The previous five chapters have sought to investigate the degree to which citizens control their rulers in Eastern Europe. The results are cause for both optimism and concern. On the positive side, citizens are not loathe to throw governments out of office and they usually do so for cause. Similarly, there is good evidence that, even between elections, politicians pay attention to public opinion when making policy choices. On the other hand, voters may punish governments too consistently, thereby removing their incentives to perform well. More problematic is the failure of parties to present clear and distinctive programs in campaigns and to follow through on them.

It remains to ask what is behind these results. What explains the type and strength of popular control in Eastern Europe? Why does democratic quality take the forms that it does? These questions are important if one cares about producing high-quality democracies. Although improving mass–elite linkages is not the only or necessarily even the most important goal in these countries, there are good reasons for desiring greater popular rule (see Section 1.3). Even if strong linkages produce bad policies, as some have argued, it is important to know what causes strong linkages in order to get better outcomes.

This chapter puts forward five explanations for quality. They attribute the strength of linkages to socioeconomic modernization, civil society, political institutions, authoritarian legacies, and transition constraints.