| title: | Regime Support in New Democracies: Data from the Baltic States 1993-2004 |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF6212 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | University of Tartu, College of Europe |
| head of project: | Piret Ehin |
| duration: | 01.01.2005 - 31.12.2007 |
| description: | Mass values and attitudes are a key determinant of the survival and consolidation of democratic regimes. Although the "third wave" of democratization has spurred new interest in the logic of public support for democratic regimes, the sources and dynamics of mass political support in modern democracies are not well understood. The proposed project contributes to the emerging research program on regime support by (a) critically examining existing theoretical propositions about the components, determinants and correlates of regime support in new democracies, and (b) empirically testing these propositions with individual-level survey data from the New Baltic Barometer (1993-2004). The project builds on the assumption, central to the existing scholarship, that regime support is a multi-dimensional phenomenon. In measuring political support in the Baltic states between 1993 and 2004, the project distinguishes among support for the political community, support for democracy as a form of government, and approval of the regime's performance. The empirical validity of these analytical distinctions will be tested, using multiple operational indicators of political support. Consistent with the contemporary emphasis on the micro-foundations of macro-societal processes, the project seeks to identify individual-level determinants of regime support. Specifically, the project addresses a dominant theoretical controversy between cultural and neo-institutional (or rational choice) approaches. The cultural explanation regards political support as exogenous to the political system, arguing that trust in political institutions and incumbents is rooted in dominant cultural norms and individual socialization experiences. The institutional explanation, in contrast, argues that political trust reflects satisfaction with institutional performance and is, therefore, endogenous to the political system. Hypotheses derived from these theoretical perspectives are tested with individual-level data from the New Baltic Barometer (NBB), a cross-national survey study directed by Professor Richard Rose (University of Strathclyde, UK). The NBB is part of an ongoing programme of Barometer surveys monitoring mass response to transformation in 15 post-Communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. To date, there have been five rounds of the survey, with a sixth round coming up in 2004. Each round involved between 1000 and 2000 face-to-face interviews in each of the three Baltic countries. The research team will submit at least two manuscripts to high-ranking international peer-reviewed journals during each year of project funding. The anticipated results are significant both internationally and in the Estonian context. The project contributes to the construction of better theories, concepts, and operational measures of regime support and its determinants and makes a contribution to the literature by systematically testing existing theoretical propositions with new data. The results have potentially significant policy implications, adding an interesting bottom-up perspective to our understanding of the processes of democratization, transition and nation-building in Estonia and the other Baltic states. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Kadri Aas | University of Tartu | assistant | |
| 2. | Piret Ehin | University of Tartu, College of Europe | Vice Director | |
| 3. | Elina Seppet | Central European University | ||
| 4. | Allan Sikk | University of Tartu | Research Fellow | |