The quality of government determinants of support for democracy

This paper argues that in addition to “what democracies do,” “how democracies do it” produces an independent source of support for democracy. We argue that a high procedural quality of bureaucracy may promote support for democracy by diminishing the likelihood of the occurrence of cognitive dissonance between democracy as an ideal and the experienced. Furthermore, we expect the beneficial impact of a higher quality of government (QoG) to be more visible in younger democracies. We subject this claim to a multilevel empirical analysis with large n and N and across a considerable time span. The analysis reveals that higher QoG is linked with higher levels of diffuse support, and that this effect is stronger in younger democracies. The data are less supportive with respect to the positive impact of QoG on specific support, calling for further research into the matter.