Political support in the five Yugoslav successor states in the mid-1990s : a comparative analysis

Abstract

Popular support for the political system is thought of as one of the basic pillars of democratic systems. Concerns about political support may be even more important for systems moving from an authoritarian to a democratic form of government. This thesis draws upon the theoretical work of David Easton on the concept of political support. We use, however, a new fivefold conceptualisation of political support proposed by the contributors to Critical Citizen edited by Pippa Norris. Thus we distinguish between support for the political community, the regime principles, the political regime, the political institutions, and the political actors. This framework is used to describe and explore political support in the mid-1990s in the five Yugoslav successor states: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Macedonia. First the overall level of support in the five countries is described. We then investigate, by using regression analysis, the sources of political support across the five countries at the micro-level. Finally, we test macro-level theories developed for explaining between-country differences in support. The results show a high level of support for the political community and the democracy as an ideal form of government in all five countries. This is contrasted with a low to medium support for the current political regime, the political institutions, and the political actors. The analyses at the micro-level show that the most important sources of support for the political community and the regime principles were individual socialisation. When measuring support for the regime, the institutions, and the incumbent authorities, socialisation was less important than current evaluations of government performance. The results of the macro-level analyses confirmed that economic, political and social policy outputs all were related to support in the five countries. The importance of the macro-level performance indicators varied, however, according to the level of support under consideration. Most importantly, howevere, is that social policy outputs have to be included into the analyses as they seem to have a significant impact upon the aggregated level of support in the five countries.