WorldPublicOpinion.org has just released an interesting study. The poll of over 17,500 respondents was conducted in 19 nations around the world and examined attitudes toward democracy. The polled nations included China, India, the U.S., Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia – as well as Argentina, Azerbaijan, Britain, Egypt, France, Iran, Jordan, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, and the Palestinian Territories.
The key finding is that in all polled nations the majorities agree with the core democratic principle enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 21) that “the will of the people should be the basis for the authority of government.” Yet what Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, calls the objective features of democracy such as elections are not enough to create public trust in the government. Subjective features of democracy, such as perception that the government is responsive to its citizens, matter as much. The most substantive complaint visible across the board in this poll was precisely the low level of democratic responsiveness, testifying to the fact that the crucial part of democratic governance is how and to what extent citizens are given a voice in day-to-day policymaking.
The mean perceived level of how much influence the will of the people has on their government is well below the preferred level of how much influence it should have in every nation polled (4.5 vs. 8.0 on a 0-10 scale).
Published Date: May 14, 2008