Does preference between having a strong economy or democracy depend on a country’s income level? Why do some countries value economic prosperity over democracy and others think democracy is much more important? Why do some countries put their faith in democratic governments and others in strong leaders? These are just some of the questions your are bound to ask yourself in looking at the recent Pew Global Attitudes Project study “The Pulse of Europe 2009: 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall.”
The study is essentially a follow up to the one conducted in 1991 when the command economies crumbled across the post-Soviet space. Some of the opinions expressed in the survey would be predictable while others are surprising. What is clear is that the picture of the successes of democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics is not as clear as one would hope.
As far as life satisfaction goes, it has improved in countries across the board, with levels much higher than those observed in 1991. Hungary and Bulgaria stand out as two countries with some of the lowest levels of high life satisfaction rates.
The median scores on the importance of democratic institutions and freedoms reveal that they are the lowest in Russia, Slovakia, and Lithuania. The highest – in Hungary and Bulgaria (note that, quite interestingly, it’s the same two countries mentioned in the paragraph above). Ukrainians and Lithuanians have the lowest scores for democracy being a good description of their country, while Czech Republic and Poland get the highest marks.
In this regard, we observe the biggest democracy gap (the difference in those who think democratic values are important for their country and that democratic principles describe the country well) in Hungary and the lowest democracy gap is in Russia. Of course, in Hungary its driven by the fact that a significant number of people thinks democracy is important (66%) but a very low number thinks it works well in the country (only 17%); while in Russia its more of an issue of different expectations – only 39% think democracy is very important and 18% thinks it works well.
The responses that captured my attention are on the preferences between having a strong economy and democracy. You can essentially draw a virtual line to divide countries and see that established democracies, such as France, Britain, and Italy value democracy more than a strong economy, while for transition economies of Eastern Europe it’s the opposite. Is support for democracy an issue of incomes? Do you have to reach as certain economic plateau before democracy becomes tangible?
The majority of the countries give preference to having democratic institutions over a strong leader, with three major exceptions – Russia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. Ukraine has the highest gap, with 69% expressing a preference for a strong leader over 20% retaining their faith in democratic governments. Most dissatisfied with the way democracy is working for them are citizens in Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Hungary. On the opposite end, citizens in Poland, Slovakia, and Czech Republic are most happy with their democracies’ outcomes.
The country with lowest support for moving from state-managed economic model to a free market economy? Ukraine! Alternatively, citizens polled in East Germany express the highest support for free markets.
There is more interesting data in the report – check it out for yourself at www.pewglobal.org
Published Date: November 03, 2009