Citizens’ Perceptions of the Quality of Democracy in the American States (with Gregory Shufeldt)
Theories of democratic backsliding and erosion within Comparative Politics are increasingly applicable to the United States. According to national surveys, many Americans express concern about the direction and quality of democracy at the national level. As states chart their own course for election laws and administration, the quality of democracy can also vary significantly from state to state. How does this state variation manifest itself in public perceptions about the quality of democracy at the state level? Using two original surveys, we examine the relationship between citizens’ subjective evaluations of democratic performance in their state and demographic, political, and institutional forces. Citizens who identify with the political party that controls their state government have more positive evaluations, while Republicans (controlling for a litany of covariates) have more negative evaluations of state democratic performance. Strikingly, citizens’ perceptions are not related to an objective measure of state democratic performance even when primed with information about where their state ranks in a survey experiment. These findings suggest that assessments of democratic quality are yet another feature of American politics that has become politicized and polarized, with important implications for system support and legitimacy going forward.
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Democracy and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from Updated Global Data
Empirical studies to date on the political and institutional determinants of life satisfaction have been constrained by country sample size and timeframe. The Gallup World Poll now provides extensive coverage of countries and a long enough timeframe to allow for meaningful within-country evaluations as democratic performance ebbs and flows over time. Using these updated data, the analysis reveals that common measures of democracy focused on political rights and competitive elections appear unrelated to life satisfaction with a worldwide sample. Breaking down the quality of democracy into process and delivery using the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators also reveals no relationship. However, when the six indicators are tested individually, higher levels of government effectiveness in particular are related to more positive life evaluations using two-way fixed effects models and a variety of robustness checks. These findings provide new understanding about the relationship between democratic governance and quality of life.
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State Government Control and Partisan Happiness
Does politics impact happiness? This paper evaluates how being a political “winner” or “loser” – whether one’s preferred party controls government or not – is linked to multiple measures of life satisfaction. Using Gallup survey data on self-reported well-being for Democrats and for Republicans within the U.S. states for 2008-2016 (a time period when party control of government changed in several states) and a difference-in-difference model with two-way fixed effects, I find consistent evidence that citizens report lower levels of well-being when the opposing party controls state government. The substantive effect is particularly large for Democrats living in Republican controlled states. Conversely, there is little evidence that citizens’ well-being is boosted when their own party controls state government. These findings have important implications for our understanding about how partisan competition and election outcomes can impact subjective well-being and further highlight the significance of negative partisanship for American public opinion.