Dr Olar publishes data analysis of democratic support in Democratization

Do democratic transitions affect citizens’ subsequent support for democracy? This latest study, written in collaboration with Dr Anja Neundorf of the University of Glasgow, proposes that the type of democratic transition (citizen-centered vs elite-centered) shapes citizens’ support for democracy through the investment created by citizen participation in the transition and the expectations this generates about the future under democracy.

This paper offered novel theoretical propositions and systematic empirical evidence of how citizens’ lived experience through a democratic transition impacts their support for democracy in the long term. 

Published in Democratization, 96th percentile publication, it builds on existing arguments about the role of lived experience of democracy and regime performance as drivers of democratic support as well as democratic transitions as historical events in determining the legacies of democratic regimes.  The paper is the first one to go beyond theoretical work, anecdotal evidence, or single case studies. It provides a first test of this relationship in a global comparative empirical framework that allowed Dr Olar and Dr Neundorf to draw generalizable inferences on the effect of transition type on support for democracy.

The results show that transition events that exclude citizens by default and diminish their input into historical events that bring democracy depress long-term support for democracy. The study finds less support for the opposite contention, that citizen-centered transitions are more conducive to long-term democratic support. Also the results show that this negative effect cannot be entirely overcome by better regime performance in the provision of public services. Better economic performance, redistribution, and control of corruption seem to matter more in mediating the effect of the transition type, while improvements in civil liberties have only a marginal, negligible effect.