Delegative Democratic Attitudes and Institutional Support in Central America

Sorting Out Support for Democracy: A Q‐Method Study

“…This name reflects O'Donnell's () seminal thesis that Latin American publics tend to grant leaders vast, nondemocratic powers when crisis strikes. Although Chile is remarkable for its lack of delegative patterns of governance despite the executive's exaggerated formal lawmaking powers (Siavelis, ), orientations of a similar hue are detected with Q sorts in the former Yugoslavia and Belarus (Dryzek & Holmes, ) and in public opinion data for Chile (Carlin, ) and elsewhere in Latin America (Gronke & Levitt, ; Walker, ). Strong liberal (#1, 2), unconditional (#4, 5), and committed (#11, 12) orientations to democratic governance are signature contradictions within the profile.…”

Rejection of a Manuscript and Career Resilience

“…The regime-type paper was published first and almost immediately. This paper was retitled as "Delegative Democratic Attitudes and Institutional Support in Central America"; it was published in Comparative Politics (Walker 2009). This paper established that individuals with delegative democratic attitudes evaluate institutions in a distinctive manner from liberal democrats and authoritarians.…”

Delegative democratic attitudes: Theory and evidence from the Asian barometer survey

“…Delegative democracy—a variant of the democratic regime—operates under a general principle that elected presidents govern their countries as they see fit, and their decrees substitute for legislation as the main source of policy (O’Donnell, 1994). Prevalent in developing democracies, delegative democratic attitudes do not support the legislature and judiciary because these institutions are unnecessary impediments to the authority that has been delegated to the presidents and their governments (Larkins, 1998; Walker, 2009).…”

“…Delegative democratic attitudes differ from (1) authoritarian attitudes, because delegative persons delegate the full authority to the president in free elections and from (2) liberal democratic attitudes, because delegative persons subordinate checks and balances to the policy preferences of the elected president (Larkins, 1998; O’Donnell, 1994). For instance, in a study of three Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua), Walker (2009) found that delegative democratic persons are more likely to use presidential performance as a yardstick for evaluating the legislature and judiciary than are liberal democratic persons. Because delegative democratic attitudes do not rigorously evaluate the legislature or judiciary, delegative persons tend to support these two institutions more than liberal persons.…”

“…Note that delegative democratic attitudes are known to impede the consolidation of democratic governance in new democracies. More specifically, a high level of support for unrestrained executive power—while contributing to the stability of the regime—reduces the horizontal institutional accountability that is necessary to consolidate democratic governance (Walker, 2009). Accordingly, examining delegative democratic attitudes in East Asia can give us a clue as to why many East Asian countries have yet to become fully consolidated democracies.…”