot-button politics and dissent over race relations, Vietnam, the war on poverty, and Watergate.31 Yet the subsequent trend line displays considerable volatility, with dynamic peaks and troughs rather than a simple linear fall. According to this series of ob- servations, a sharp revival of American trust in the federal government oc- curred during the first Reagan administration from 1980 to 1984, despite the anti-government rhetoric of this administration, the deep recession in the American economy during the early 1980s, and the growing polariza- tion of party politics as the Grand Old Party (GOP) moved sharply towards the right on certain moral and economic issues. Citrin and Green suggest that this happened because economic indicators for employment and infla- tion improved markedly after 1982, and President Reagan’s leadership style exuded confidence and sunny optimism.32 Trust in the federal government revived again from 1994 to 2002, a period of sustained economic growth

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that started under President Clinton and continued under President George W. Bush. Support peaked again after the dramatic events of 9/11, which Hetherington attributes to a “rally-around-the-flag” effect associated with any foreign policy crisis and the priority given to security issues.33 Support then fell back during the next three national elections. Nor is this simply a product of the ANES survey measurement: similar volatility among the American public is evident when the same question is asked in a series of Gallup polls and New York Times/CBS News polls conducted since the ear- ly 1970s.34 The overall volatility indicates that there are clearly periods during which American trust in the federal government was revitalized as well as periods during which it plummeted, and comprehensive explanations need to account for dynamic fluctuations over time. Are similar trends evident elsewhere? Some of the ANES questions con- cerning trust in politicians have been asked in national election surveys

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American trust in the federal government, 1958-2008

Proportion trusting “most of the time”/“just about always”

Question: “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right – just about always, most of the time or only some of the time?” Note: The unstandardized beta regression coefficient proved significant (> .001). Source: The American National Election Surveys, 1958-2008.

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conducted in some other established democracies; however, as a review by Listhaug emphasizes, comparisons of trends are limited because of con- siderable variations in the wording of the question and the lack of continuity of questions over successive national surveys.35 The most thorough and com- prehensive recent review of trends in sixteen established democracies using these types of questions is that by Dalton, and it concludes that they indicate a net decline in confidence in politicians in recent decades: “Regardless of recent trends in the economy, in large and small nations, in presidential and parliamentary systems, in countries with few parties and many, in federal and unitary states, the direction of change is the same.”36 Dalton’s evidence that the public has become more sceptical about elected officials is certainly suggestive and important; nevertheless, some caution is needed when inter- preting the results of the regression analysis used in his study since, out of forty-three separate questions, only seventeen saw a statistically significant fall in trust over time. Moreover, any erosion of support that has occurred at the most specific level of elected officials may have few important conse- quences; in democracies with regular multiparty elections allowing the re- moval of incumbents, less public trust in politicians may generate higher turnover of elected representatives without necessarily affecting more dif- fuse levels of public confidence in government institutions.

Institutional Confidence in the United States The GSS monitors trends in confidence in public-sector agencies, including the three branches of the American federal government. Any sustained erosion of faith in these institutions has potentially far more serious con- sequences than does loss of trust in particular presidents, congressional leaders, or elected representatives. In democratic states, the popularity of elected leaders and governing parties is expected to rise and fall according to citizens’ evaluation of their performance. Where opinions are overwhelm- ingly negative, multiparty democracies with alternating parties in govern- ment provide a safety valve for dissatisfaction through offering periodic opportunities to “throw the rascals out” via the ballot box. But institutional confidence reflects more enduring and diffuse orientations than does the popularity of specific leaders: any severe and persistent loss of legitimacy for the US Congress, the Supreme Court, or the executive branch is not eas- ily remedied, and it has broad ramifications. The GSS also examines atti- tudes towards the private sector, including confidence in major companies as well as in banks and financial institutions. This helps to establish whether the American public has increasingly lost faith in many established pillars

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of authority or whether the problem is confined mainly to the image or performance of government agencies and bureaucrats working in the pub- lic sector. The GSS, conducted by NORC, has monitored confidence in institu- tional leaders since the early-1970s. It begins: “I am going to name some in- stitutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?” Figure 1.2 shows the trends in American confidence in the executive branch and the Supreme Court. The dotted trend line and the R 2 coefficient summarize the overall strength and direction of any linear trends. The trend in public confidence in both the executive branch and the Supreme Court clearly demonstrates patterns of trendless fluctuation around the mean; in particular, most strik- ingly, no significant overall fall in institutional confidence occurred for either of these institutions from 1972 to 2008. The executive branch, in particular,

Executive Branch

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F I G U R E 1 . 2

American trust in the US Supreme Court and Executive, 1972-2008

Proportion reporting “a great deal of confidence” in each institution

Question: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?” Source: US General Social Survey cumulative file 1972-2008, http://publicdata.norc.org/ webview/.

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displays considerable volatility over time, for example with the sharp peaks registered temporarily in 1977 (temporarily restoring levels of confidence under the Carter administration to the pre-Watergate era), in 1988-92 (under the presidency of George H.W. Bush), and again in 2001 (under George W. Bush, following the events of 9/11). The highs and lows are rarely sustained, however, although the White House saw lower than average confidence dur- ing Clinton’s first term, before public revelations surrounding the Lewinsky affair. The trend lines for the Supreme Court and the executive branch rough- ly mirror each other, although the Supreme Court retains higher public con- fidence and more stable evaluations. Confidence in the US Congress, illustrated in Figure 1.3, displays parallel periods of rising and falling public confidence and provides a fainter mirror of trends in the executive. Similar fluctuations can be observed in other sur- veys – for example, in June 2008, the Gallup poll found that just 12 percent of Americans expressed confidence in Congress, the worst rating the organ- ization had measured for any institutions in the thirty-five-year history of

F I G U R E 1 . 3

American trust in the US Congress, 1972-2008

Proportion reporting “a great deal” of confidence in each institution

US Congress

Linear (US Congress)

1 9

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the question. Following the election of President Obama and the return of a Democratic-led Congress, the March 2009 Gallup poll saw Congressional approval jump to 39 percent. After an initial honeymoon period, approval fell back to 25 percent by the end of 2009.37 Overall, however, compared with presidential approval, there is a flatter line for congressional approval in the GSS series, suggesting less pronounced volatility for the legislative branch than the executive branch. Moreover, and most important, the over- all trend line since the early 1970s to 2008 shows falling net support for Congress during these decades, as many commentators have noted.38 It ap- pears that, in evaluations of the leadership among the core institutions of the American federal government, the public has expressed the most con- sistent growing doubts about the legislative branch. But does this long-term fall in congressional approval mean a crisis of legitimacy for American government – suggesting the need to search for po- tential political explanations – or are similar trends apparent for other es- tablished institutions in the private sector as well? If there is a more generic trend affecting attitudes towards those in authority, then cultural or social reasons might provide more plausible explanations. For comparison, the bottom graph in Figure 1.4 shows parallel trends in confidence in the pri- vate sector for banks and financial institutions as well as for major compan- ies. Most strikingly, both these private-sector institutions show overall trends of falling confidence from the start to the end of this era, with de- clines that are similar in strength to those experienced during the same era by Congress. It is also notable that banks and financial institutions show sharper peaks and troughs than confidence in major companies. The GSS evidence concerning institutional trust in the United States therefore suggests several important points that challenge the conventional wisdom. First, the time-series evidence suggests that any trends in American public opinion are not simply directed towards loss of faith in all three branches of the American federal government; rather, the most consistent net loss of confidence during more than three decades focuses upon Congress. Second, the legislature is not alone in this regard, and the issue is more than simply a crisis of faith in government; other major private-sector institutions, like American banks and companies, have experienced an equivalent net loss of public confidence as well. Last, these data reinforce the point that any persuasive explanations need to account for the dynamics of public support in attitudes towards government institutions, with atten- tion being paid to the precise timing of particular short-term fluctuations,

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39The Democratic Deficit

rather than to assume a net erosion of political trust and confidence. Often, studies have simply focused upon net percentage point change derived from the starting and end points for any time-series data, but this approach in- evitably assumes certain arbitrary benchmarks: it is unclear, for example, what confidence in these institutions was like prior to the early 1970s. Ana- lytically, it is equally important to understand the dynamic variance in the trends over time.

Institutional Trust in Western Europe The Eurobarometer allows us to compare the United States with Western Europe. The survey monitors longitudinal trends in trust and confidence in a wide range of public- and private-sector institutions, including governments, parliaments, and parties, as well as satisfaction with the general perform- ance of democracy and the strength of national identities. The Euro barometer now covers public opinion in all current twenty-five EU member states. For

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F I G U R E 1 . 4

American trust in banks and major companies, 1972-2008

Proportion reporting “a great deal” of confidence in each institution

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40 Pippa Norris

a consistent time-series, however, the longest trend analysis from these sur- veys is limited to the countries that have been member states since 1973.

European Trust in Government We can start by comparing the annual trends in institutional trust in the national government across seventeen European societies in which atti- tudes have been monitored during the last decade. The data illustrated in Figure 1.5 and summarized in Table 1.1 show the proportion of the public who express trust in their national government every year (allowing com parisons of persistent contrasts across countries, such as between Italy and Luxembourg) and the overall net change that occurred from the start to end of this decade (showing any overall net losses or gains). The final col- umns in Table 1.1 measure the strength and significance of the unstandard- ized OLS regression beta coefficients (which summarize the direction of linear trends). Trends in European trust in national government indicate several im- portant points. First, during the last decade the net change in European con fidence in government varied in direction and size by country. For example, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Ireland experienced the sharpest signifi- cant net drop in the proportion of the public trusting government during the last decade (down by twenty percentage points or more).39 This finding would give support to the conventional assumption of steadily eroding trust but for the fact that other European societies experienced trendless fluctua- tions and no significant linear change over time, or even, in a few cases (Sweden and Belgium), a 19- to 21-point net rise in political trust during the same period (although this was not statistically significant as a linear trend). The assumption that trust in government has eroded consistently across established European democracies receives no support from this cross- national survey evidence. Now of course the time-series is relatively short, and it may be that trust in government eroded during earlier eras; we simply cannot determine this with the available Eurobarometer evidence, but nor can others. It is also important to emphasize that there are substantial per- sistent contrasts among EU member states that need to be explained. For example, just as Almond and Verba observed half a century ago, the Italian public remains deeply sceptical in its orientation towards its government.40 By comparison, citizens in Luxembourg and Finland are generally more trusting than average. The precise reasons for the restoration of political trust in Sweden and Belgium, and the simultaneous fall in Britain and Portugal, are further scrutinized when we consider alternative explanations.

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43The Democratic Deficit

But the overall comparison suggests that performance-based explanations that affect specific government policies appear more plausible candidates than do any accounts proposing systematic shifts in cultural values towards politics and public affairs. As Figure 1.5 illustrates, however, this does not mean that European trust in government was steady. Indeed, another important point regarding trends in European trust in national government is that sharp fluctuations in trust in government can be observed in many countries (e.g., the peaks and troughs occurring in Denmark, Sweden and France). A final, and equally important, point is that two period effects register a shortterm peak in trust in govern ment occurring simultaneously across many European countries, notably in the survey taken in October-November 2001, shortly after the events of 9/11, when average trust jumped by nine percentage points from the spring to fall, and another clear but smaller average peak in April-May 2007, which cannot be so easily attributed to any particular event or terrorist incident.

European Trust in Parliaments As with the American data, however, we also need to establish whether there are general trends in Europe across all major branches of government. As in the United States, it may be that European publics continue to support the executive branch in their national government but that any erosion of confidence has occurred in the legislature and in political parties. Dalton suggests that public support for both institutions has fallen in a wide range of advanced industrialized democracies.41 Evidence of eroding confidence in parliaments in his study is based on regression analysis derived from four waves of the World Values Survey as well as trends in Gallup, Harris, and related commercial polls, but, in fact, only six of the twenty-one coefficients in the Dalton study prove statistically significant and negative. Table 1.2 and Figure 1.6 show the Eurobarometer evidence when citizens were asked dir- ectly about their trust in Parliament during the last decade. The results largely confirm the observations already made concerning government. Again, the data show that most countries have experienced trendless fluctuations in trust of parliaments, with the United Kingdom and Portugal again showing a significant growth of cynicism towards these insti- tutions since the late-1990s (reflecting the pattern already observed for trust in government), while Denmark, Sweden, and Belgium experienced grow- ing public trust towards their national legislatures. The overall mean trust in parties across the European Union shows no significant change. Overall, there are also marked and persistent contrasts between European societies,

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46 Pippa Norris

with only one-fifth (19 percent) of British citizens expressing trust in their Parliament in 2009, compared with three-quarters of Danish citizens (78 percent). This strengthens the conclusion that specific cultural or institu- tional factors need to be explored in order to account for long-term con- trasts among countries, while the dynamics of short-term fluctuations in trust over time may plausibly relate to variations in the perceived perform- ance of governments, parliaments, and elected representatives.

Conclusion Numerous commentators assume that support for the political system has gradually weakened in many established democracies, generating wide- spread public and scholarly concern about the rise of public disaffection (Torcal and Montero), mistrust of government (Dogan), or “dissatisfied democrats” (Pharr and Putnam).42 I try to describe time-series survey evi- dence relating to public opinion within established democracies. My inter- pretation of the data challenges the over-simple view that there is an inevitable downward spiral of public disenchantment and steadily growing hostility towards government actors, institutions, and the nation-state. The evidence reinforces the conclusion that it is essential to distinguish trends in public attitudes that operate at different levels rather than to treat “polit- ical support” as though it is all of one piece. Careful attention to the precise timing and breadth of any trends is also critical for an accurate diagnosis of developments. The most diffuse level concerns the most fundamental orientations to- wards the nation-state, exemplified by deep-rooted feelings of national pride and national identity. Membership in the European Union might be expected to have eroded these attachments, generating more cosmopolitan attitudes as Europeans are increasingly bound together through ties of trans- border communication flows, labour force mobility, and trade.43 Nevertheless the evidence confirms that nationalism remains strong and relatively stable, even among Western European societies that are long-standing members of the European Union.44 Trust in political institutions such as national gov- ernments, parliaments, and parties shows systematic and persistent con- trasts among established democracies in Western Europe and the United States. Overall, fluctuations over time usually prove far more common than do straightforward linear or uniform downward trends. These conclusions lend further confirmation to Levi and Stoker’s observation that “despite all the verbiage decrying the decline in trust, there is little actual evidence of a long-term decline, either in the United States or in Western Europe across

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47The Democratic Deficit

the board.”45 Contrasts are also evident in public attitudes towards different branches of government within each country. For example, the United States has seen a long-term significant erosion of support for the legislative branch, but this has not affected public support for the Supreme Court or the execu- tive branch. Persistent differences in institutional trust can also be observed among relatively similar nations, such as between Italy and Spain, or Ger- many and France. A few European countries have experienced growing trust in state institutions, while a few have experienced the reverse. Perhaps most important, in Europe diffuse support for the nation-state remains strong and stable, and satisfaction with the performance of democracy has usually strengthened over time, not weakened. The conventional wisdom assumes that public support for government has eroded significantly and consistently over time in Canada, as in other established democracies. If symptoms of trendless fluctuations are evident in recent decades in Western countries, however, this suggests the need to revise the standard interpretation. The complexity observed in this chapter calls for a diagnosis that can account for the dynamic fluctuations and the persistent cross-national variations in democratic deficits. This complexity indicates the need for differentiated and nuanced arguments that can ac- count for cross-national variance and the dynamics of longitudinal flux in political support. The diagnosis suggests that it would probably be most fruitful to investigate short- and medium-term explanations of any chan- ges in indicators of system support, abandoning over-simple claims about steadily growing public disenchantment with politics across all established democracies – or indeed across the world.46 Hence the most promising hypotheses concern the instrumental performance of governments and public-sector institutions rather than propositions that posit glacial long- term social trends such as processes of human development and cultural evolution.

NOTES 1 Allan Tupper, “Auditing the Auditors: The Canadian Democratic Audit,” Canadian

Public Administration 50, 4 (2007): 635-53; Paul Howe, Richard Johnston, and André Blais, eds., Strengthening Canadian Democracy: Reconsidering Provincial and Federal Debates about Democratic Reform Alternatives (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005).

2 William Cross, “The Canadian Democratic Audit,” paper presented at the Inter- national Political Science Association conference, Fukuoka, Japan, 2006.

3 See Russell J. Dalton, Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices: The Erosion of Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University

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Press, 2004). For a counterpoint, however, see Pippa Norris, Democratic Phoenix (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

4 Pippa Norris, Democratic Deficits: Critical Citizens Revisited (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

5 For the debate, see Jacques Thomassen, ed., The Legitimacy of the European Union after Enlargement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Andrew Moravcsik, “Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union,” Journal of Common Market Studies 40, 4 (2002): 603-24; Livia Door, The Democratic Deficit Debate in the European Union (Berlin: VDM Verlag, 2008); Peter Jancarik, Understanding Democracy in the European Union: Democratic Deficit as a Powerful Myth? (Berlin: VDM Verlag, 2009).

6 Victor Bekkers, Geske Dijkstra, Arthur Edwards, and Menno Fenger, eds., Govern ance and the Democratic Deficit: Assessing the Democratic Legitimacy of Governance Practices (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2007).

7 Pippa Norris, ed., Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

8 Norris, Democratic Deficits. 9 Mark J. Hetherington, Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise

of American Liberalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 10 The “crisis” alarm warnings are most clearly exemplified by Michel Crozier, Samuel

P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Govern ability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission (New York: New York University Press, 1975).

11 Huge national variations, and periodic fluctuations, are also noted by others when comparing trust in national parliaments. See Bernhard Wessels, “Trust in Political Institutions,” in The Legitimacy of the European Union after Enlargement, ed. Jacques Thomassen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

12 See Stephen Earl Bennett, “Were the Halcyon Days Really Golden?,” in What Is It about Government that Americans Dislike?, ed. John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

13 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).

14 For the intellectual history of the origins of the civic culture study, see Gerardo L. Munck and Richard Snyder, Passion, Craft, and Method in Comparative Politics (Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

15 Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 314.

16 Ibid., 308. 17 Samuel Barnes and Max Kaase, Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western

Democracies (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979). 18 Crozier, Huntington, and Watanuki, Crisis of Democracy; Samuel P. Huntington,

American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).

19 Seymour Martin Lipset and William C. Schneider, The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor, and Government in the Public Mind (New York: Free Press, 1983), 6. See also

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Joseph S. Nye, Philip D. Zelikow, and David C. King, eds., Why People Don’t Trust Government (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).

20 See, in particular, Ola Listhaug, “The Dynamics of Trust in Politicians,” and Ola Listhaug and Matti Wiberg, “Confidence in Political and Private Institutions,” in Citizens and the State, ed. Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

21 Susan J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam, Disaffected Democracies: What’s Troubling the Trilateral Countries? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Mattei Dogan, ed., Political Mistrust and the Discrediting of Politicians (The Netherlands: Brill, 2005); Gerry Stoker, Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Mariano Torcal and José R. Montero, eds., Political Disaffection in Contemporary Democracies: Social Capital, Institutions, and Politics (London: Routledge, 2006); Colin Hay, Why We Hate Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).

22 Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg, eds., Parties without Partisans: Political Change in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Dalton, Democratic Challenges.

23 Michael Kenny, “Taking the Temperature of the British Political Elite 3: When Grubby Is the Order of the Day,” Parliamentary Affairs 62, 3 (2009): 503-13.

24 Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A DoubleEdged Sword (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1996).

25 See, for example, World Public Opinion, 2008, World Public Opinion on Governance and Democracy, Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/.

26 Russell Hardin, Trust (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006). 27 Jack Citrin, “Comment: The Political Relevance of Trust in Government,” American

Political Science Review 68, 3 (1974): 973-88; Jack Citrin and Donald Philip Green, “Presidential Leadership and the Resurgence of Trust in Government,” British Journal of Political Science 16, 4 (1986): 431-53.

28 Arthur H. Miller, “Political Issues and Trust in Government, 1964-1970,” American Political Science Review 68, 3 (1974): 951-72; Arthur H. Miller, “Rejoinder to ‘Comment’ by Jack Citrin: Political Discontent or Ritualism?,” American Political Science Review 68, 3 (1974): 989-1001; Arthur H. Miller and Stephen A. Borrelli, “Confidence in Government during the 1980s,” American Politics Research 19, 2 (1991): 147-73.

29 Hetherington, Why Trust Matters, 15. 30 Paul R. Abramson and Ada W. Finifter, “On the Meaning of Political Trust: New

Evidence from Items Introduced in 1978,” American Journal of Political Science 25, 2 (1981): 297-307.

31 See the ANES Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior, http://www. electionstudies.org/.

32 Citrin and Green, “Presidential Leadership.” 33 Hetherington, Why Trust Matters. 34 From February 1976 to February 2010, the New York Times/CBS News surveys have

carried items comparable to the ANES measures for trust in the federal government.

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In this series, the proportion of people in the poll expressing trust in the federal government “always” or “most of the time” was 28 percent prior to 9/11, peaked at 55 percent following the events of 9/11, and then fell to 19 percent by February 2010. See “Poll Finds Edge for Obama over GOP among the Public,” 11 February 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/. For Gallup series, “Trust in Government,” see http:// www.gallup.com/.

35 Listhaug, “Dynamics of Trust.” 36 Dalton, Democratic Challenges, 29-31. 37 For details, see the Gallup poll, “The Decade in Review: Four Key Trends,” 23

December 2009, http://www.gallup.com/. 38 John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Congress as Public Enemy (New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1995). 39 Steven Van de Walle, Steven Van Roosbroek, and Geert Bouckaert, “Trust in the

Public Sector: Is There Any Evidence for a Long-Term Decline?,” International Re view of Administrative Sciences 74, 1 (2008): 47-64.

40 Almond and Verba, Civic Culture. 41 Dalton, Democratic Challenges. 42 Pharr and Putnam, Disaffected Democracies; Torcal and Montero, Political Dis

affection; Dogan, Political Mistrust. 43 David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perreton, Global

Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1999), Chap. 7.

44 See also Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Cosmopolitan Communications (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

45 Margaret Levi and Laura Stoker, “Political Trust and Trustworthiness,” Annual Re view of Political Science 3, 1 (2000): 475-507.

46 See, for example, the claims in Stoker, Why Politics Matters, Chap. 2.

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