Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- 1 The Legitimacy Puzzles
- 2 The Structure of Legitimacy
- 3 Countries in the Study
- 4 The Sources of Political Legitimacy
- 5 Legitimacy and Political Participation
- 6 Legitimacy and Negative Political Capital
- 7 Legitimacy and Democratic Values
- 8 The Sky Is Not Falling: The Puzzle Solved
- Appendix A Supporting Data and Analyses for Chapters 1–5
- Appendix B Variables Used in the Analyses
- Appendix C System-level Performance Measures
- Appendix D Nonsampling Errors, Sampling Errors, and Design Effects for the Eight-Nation Survey
- Appendix E Method of Constructing the Legitimacy Factor Scores
- References
- About the Authors
- Index
8 - The Sky Is Not Falling: The Puzzle Solved
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- 1 The Legitimacy Puzzles
- 2 The Structure of Legitimacy
- 3 Countries in the Study
- 4 The Sources of Political Legitimacy
- 5 Legitimacy and Political Participation
- 6 Legitimacy and Negative Political Capital
- 7 Legitimacy and Democratic Values
- 8 The Sky Is Not Falling: The Puzzle Solved
- Appendix A Supporting Data and Analyses for Chapters 1–5
- Appendix B Variables Used in the Analyses
- Appendix C System-level Performance Measures
- Appendix D Nonsampling Errors, Sampling Errors, and Design Effects for the Eight-Nation Survey
- Appendix E Method of Constructing the Legitimacy Factor Scores
- References
- About the Authors
- Index
Summary
We began this book with a puzzle, and we conclude by proffering a solution to it that works for eight Latin American nations. In Chapter 1 we wondered why so few advanced industrial democracies have broken down even though a raft of studies has both argued that legitimacy is critical for the survival of democracy and shown empirically that levels of legitimacy are declining in many countries. This anomaly between legitimacy theory and its failure to predict outcomes led us to speculate either that the theory has been faulty or partly so, or that the measurement of legitimacy has been at least partly faulty, or both. We set out to solve this puzzle by designing a research project that would, we hoped, allow us to understand the issues and point toward some clear solutions. In successive chapters we drew upon the work of others and added some ideas and findings of our own that allowed us to lay out partial answers to the puzzles. We conclude by reviewing what we have found (and how we have found it) so that we can, finally, offer our best solution to the legitimacy puzzle.
Our research design built upon but also differed from prior work in this area. Until recently most studies of legitimacy had been conducted in advanced industrial democracies. This does not reflect some sort of failure of the discipline.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Legitimacy Puzzle in Latin AmericaPolitical Support and Democracy in Eight Nations, pp. 221 - 264Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009