Principal investigator: Eduarda Miller de Figueiredo
Article title: Foundations of Democratic Legitimacy in Brazil: Adherence to Values and Performance Evaluation
Article authors: Ednaldo Aparecido Ribeiro
Location of the intervention: Brazil
Sample size: 1149 interviews
Sector: Economic Policy & Governance
Type of intervention: Interview about perceptions of the political system.
Primary variable of interest: Evaluation of the political system
Evaluation method: Others
Policy Problem
Democratic legitimacy helps establish an intermediate path between rationality and the socialization of individuals to explain the levels of support given to objects within the political system.
Olson (1999) explains collective action in political groups through the premise that individuals tend to develop resource maximization strategies, while Downs (1999) adopts assumptions of rationality to explain the political behavior of government, parties, and voters in family democracies. Thus, this article seeks to verify whether these arguments are valid for the topic of legitimacy, especially in democracies that are not yet consolidated.
Assessment Context
According to Easton (1968), there are two theoretical levels of support for a regime: diffuse and specific. The first encompasses basic values linked to the abstract acceptance of the fundamental principles of the democratic regime. The second contains evaluations of the concrete functioning of the institutions that make up the political regime and the performance of its operators. Thus, the first level of legitimacy points to the importance of prolonged processes of political socialization of individuals, while the second level addresses the fact that support can be affected in the short term by positive or negative performances of political institutions and leaders.
Therefore, it must be considered that citizens are capable of evaluating performance, deciding to support or reject political objects individually or the political system as a whole. Even when there are negative evaluations, they do not immediately lead to a decline in widespread support; therefore, a decline in levels of democratic legitimacy may not immediately signify a risk to democracies (Norris, 1999; Dalton, 2004).
Mishler and Rose (2001) point out that, for research on young democracies with an authoritarian past, emphasis should be placed on citizens' evaluation of the new regime's performance, given their limited understanding of democratic ideals. Furthermore, when testing realistic and idealistic approaches, they find that while the idealistic approach is useful in stable democracies, it does not convincingly explain support for the regime in new democracies. Therefore, the author uses the realistic approach in the Brazilian case, given its status as a new democracy, seeking to identify the explanatory power that prioritizes citizens' rational evaluation of the regime's performance.
Policy Details
The database produced by was used. World Values Survey For the period from 1995 to 1997. Given that individuals lack sufficient clarity regarding the meaning of the word democracy, the following question was posed in relation to democracy:
"People have different views on this country's system of government. Here's a scale that measures how things are going: 1 means very bad; 10 means very good. Where on this scale would you place the current political system?"
Furthermore, it was necessary to add some measures that could influence the degrees of legitimacy that individuals manifest. Below is a list of these questions.
Table 1: Questions asked to citizens
| Perception of the current economic situation | (1) (2) | Income level. Satisfaction with the family's financial situation. | |
| Evaluation in comparative terms between different periods | (3) (4) | Assessment of the political system ten years ago. Expectations regarding the political system ten years from now. | |
| Corruption | (5) | Perceptions about corruption. | |
| Performance evaluation | (6) | Satisfaction with political leadership | |
| Dimension of support for the regime | (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) | Trust in Congress/representatives and senators. Trust in the civil service. Trust in the government. Trust in political parties. Trust in the judicial system. | |
| Sociodemographic variables | (12) (13) (14) | Age. Educational level. Educational level. | |
| The respondents' adherence to some fundamental values of democracy. | (15) (16) (17) (18) | Democracy may have its problems, but it's better than any other form of government. In a democracy, the economic system doesn't work well. Democracies bring indecision and many arguments. Democracies are not good at maintaining order. | I strongly agree/ I agree/ I disagree/ I strongly disagree |
| Adherence to values consistent with democracy. | (19) | An interest in politics. | |
| Ideological spectrum | (20) | The respondents' self-positioning in relation to the ideological spectrum ranging from left to right. | |
| Post-materialism index | (21) | Individuals' adherence to values that emphasize self-expression and rationality, as opposed to survival and traditional values. | |
| Share capital | (22 and 23) | Two measures for voluntary participation in associations. | |
| (24) | A measure of interpersonal trust. |
Regarding individuals' self-positioning on the ideological spectrum, it was possible to analyze the impact of ideological affiliation on levels of legitimacy. Social capital variables are fundamental factors in explaining the success of democracies.
Given this, the author will estimate the impact of each variable on the scale that measures individuals' evaluation of the existing regime at the time of the study, using the following methods. Enter e StepwiseThe latter automatically presents a list of models indicating which one has the greatest explanatory potential.
Results
The results demonstrated that the evaluation of the regime in place at the time was predominantly negative, with an average rating of 3,2 on a ten-point scale, suggesting that democratic legitimacy in Brazil is not yet guaranteed.
When estimating the impact using the method EnterIt was found that income and perception of one's particular economic situation do not influence citizens' assessment of the political system in which they live. Similarly, the perception of how widespread corruption is in public administration does not have a significant impact, even though 57,9% of respondents believe that almost all public office holders are involved in corrupt practices.
None of the sociodemographic variables showed significant results, nor did the variables related to institutional trust. Therefore, the variables referring to Congress/deputies, senators, and the judicial system did not have a significant impact, which was expected, given that in Brazilian democracy the executive branch has a clear preponderance compared to the other branches (Pereira and Mueller, 2000). Self-positioning on the ideological scale, as well as measures of voluntary political participation, also did not show significance.
The Stepwise The study only detected the eight variables that exert significant influence. More than 68% declared having little or no interest in politics, which is negative, given that this is an important indicator of a population's civic culture (Almond and Verba, 1989). Adherence to post-materialist values demonstrates that the population is replacing traditional and survival values with rational and self-expression values, putting pressure on political systems towards democratization.
The evaluation of political leadership performance showed an interesting impact, with 57,3% of respondents choosing the options "satisfied" and "very satisfied." Furthermore, excluding legislative institutions and the judicial system, confidence in the executive branch stands out even more, suggesting that respondents consider the executive branch a fundamental institution of the existing democratic system. The contact established between citizens and institutions proved significant, with frequent contact with public officials significantly impacting the evaluation of the political system.
The study's results validate the realist approach, given that individuals' perceptions of the performance of different components of democracy have a significant influence on their evaluation of the national political system.
Lessons in Public Policy
As discussed throughout, high levels of legitimacy depend on positive performance evaluations, but equally necessary is the dissemination among the population of values and ideals compatible with democratization.
Reference
RIBEIRO, Ednaldo Aparecido. Bases of democratic legitimacy in Brazil: adherence to values and performance evaluation. Opinião Pública, v. 13, n. 1, p. 74-96, 2007.
