Mémoire
| Résumé : | The following contribution seeks to explain the variation in the quality of democracy seen across the postcommunist countries of Central and Eastern Europe since their initial transitions from authoritarianism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After introducing this phenomenon, I give a brief overview of the main traditions within the existing research on the determinants of democratic quality, ranging from structural, to political-institutional, external factors, and attitudinal approaches. Ultimately, I dedicate the main thrust of my investigation to applying theories found within the attitudinal and external factors approaches to the case of Central and Eastern Europe. Specifically, I test whether satisfaction with national democratic institutions is a determinant of subsequent democratic quality (the basic ‘congruence’ theory), or whether the inverse is true, as well as whether the European Union bears an influence on democratic quality through the accession process. To perform these tests, I construct four series of pooled Ordinary Least Squares and fixed effects regression models using data from the Varieties of Democracy Institute, the World Bank, and both the Standard and Candidate Countries Eurobarometers, covering fifteen countries in Central and Eastern Europe between the years 2001 and 2019. On the basis of these models, I find little evidence to support the basic congruence theory of democratic quality, instead finding that alternatives such as the ‘democratic demand’ theory may be more accurate in the case of Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, I find that democratic quality seems to have a greater causal effect on institutional satisfaction than vice versa, while the EU appears to bring some influence to bear on democratic quality in candidate countries, as well as in member states. |
