ABSTRACT

This chapter explores some attitudes of political support which are relevant to the performance, quality, and survival of newly established democratic systems. We intend to explore the existing relationships among these attitudes and their distinctive effects on one basic element that define the nature of the relationship between citizens and the state: the political intermediation processes. Relevant attitudes towards democracy are of several different kinds, and may have differing but significant impacts on democratic performance. This is especially so for newly established democracies. Mass-level attitudes supporting democracy are often regarded as the bedrock of democratic stability and an important ingredient for the functioning of a healthy democracy, and much of the literature on democratic consolidation therefore places considerable emphasis on the establishment and dissemination of democratic attitudes and values (e.g. Linz and Stepan 1996: 6; and Przeworski et al. 1995: 59). In the following pages we present a detailed analysis of various attitudes towards democracy and some of its consequences in seven democratic systems that have emerged from the ‘Third Wave’ of democratization since the mid-1970s – in Bulgaria, Chile, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay.