Critical Citizens  (English, Hardcover, Norris Pippa)

This text analyses a series of interrelated questions. The first two are diagnostic: how far are there legitimate grounds for concern about public support for democracy world-wide? Are trends towards growing cynicism evident in the United States evident in many established and newer democracies? The second concern is analytical: what are the main political, economic, and cultural factors driving the dynamics of support for democratic government? The final questions are prescriptive: what are the consequences of this analysis and what are the implications for strengthening democratic governance? This book has brought together a group of international scholars who develop a global analysis of these issues that looks at trends in establishes and newer democracies as we approach the end of the 20th century. It also presents the results of the 1995-7 World Values Study as well as drawing on an extensive range of comparative empirical evidence. Challenging the conventional wisdom, this book concludes that accounts of a democratic "crisis" are exaggerated. By the mid-1990s most citizens world-wide shared widespread aspirations to the ideals and principles of democratic government.At the same time there remains a marked gap between evaluations of the ideal and the practice of democracy. The public in many newer democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and in Latin America proved deeply critical of the performance of their governing regimes. And in many established democracies the 1980s saw a decline in public confidence in the core institutions of representative democracy including parliaments, the legal system, and political parties. The book considers the causes and consequences of the development of critical citizens. It should be useful to those interested in comparative politics, public opinion, and the dynamics of the democratization process.