Critical Citizens: Attitudes towards Democracy in Indonesia and Malaysia

Abstract

In recent years much has been said about how new democracies are backsliding or have regressed since the turn of the century when hope and optimism about the future spread of democracy was widespread. However, ideas that democracy would spread were based on institutional and governance indicators rather than from the perspective of everyday citizens. When we look at public attitudes towards democracy during this period, we can see that such optimism was perhaps misplaced or premature. Drawing on findings from the AsiaBarometer and the World Values Survey, this research finds that public attitudes during this time were not overly convinced by democracy and certainly not yet satisfied with their government's performance in terms of providing basic democratic freedoms and independence.

The Paradox of Administrative Decentralization Reform in Young Asian Democracies: South Korea and Indonesia

“…In these circumstances, a government cannot be free from the people's criticism. As this criticism intensifies, democratic reform is unlikely to succeed, because any reform project cannot be successful without the support of citizens (Pietsch and Clark 2015). Second, and more practically, this study underlines the strong need to introduce a preventive policy paradigm in democratic reform policies, including decentralization.…”

“…Se adoptó un enfoque de estrategia múltiple, que incluyó una entrevista en profundidad y la recopilación de datos secundarios, con el fin de mejorar la validez y la fiabilidad del estudio. People in newly democratized countries often view democracy in terms of prosperity, peace, and stability (Pietsch and Clark 2015), and have "illusions" that democratization will bring them closer to these values. Accordingly, young democratic governments proceed with democratic reforms to eliminate the legacies of the past and spread democratic principles within their country.…”

Electoral integrity matters: how electoral process conditions the relationship between political losing and political trust

“…Modeling the dependent variable latently in a structural equation model (instead of, for example, using a summative index or factor scores) allows to account for the different weight of each of the four indicators as well as for measurement error (Meuleman 2019). Institutional confidence is a commonly used measure of political trust in both democratic and autocratic contexts (e.g., Chen 2017;Dalton 2004;Hooghe, Dassonneville, and Marien 2015;Moehler 2009;Pietsch and Clark 2015). By combining confidence in four different institutions, the measure captures institutions of the legislative, executive, and judiciary as well as political and implementing institutions.…”

When Does a Newborn Democracy Fail? Evidence from South Korea’s Second Democratic Regime, 1960-1961

“…As public satisfaction largely depends on expectations and perceptions regarding what the government offers (Petrovsky, Mok and León-Cázares 2017), ineffectiveness cannot develop legitimacy (Huntington 1991) because it hardly satisfies citizens. In particular, considering that people in newly democratised countries have a strong tendency to view democracy in terms of prosperity, peace and stability, different from people living in established democracies (Pietsch and Clark 2015), sharing government performances with citizens is an important responsibility.…”