POSTMODERNIZATION BRINGS DECLINING RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY BUT RISING SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRACY

Ronald Inglehart

University of Michigan

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

Introduction The Postmodern phase of development leads to declining respect for authority among the publics of advanced industrial society-- but at the same time, it gives rise to growing support for democracy. This phenomenon has contributed to declining trust in government in the United States and other advanced industrial societies. Governing has become more difficult than it used to be: the tendency to idealize authority that characterized societies of scarcity has given way to the more critical and demanding publics of Postmodern societies. Authority figures and hierarchical institutions are subjected to more searching scrutiny than they once were. But does this mean that people are losing confidence in democratic institutions? The analysis presented here indicates that the answer is an unequivaocal No. On the contrary, the same publics that are becoming increasingly critical of hierarchical authority, are also becoming increasingly resistant to authoritarian government, more interested in political life, and more apt to play an active role in politics. Although hierarchical political parties are losing control over their electorates, and elite-directed forms of participation such as voting are stagnant or declining, elite-challenging forms of participation are becoming more widespread, as Inglehart (1997) has demonstrated. And though they tend to distrust political authority and big government, the publics of advanced industrial societies value democracy more, not less, than the publics of economically less secure societies. In the Eastonian terms used by Klingemann and Dalton elsewhere in this book, respect for the political authorities is generally declining in advanced industrial societies; but support for democratic regimes is rising. These changes do not undermine democracy; they tend to make it more secure. But these changes do make life more difficult for the governing elites. During the past forty years, a massive decline in trust in government has taken place among the U.S. public. This phenomenon has given rise to a good deal of scholarly discussion (for an earlyview, see Miller,1974; for more recent ones, see Craig, 1993 and Nye, Zelikow and King eds., 1997). But there is sharp disagreement about why it has occurred. Has the public become fed up with the waste and ineffectiveness of Big Government? Has the public's sense of entitlement grown to the point where it outstrips anything government can realistically do, as Samuelson (1995) argues? Or are today's politicians more corrupt than ever before? While there is little evidence that today’s politicians are more corrupt or less competent than previous ones, there are some indications that the growth of government has reached natural limits and people are less likely to see government as the solution to their problems. But this paper argues that the decline of trust in government has roots that go beyond these factors. It reflects a pervasive decline in deference to authority that is taking place throughout advanced industrial society.

1 Norris (1997) has pointed out some seemingly contradictory findings in this area. Thus, while Dalton (1996) and Inglehart (1997) argue that public confidence in authority is undergoing a secular decline due to cultural changes, Klingemann and Fuchs (1995), Kaase and Newton (1995) and Miller and Listhaug (1990) find trendless fluctuations in support for the political system; and various other authors find substantial cross-national differences in political support (Morlino and Montero, 1995; White, Rose and McAllister, 1997; Evans and Whitehead, 1995; Booth and Seligson, 1994). Examined more closely, these findings are not contradictory. First, substantial cross- national differences in trust levels, and substantial short-term fluctuations are perfectly compatible with a long term decline in respect for authority. For, as Inglehart (1997) points out, the underlying value changes are only one of several factors involved. As one would expect (and as the literature on political economy has amply demonstrated) when a society is experiencing economic or political collapse, the public’s ratings of their authorities and institutions plummet; when conditions improve, the ratings rise. We can confidently expect that we will always find cross-national variation and fluctuations over time. Reality counts and, in important part, these ratings reflect differences in objective conditions. Nevertheless, the U.S. is currently experiencing some of the lowest levels of confidence in government ever recorded-- despite the fact that current economic and political conditions are relatively good. Unemployment is at the lowest level in 25 years, inflation is moderate, economic growth is high, crime rates have been falling and the U.S. is unchallenged as the sole remaining superpower. If objective conditions were the only thing that mattered, we would expect trust in government to be at an all time high—but in fact, it is at an all time low. How can this have happened? As we will demonstrate, the standards by which the people evaluate authority have gradually changed. But what about the findings of trendless fluctuation? The most important variable underlying these trend analyses is based on the question, “Are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied or not at all satisfied with the way democracy is functioning in (respondent’s country)?” This question was first asked in the 1973 European Community survey, and was used repeatedly in subsequent Eurobarometers and other surveys; an exceptionally large body of time series data is available. But this is a hybrid question. It refers to “democracy,” and in so far as the responses are evaluations of democracy, we would expect to find a rising trend, not a falling trend over time. As Inglehart (1990, 1997) has argued, economic development tends to bring rising support for democracy; we concur with the authors of Citizens and the State (Klingemann and Fuchs, eds., 1995) that support for democracy has not eroded over time. But this question also taps support for the current incumbents. This is evident from the fact that “satisfaction with the way democracy is functioning in this country” fluctuates dramatically with economic conditions: during recessions, satisfaction falls; with economic recovery, it rises again. The fact that this variable taps satisfaction with the authorities currently in power is also demonstrated by the fact that when a government of the Left is in power, repondents who place themselves on the Left show higher levels of satisfaction; and when a government of the Right is in power, respondents who place themselves on the Right show higher levels of satisfaction. In so far as people are evaluating how things are currently functioning in their country, this is a rating of the authorities in office at the time. And we would expect ratings of the incumbent authorities to show short term fluctuations, coupled with a gradual long term downward trend.

2 2 There are two reasons why no clear downward trend has observed in the EuroBarometer data. First, any tendency for people to be increasingly critical of the authorities in their country tends to be offset by the fact that the other half of the hybrid variable used in these surveys, taps support for democracy-- which should be rising. And secondly, this time series begins in the Fall of 1973, during the most severe economic recession of recent decades. This tends to mask any long term downward trend. If the U.S. time series on trust in the federal government had started at that point, it would not show a significant downward trend either-- although the full time series, from the 1950s to the present, makes that trend unmistakably clear. Despite these facts, in the 1993 Eurobarometer surveys, “satisfaction with the way democracy is functioning in your country” showed by far the lowest level ever recorded. This drop in satisfaction was linked with a recession, and it recovered with subsequent economic recovery. But the fact remains that in 1993, for the first time ever, dissatisfaction was much more widespread than satisfaction. This had never before been observed—not even during the recession of 1973-75, which was considerably more severe than the recession of 1993. Although the EuroBarometer time series is only half as long as the series available for the U.S.-- and although it begins at an economic low point-- the evidence suggests that here, too, the publics of advanced industrial societies are beginning to evaluate their authorities by more critical standards than in the past. When we examine evaluations of respect for authority in unmixed form, rather than with the EuroBarometer surveys’ hybrid variable, we obtain unambiguous results. Findings from the World Values Surveys, carried out from 1981 through 1997, clearly points to declining deference to authority. [content deleted]

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