Citizens' Attitudes Towards Governmental Institutions Across Political Generations: Testing the Effect of individuals' Prior Political Experiences

Citizens' attitudes towards governmental institutions is central to the understanding of the way people behave in a democracy. Our point is that citizens' attitudes – for example, the effect of winning and losing and how... [ view full abstract ]

Citizens' attitudes towards governmental institutions is central to the understanding of the way people behave in a democracy. Our point is that citizens' attitudes – for example, the effect of winning and losing and how voters think about their representatives in power – varies depending upon individuals' prior political experiences. We contend that the process of political socialization mediates citizen’s evaluations and trust. Citizens whose political values were shaped in anti-democratic regimes have different reactions than those individuals who have only experienced life in democracy. Specifically, winning and losing will be more important in determining governmental evaluations and trust for voters having lived under authoritarian rule and democratic regime, what we call the “dual-regime” generation, than for voters having solely had contact with democratic institutions, what we call the “democratically socialized” generation.
Using individual-level Eurobarometer data, we address three questions: i) whether an individual's belongs to “dual-regime” generation or the “democratically socialized” generation has different effects governmental evaluations and trust; ii) whether the strength of the effect of winning/losing is stronger for one generation than the other; and ii) whether the effect of winning/losing among the “dual-regime” generation is stronger in new democracies than for the same generation in democracies that did not undergo a recent transition. To address these questions, we propose to compare governmental levels of evaluations and trust and the impact of winning and losing among different generations across three newly consolidated democracies, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and the former East Germany and compare these to three long-time democracies, Denmark, Belgium, and the UK. This allows us to see if there are differences among the dual-regime generation in the newer democracies relative to the same generation in countries that have stable democracies.
First, we hypothesize that the older, dual-regime political generation is more or less favorable and trusting because they have experienced a breakdown of an entire political system and have witnessed a value-laden fight for political transparency and participation. We found that this experience the older generation in newer democracies tend to be more favorable and trusting than the those who have only known the regime in which they live and for which they do not have powerful politically charged expectations. The fact that they have experienced the worst in political life, where evaluation and trust is unheard of, gives the democratic regime a cushion of support because these older individuals are more willing to give a democratic government the benefit of the doubt.
Second, we argue that those individuals who in the past experienced repression may place a greater emphasis on winning and losing in elections because they have a comparatively higher probability of believing that systems can and do break down. Thus, compared to their younger compatriots and people of their own generation who have not experienced breakdown, winning will have a stronger positive and losing a stronger negative effect on evaluation and trust because there is some probability that elections will not be held again, thus determining winners and losers for the foreseeable future.