What Citizens Want from Elections: Explaining the ‘Election Deficit’

Previous work has documented the ‘democratic deficit’, reflecting how far the perceived performance of democracy in any state diverges from public expectations (Norris 2011) . Building upon this framework, this new paper will focus upon understanding European expectations and evaluations of elections, as the core institutions linking citizens and the state. Following the previous study, in Part I several alternative theories will be discussed, emphasizing in more depth the process performance thesis. Part II outlines the evidence. Data on public opinion will be derived from the 6th European Social Survey conducted in 24 post-industrial societies in 2012/13, which contains a special battery of items monitoring both the ‘democratic deficit’, as measured previously by Norris (2011), well as measures of an equivalent ‘electoral deficit.’ Multilevel modelling will be employed to explain the ‘elections deficit’, in particular to test the expectation that gaps will usually be larger in countries where independent evidence suggests that recent national elections have failed to meet international standards of integrity. In this regard, the study draws upon a new body of evidence, derived from the expert rolling survey of Perceptions of Electoral Integrity (Release 3.0). (see electoralintegrityproject.com) The range of countries and regimes included in the European Social Survey (from Sweden and Switzerland to Hungary and Russia) facilitates comparison of elections which meet high standards, according to experts, as well as those with more serious flaws and malpractices, arising at different stages of the electoral cycle. Part III analyses the results and the conclusion summarizes the main findings and considers their implications for understanding theories of political culture and for challenges of electoral integrity. Note that the paper is by Pippa Norris and Ferran Martinez i Coma (Sydney University) but the online system refuses to accept his details. ferranmartinezcoma@sydney.edu.au