Winners, Losers, and Attitudes about Government in Contemporary Democracies

Abstract

The article compares the effect of political majority and minority status on attitudes toward government in mature and newly established democracies. Specifically, it examines whether being in the majority translates into more positive attitudes toward government than being in the minority. Using surveys conducted by the International Social Survey Project (ISSP) in 12 democracies in 1996, it finds that being in the majority generally translates into more positive attitudes toward government. However, this effect is not of uniform magnitude across countries, nor does it affect all attitudes toward government equally. Specifically, the data show that being in the political majority or minority strongly affects attitudes toward the performance of the political system and the power of government, but does not affect people's levels of political efficacy in systematic ways.