Political Institutions and Political Efficacy
Jeremy F. Duff
Department of Political Science
Michigan State University
(duffjere@msu.edu)
January 7, 2005
Prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association,
New Orleans, Louisiana, January 6-January 8, 2005. The author would like to graciously thank
Brian Silver for his helpful comments and advice during this project, as well as Yael Shomer and
Michael Crespin for their help in times of trouble. I would also like to acknowledge the
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project at the University of Michigan for publicly
archiving their recent micro and macro datasets, which were used as the empirical basis of this
paper. Data and codebooks are available at www.umich.edu/~nes/cses/cses.htm.
Abstract
This paper seeks to explain political efficacy among citizens within political systems on a
comparative level within an institutional context. I argue that efficacy is a function of the types
of democratic institutions that are in place across countries. Institutions that provide easier
access, or more specifically, more direct access to public officials and governmental agencies
will produce higher levels of efficacy within the citizenry. I evaluate efficacy at the external
regime-based level (Shingles 1988) using data on twenty-five democratic countries from the
2003 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems micro-level data set. By analyzing the data with
an ordered-probit model I find that institutional arrangements do matter in determining the
efficacy levels of citizens and in almost every case in the theoretical direction predicted. These
findings indicate that efficacy may be a function of the institutional arrangements within
democratic regimes, and points to future research that shows these efficacy levels may lead to
higher or lower levels of system support.
2
To me, voting is the thing, the right to put in the guy you want—that’s the big thing
--Quoted in Robert E. Lane, 1962. Political Life: How and Why People get Involved in Politics
Easton (1965) argued that the stability and durability of a democratic system was reliant
on the ability of that system to produce adequate levels of diffuse and specific support among the
citizens. Specific support is based upon a type of rational calculus. Specific support is given or
not given depending upon whether a political object can produce effects that are considered by
the populace, or individual, as beneficial to one's self or group. Diffuse support is affective.
Support is based upon simple but powerful feelings of like or dislike for a political object
(Kornberg 1990).
Political efficacy can shape both of these types of support and is thought to be a key
indicator of the overall health of democratic systems (Craig, Niemi, and Silver 1990). Efficacy
may act in a causal role creating support for the political regime (Easton and Dennis 1967).
Citizens in a democracy should feel that collectively, and sometimes individually, they can have
an effect on their governance. In a democracy, the individual's assessment of whether or not
citizens have any influence in politics "becomes in effect an assessment of whether or not a
definitive feature of the regime is intact" (Madsen 1978, 868). Therefore, political efficacy has
played an important role in democratic theory and political research (Almond and Verba 1963;
Macpherson 1977; Pateman 1970). However, a theoretical framework involving the broader
constitutional context for explaining political efficacy has been underdeveloped (Stewart et al.
1992). Therefore, here, I examine the degree to which types of governmental institutions within
democratic regimes affect the levels of political efficacy experienced by the citizens within these
systems.
3
Initially defined as "the feeling that individual political action does have, or can have, an
impact on the political process, i.e., that it is worthwhile to perform one's civic duties," the
definition of political efficacy has expanded to include facets of internal and external efficacy
(Campbell, Gurin, and Miller 1954, 187; Lane 1959). Internal efficacy refers to an individual's
feelings about himself. It deals with one's own competence to understand and participate
effectively within the political system. External efficacy refers to one's beliefs about the
responsiveness of government officials and institutions to the demands of the individual (Miller,
Miller and Schneider 1980; Converse 1972; Balch 1974).
If people feel efficacious then they ascribe to themselves the ability to communicate to
political actors their wants, needs, and in turn, believe that political actors will respond to these
requests. At the same time, if these wants and needs are responded to and met, not only does this
intensify that person's feelings of efficacy, but it may also lead to positive feelings towards the
political system in general or specifically to the political actor that responded positively.
Subsequently, this leads to a division of external efficacy into two levels: regime-based and
incumbent-based. Regime-based efficacy (RBE) is specific to institutions. It involves a feeling
that "conventional rules and procedures for policy formation and implementation facilitate rather
than impede citizen inputs" (Shingles 1988, 7). Incumbent-based efficacy (IBE) is specific to
current government officials. It is defined in terms of beliefs about the motivation and the ability
of incumbents to respond to citizen demands" (Shingles 1988, 5).
Following this line of thought, I seek to explain external, regime-based efficacy in the
context of different institutional frameworks within constitutional democracies. Different
institutions provide citizens with different levels of access to and responsiveness from
government, and therefore, should shape how effective individuals feel within the political
4
system. Using data on 25 countries from the 2003 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, I
compare countries based upon seven specific institutional indicators: (1) the political rights and
civil liberties they ascribe to their citizens; (2) whether they are presidential or parliamentary; (3)
to what level they create more electoral winners or losers; (4) whether they operate under a
federal system or unitary system; (5) if voters vote for lower house elections in local electoral
districts/counties or on a national level; (6) the effective number of political parties within the
system; and (7) whether members of the lower house are elected by a majority/plurality standard,
proportional standard, or mixed. To control for arguments made by Madsen (1978), I include
measures of economic development by coding for per capita GDP within the country and time,
using the log of years of democratic experience within the country. The measure was copied
directly from Madsen (1978) by coding for the number of years since the “founding date of the
constitutional order in place at the time of the efficacy measurement" (876).
Measuring Efficacy
The dependent variable, political efficacy is measured using a single item from the CSES
micro-level data set, which is coded on a five-point scale1. The question asks respondents to
place themselves on the five-point scale with five being coded as the respondent feeling that who
people vote for will not make a difference, and one being coded as the respondent feeling that
who people vote for will make a difference. These responses were recoded in order that high
efficacy responses would receive a rating of five, and low efficacy responses would receive a
rating of one.
1
Exact Question Wording: “Some people say that no matter who people vote for, it won't make any difference to
what happens. Others say that who people vote for can make a difference to what happens. Using the scale on this
card, (where ONE means that voting won't make a difference to what happens and FIVE means that voting can
make a difference), where would you place yourself?”
5
The CSES asks two separate questions that at first appear to also tap efficacy. The first
asks respondents if they believe that political parties care what people think. The respondent is
asked to place himself on a five-point scale in which high numbers indicate the respondent feels
political parties do care, and low numbers indicate the respondent feels that political parties do
not care. The second asks respondents to place themselves on a five point scale indicating if they
feel that politicians know what people think. Higher numbers indicate that the respondent feels
that politicians do know what people think, and lower numbers indicate that the respondent feels
that politicians do not know what people think. I chose not to use these questions for the
following reasons.
First, in order to establish a link between institutional structure and efficacy, one must be
certain that the measure being used to evaluate efficacy is not contaminated by respondents'
feelings towards current incumbent members of government. The measure for efficacy must
distinguish between incumbent-based efficacy (IBE) and regime-based efficacy (RBE). In order
to compare types of institutions and evaluate the levels of efficacy amongst the citizens that
operate under those institutions, it is important the efficacy measure assumes that citizens can
differentiate between the rules and procedures that determine citizen access to government and
the actual responsiveness of incumbents themselves (Craig, Niemi, and Silver 1990). Craig,
Niemi, and Silver (1990) found that the NES measure of VOTESAY2 is not altogether
independent of incumbency-based evaluations; however, the item is noticeably less contaminated
by incumbency than any of the other RBE measures used by the NES (299). Therefore, at least
2
The NES question is stated: "Voting is an effective way for people to have a say about what the government does."
While the question asked by the CSES is not specifically the same question, I argue that the two questions are
tapping the same responses amongst the respondents. Both questions ask if the respondent believes that their vote is
effective.
6
for the purposes of this paper, the measure is considerably more independent of incumbency
influences then the two questions discussed here.
Secondly, if this research did wish to evaluate incumbent-based efficacy, Craig, Niemi,
and Silver (1990) argue that incumbent-based trust (IBT) and incumbent-based efficacy are
difficult to separate. "In a democratic culture where the norms of citizen participation and
governmental responsiveness are widely valued, it may be impossible to distinguish empirically
between IBT and IBE because the two are so often seen as part of the same package" (300). We
see here that these two questions ask respondents to evaluate, to some degree, the responsiveness
of public officials. If respondents are not able to distinguish between their feelings of trust
towards politicians and their feelings of effectiveness within the political system, then these two
items are contaminated by measuring political trust and political efficacy at the same time. In
reality, the level of trustworthiness an individual places in his/her public officials may have a
direct effect on how efficacious that individual feels within the political system. However, it is
easy to believe that in some cases, individuals may also feel very effective within the political
system, regardless of how much trust they have in their public officials. In this situation, an
individual with low levels of trust and high levels of efficacy would simply attempt to "vote the
rascals out." For purposes of this paper, then, it is necessary that the questions distinguish
between IBT and IBE, and as Craig, Niemi, and Silver (1990) argue, these two questions do not.
They conclude by arguing what is important is that respondent's answers to questions that ask
whether politicians care about or know what people think has little to do with beliefs about one's
own competence as a political actor (294).
According to Lane (1962), "the electoral process tends inevitably to give the voter a sense
of importance, a sense that he is influential. After all, he is told this by the candidates and he can
7
see that, for each candidate, he has something to exchange that the candidate wants—his vote"
(165-166). Lane quotes one of the individuals he interviewed, "To me, voting is the thing, the
right to put in the guy you want—that's the big thing" (166). In this sense, the feeling that one's
vote matters, or that votes in general matter, is part of the quintessential definition of external,
regime-based efficacy. In a democratic society, voting can be seen as the most important method
that citizens use to change government. Therefore, measuring respondents' opinions on whether
or not they think votes matter should be a legitimate quantification of political efficacy.
Winners and Losers
The first institutional variable deals with electoral winners and losers. The “Home
Team” hypothesis has had some pertinent discussion at least in literature dealing with Europe
(Holmberg 1999). The idea here is that political trust is affected by which party or parties
control the parliament. Citizens who voted for parties that control or have significant influence
in parliamentary government are going to have higher levels of trust in public officials than those
who voted for parties that have less or no influence in parliament. In short, those on the home
team are going to be more trusting then those who are not. It is relatively easy to carry this
hypothesis over to a discussion of efficacy. Following the same logic, I argue that citizens who
vote for controlling or influential parties are going to feel more attached to the government and
therefore, show higher levels of efficacy.
It is equally important to note that by controlling for winners and losers, I am able to
control for the incumbent-based external efficacy discussed earlier. If citizens, at least
subconsciously, define themselves as winners or losers, based upon the electoral outcomes of the
candidates or party lists they vote for, then their feelings of effectiveness towards government
are going to be influenced by the specific members that are in office. This would be a direct
8
explanation of incumbent-based efficacy, absent of at least a direct effect of the regime-based
efficacy. However, it may be argued that at a broader level, institutions that provide their
citizens with more opportunities to be a winner than a loser may experience higher levels of
efficacy among their citizens. This would then confound the winners and losers measure as both
an indicator of regime-based efficacy and incumbent-based efficacy. In this case, however, by
controlling for PR, mixed, and plurality/majority SMD systems, I account for the inclusion of
regime-based efficacy in the winners and losers measure. As argued later, proportional systems
as opposed to plurality/majority systems should provide citizens with more chances to be
winners; therefore, we should expect efficacy levels to be higher in PR systems.
The CSES data provides a list of parties that participated in elections during the years the
study was undertaken, as well the percentages of the vote received by the top vote receiving
parties for the lower house in each of the countries. The data also provides information on the
party voted for in the lower house elections by each respondent. Norris (1999) codes winners
and losers as whether or not the respondent voted for a party that forms part of the government.
This measure does not account for the differing degree in which parties have control over the
government. Parties that make up a voting majority are obviously going to have a much stronger
effect on legislation then those that do not. Therefore, citizens who voted for parties that make
up a larger percent of the government may feel that since they associate themselves with the
dominant party, they then have more say in government then people who voted for a minority
party that in some systems may not be able to accomplish anything policy wise. To account for
this, I looked at the party supported by the respondent and then established whether or not that
party was in the top six of the vote receiving parties. If so, then the respondent was coded from 1
to 6 varying on whether the respondent voted for the top vote receiving party and then on down
9
the list. If a respondent did not vote for a party that was included in the top six, they were scored
as a zero (loser). This allows for varying degrees of winners, therefore, controlling for the
differing levels of influence parties have in government. To duplicate Norris’ (1999) measure, I
also coded whether or not respondents voted for a top six vote receiving party, and coded those
that did as a one and those that did not as a zero. This will test whether Norris’ (1999) measure
indeed does lack in accounting for the varying degrees of control parties influence over
government. When Norris' measure is included in the analysis the variable is statistically
insignificant.
Political Rights and Civil Liberties
Within democracies, we should expect to find countries that allow citizens more freedom
and liberties within the political system should experience higher levels of efficacy among their
citizens. The Freedom House Index (FHI) monitors countries world-wide on an annual basis on
political rights, considering whether elections are free and fair, whether people have the right to
organize competing parties, and whether minority groups have reasonable participation in the
decision making process. The FHI monitors countries for civil liberties based upon whether
there is a free and independent media, whether there is protection from political terror, and
whether there is freedom of religion (McColm 1991). Political rights and civil liberties are
measured on a seven-point scale. The mean combined score of political rights and civil liberties
is used for evaluation here. Countries considered free by the FHI are coded from 1 to 2.5;
countries that were considered moderately free by the FHI, were coded from 3-5.5, and countries
considered not free were coded from 5.5-7. Here I use the evaluation of a country the year prior
to the election included in the CSES data.
10
Presidential vs. Parliamentary Systems
Parliamentarism is considered a feature of Lijphart's consensual democracy because it
represents a "collegial" rule versus single-person rule (Lijphart 1999). Linz (1990) argues that
presidentialism with a weak legislature exhibits executive stability, greater control of the masses,
and more limited government. However, a presidential system suffers from executive-legislative
deadlock, temporal rigidity, and winner-take-all government. In contrast, parliamentary systems
are said to reverse these pros and cons. According to the qualifications made by Linz and
Lijphart, I expect to find that parliamentary systems, due to their more inclusive nature, should
experience higher levels of efficacy among their citizens then presidential systems. Citizens in
parliamentary systems in which political parties whether large or small have more stake in the
policy making process should feel more connected to government then citizens from presidential
systems with their winner-take-all characteristics.
Democracies are categorized by Lijphart's (1992) three-part definition. The head of
government in presidential systems has a fixed term of office. In parliamentary systems, the
head of government is dependent upon the confidence of the legislature. Presidents are elected.
Prime ministers are selected by the legislature. Lastly, presidents have one-person, non-collegial
executives, while parliamentary systems have collective executives.
Effective Number of Political Parties
Parties continue to be the bridge between citizens and the government. "The presence of
multiple parties able to organize and effectively compete for representation in the national
legislature is evidence of a system that favors opportunities for representation and participation"
(Dowley and Silver 2002). According to this logic, I expect that countries whose institutional
features allow for a greater number of political parties to participate in the electoral process will
11
provide for more citizens to feel effective within the political system. The presence of multiple
parties may accord citizens the perception that they have a voice in governmental decisions.
Conversely, Weil (1989) argues that party fragmentation or polarization is congruent with low
levels of democratic support. In other words, hyper-pluralism may lead to disaffection with the
political system by citizens who feel there are too many competing view points confounding the
ability of the government to reach consensus on policy issues. This would then lead to a belief
that one's voice in the political system is being drowned out by everyone else's.
In order to compare party systems, I use the Laasko and Taagpera (1979) index which
estimates the effective number of parties in parliament, or ENPP, which is based upon seat
shares in the lower house. The benefits of using the ENPP measure, is that it allows for the
differing degrees in which parties have control or influence in the government. Many countries
have multiple numbers of political parties that participate in elections. However, by using a
measure that simply counts the number of parties within a system, one assumes that each party
has the same effect on policy outcomes. By using the ENPP measure, one is able to account for
the fact that some parties have an enormous amount of influence on the policy process, while
some may have little if any influence.
Sartori's (1976) discussion yields four types of party systems: predominant one party
systems, characterized by the existence of one dominant party which consistently wins a majority
of seats; two-party systems, which exhibit a few number of parties with small ideological
distance; moderate pluralism consists of a multiple number of parties with small ideological
distance; and polarized pluralism, characterized by an extreme number of parties with large
ideological distance. Norris (1999) argues that countries with predominant one-party
government provide a political system in which citizens feel it is extremely difficult to use
12
elections as an opportunity to replace those within the system with which they are dissatisfied.
At the same time, she argues that extremely fragmented party systems are "characterized by
ideological polarization, weak and unstable coalition governments, and bidding wars" (224-225).
In contrast, she contends that systems with a few broadly defined and centrist parties are better
placed to aggregate interests into broad social and ideological coalitions (225). Based upon
Norris' (1999) and Weil's (1989) arguments, I should expect to find systems that are one-party or
two-party dominant or extreme multi-party, hyper-pluralist systems to produce lower levels of
efficacy among citizens than systems that are moderate multi-party.
Federal vs. Unitary
Norris (1999) argues that federalist states should produce higher levels of system support
than unitary states. Based upon Elazar's (1997) argument that federalism manages to
accommodate simultaneously the needs of different regions and different groups in the
electorate, whereas unitary states allow less flexibility and produce more losers in the system,
efficacy should be higher in states that are federalist. Losers within a political system can be
defined two different ways. The first type, who I have called the electoral loser, is mentioned
earlier; a citizen who voted for a candidate or political party that does not make up part of the
legislative body. The second type, the social loser, is that individual who feels the government
is not providing him with the programs or services that they need. According to Elazar (1997),
these social losers should feel that since the government is not attached to them, they in turn are
not attached to the government, and therefore cannot be effective.
Federal systems formally divide governmental functions in order to disperse political
power and to promote citizen participation and public accountability (Beam, Conlan, and Walker
1983, 253-356). Citizens that have a federal system in which they have local governments they
13
can contact and confront when they feel they have been wronged or not provided the necessary
services they feel should come from government are going to feel that since they have someone
local to contact, they can be effective. Conversely, those citizens who feel they are detached
from the national government because it is viewed as this distant national entity that is
uneducated on what goes on in the lives of everyday citizens, and congruently feel they have no
one local to confront with their political problems, will feel less effective.
Districts
Building on Miller and Stokes (1963) who found that constituency influences had a
strong effect on the voting behavior of Members of Congress in the United States, I argue here
that citizens in systems which are divided into districts or local electoral constituencies, in which
to vote for members of the lower house, are going to feel more attached and therefore feel they
have more power to influence the member's decisions than those citizens who vote nationally, or
for national party lists. While this may be tapping incumbent-based efficacy, this argument
could be extended to include an extension of Downs (1957). If voters take into account Downs'
calculus of voting, then they may feel as if their vote has more of an effect in smaller
constituencies compared to large national elections. It would follow that, if voting is based upon
some formula that includes "C" the costs associated with voting, minus "B" the benefits
associated with voting, times "E" the expectation that one's vote will have an impact on an
election, the "E" term would be larger among those citizens who vote in smaller constituencies
for locally contested seats, rather than for those who vote nationally. I expect to find a positive
relationship between efficacy and countries whose electoral system provides for elections in
local districts or constituencies.
14
Results and Discussion
An ordered-probit model was used to further examine the direct relationship between the
institutional arrangements and political efficacy3. The findings from the model are shown in
Table 1. First, we see that all the institutional variables proved significant. However, there are
some interesting findings contrary to my hypotheses.
To begin, the data show that presidential systems appear to summon more efficacy from
their citizens than do parliamentary systems. Looking at Table 2 we see that the predicted
probability of a respondent answering that his/her vote does matter is different by twenty-seven
percentage points between presidential and parliamentary systems, but in the wrong theoretical
direction. This may reflect that in many presidential systems the president is either directly or
indirectly elected by the people. In a parliamentary system in which the head of state or prime
minister is appointed by the legislature, citizens may feel as if they have very little if any
influence on deciding who the leader of the country is.
It also appears that unitary systems foster higher levels of efficacy than do federal
systems. This is not contrary to Norris' (1999) findings for regime support. She argues that this
may be a matter of operationalization, which could also be the case here. Coding for federalism
within countries may be a poor indicator of decentralization. If this is the case, then following
Norris, it "suggests that we may need better indicators of the devolution to regional and local
governments" before we can examine whether a broader distribution of power produces higher
levels of efficacy (233). In a separate OLS model (Appendix A) the same negative relationship
is found, however, the coefficient is not significant. What is instructive here is that in both
instances the relationship is negative, indicating that further work needs to be done in
establishing a theoretical link between federal and unitary systems and efficacy.
3
Dummy variables are substituted for country names (Przeworski and Teune 1970).
15
One of the strongest relationships in the predicted direction is for those countries that
afford their citizens higher levels of civil liberties and political rights. Looking at Table 2, we
see that the predicted probability that a respondent will answer that his/her vote does matter
drops dramatically (more than sixty-eight percentage points) as countries move from being
completely free to not free. This makes sense, demonstrating that in countries where citizens
feel more free and able to participate in governmental activities, they are going to also feel more
effective in those activities.
Countries that incorporate local electoral districts/constituencies in order for citizens to
vote in lower house elections tend to foster higher levels of efficacy in their citizens, as well. By
once again looking at Table 2, we see that the predicted probability of a respondent believing
their vote matters differs by eleven percentage points between those who vote in local electoral
districts and those who vote for national party lists. As argued before, not only does this suggest
that voters may feel their votes count more in localized elections, but they may also feel higher
levels of positive attachment to their individual representative, when that representative is
selected from their home district.
Confirming another hypothesis, ENPP appears to have a quadratic relationship with
efficacy. Looking at Figure 2 we see that the probability a respondent strongly believes their
vote can count, holding all other variables at their means, rises with the level of ENPP until
ENPP reaches five and a half (71% probability), and then declines to below 30% at the highest
level of ENPP (11). The figure also shows an inverse relationship between ENPP and answers
1-4 on the efficacy question. We see that these relationships are not as strong as that for those
who strongly believe that their vote matters, but still show a quadratic relationship, declining as
ENPP approaches five and a half, and then increasing from there until ENPP reaches eleven. By
16
looking at Figure 3 we see the specific relationship between ENPP and the probability that an
individual would answer that his/her vote can make a difference (answer of “5” on the five-point
scale), we see the curvilinear relationship predicted earlier. It appears that consistent with the
hypothesis, moderate multi-part systems (between four and seven parties) produce the highest
levels of efficacy among their citizens, while one to two party systems or hyper-pluralist multiparty systems foster lower levels of efficacy.4
The variable for winners and losers also exhibits the expected relationship, indicating that
systems that provide for more numbers of winners produce higher levels of efficacy within their
electorate, than systems that produce more losers. It appears that electoral winners are in fact,
more efficacious than electoral losers and it would follow that if an institutional arrangement
could provide for more electoral winners in the electorate, then it would produce higher levels of
efficacy. What must be remembered here, however, is that if a system enables the addition of
multiple political parties that reach a number that somehow convolutes and drowns out the
voices of a significant number of citizens, then efficacy levels will be lower. If the system
provides for too many people to feel as if they are winners, this positive relationship between
winning and efficacy may be lost. Intuitively, an analogy could be drawn between electoral
winners and little league baseball. When everyone gets a trophy regardless of the score, most
children go home feeling as if they really did not win anything.
When looking at the social characteristics of the sample, older people tend to have higher
levels of efficacy. While not statistically significant, women tend to be less efficacious than
men, and those with higher levels of education appear to feel more effective within the political
system. This goes along with the finding that those with higher levels of income have higher
levels of efficacy. Finally, the relationships still held when controlling for economic
4
For OLS relationship between efficacy and levels of ENPP see Appendix B.
17
development and years of democratic experience, indicating that institutional factors do play a
large roll in developing political efficacy among individual citizens. While finding a significant
relationship between efficacy and years of democratic experience in the probit analysis and OLS
regression model shows no significance, while almost all the other variables remain roughly the
same. This may be a function of the "newness" of the democratic systems in some of the
countries I have sampled here. For example, the country with the highest mean efficacy score is
Hungary which has only been under its current constitution since 1989. Countries that have not
been democracies for long periods of time, and have just recently instituted a democratic regime,
may have citizens who feel more powerful simply because in the past they may have not had any
power at all. In contrast to Madsen, citizens in new democracies may feel more efficacious,
especially if the idea of free elections is relatively new, because in the present they now have the
power to change government, whereas in the past, they might not have been able to. In his
conclusion, Madsen argues that other factors other than those presented in his model may have
bearing on efficacy levels as well. His example of the rise and fall of efficacy levels in the
United States from 1952-1960 is an instructive case. Instances such as the Vietnam War most
certainly have impact on the levels of efficacy in the citizenry, and I do not posit here that
institutions are even the most important factor in determining levels of efficacy, however, they
are a factor, and should be dealt with in models looking at political efficacy. Regardless of the
contrary findings for presidential versus parliamentary systems and federal versus unitary
systems, the central theory of this paper—that institutions do matter in creating levels of efficacy
among citizens—is confirmed. Institutions do matter, but to what extent is left to be explored.
18
Conclusions
Institutions do matter in explaining political efficacy levels. Research does not stop here;
however, plans in the future should involve analyzing data on ethnic and social minorities in
different types of institutional frameworks and testing how institutions affect minority efficacy
levels as compared to those of the majority. It may be found that different types of institutions
affect minorities in different ways than those institutions affect the majority of citizens. I believe
it has also been shown here that development of better efficacy measures in our international
datasets would be a great contribution to developing quality measures of not only efficacy but
also regime support and stability of democracies.
Shingles (1987) found that asking if people believe their vote matters has a somewhat
strong correlation with levels of patriotism. This is believable, in that many citizens feel it is
their civic duty to vote, and these citizens typically do feel their vote matters to some degree.
Whether they believe it matters in the election or simply matters to themselves because they
served their country by doing their civic duty, is left to be established. Whatever the belief here,
better efficacy measures would go a long way in helping to explain this.
I have demonstrated that the formation of local electoral districts for electing members to
the lower house plays a role in creating efficacy among the citizenry. Ranney (1964) looks at the
movement of British Parliamentary candidates and whether or not they reside in their home
districts. The United States is one of a few democracies that require the members of the lower
house to reside in the districts from which they were elected. This type of restriction may have
an impact on how connected individuals feel to their members of the legislature. If this does
have an effect, then one should model this requirement when looking at electoral districts for
explaining levels of efficacy.
19
Finally, from the findings here, it could be argued that it is not necessarily institutional
features that explain support for the political regime, but levels of efficacy. If institutional
frameworks do directly affect the levels of efficacy experienced by citizens in democracies, then
perhaps it is not far-fetched to argue that these institutions create levels of efficacy, that then in
turn, create levels of system support. Establishing a causal relationship between these three will
be difficult, but I believe a worthwhile endeavor.
20
References
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23
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Au
M ean Efficacy Score
Figure 1. Mean Efficacy Scores by Country for Years Included in CSES Data
Mean Efficacy Score by Country
5.00
Mean Efficacy Score
4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
Country
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems 2003
24
Table 1. Effects of Institutional Features on Political Efficacy: An Ordered Probit Analysis
Dependent Variable
Institutional Features
Presidential/Parliamentary
Does Your Vote Matter?
-.704 (.046)***
Effective Number of
Parliamentary/Political Parties
.457 (.056)***
ENPP Squared
Federal/Unitary
PR/Majority-Plurality/Mixed
-.039 (.005)***
-.2045 (.030)***
.266 (.068)***
Explanation of Independent
Variables
Presidential (0), Parliamentary
(1)
Laakso and Taagepera’s (1979)
method for calculating ENPP
Unitary (0), Federal (1)
Majority-Plurality (0), Mixed
(.5), PR (1)
Winners and Losers
.028 (.004)***
7-Point Scale. 6=Greatest
Winner, 0=Loser
Districts
.288 (.047)***
Political Rights and Civil
Liberties
-.363 (.028)***
Did not Vote in Local District
or Constituency (0), Did Vote in
Local District or Constituency
(1)
7-Point Scale. 7=Not Free,
1=Free
Madsen’s (1978) Variables
Democratic Experience
Per Capita GDP
.073 (.021)***
-.00004 (.000004)***
Years since Constitutional
Order in Place (logged)
Per Capita GDP Year Prior to
Data Included in CSES
Social Characteristics
Age
Gender
Education
Income
N
.002 (.0004)***
-.002 (.012)
.028 (.004)***
.008 (.005)*
32,605
Figures in parenthesis are standard errors.
*** p< .001
** p< .05
* p< .10
25
Years Old
Female (0), Male (1)
Highest Degree Obtained
Annual Income
Table 2. Predicted Probabilities of Efficacy Scores from Selected Variables All Other
Variables at Their Means
Variable
Probability Respondent
Answers Vote Does Not
Matter
Probability Respondent
Answers Vote Does Matter
Presidential
.0177
.6559
Parliamentary
.0807
.3811
Votes in Local Districts
.0169
.6624
Does Not Vote in Local
Districts
Majority/Plurality Elections
.0334
.5518
.0298
.5716
Mixed
.0219
.6231
Proportional Elections
.0158
.6724
Free5
.0088
.7490
Not Free
.4234
.0656
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems 2003
5
For Freedom House ratings 1 and 7. For a graphical depiction of relationship between efficacy and Freedom
House Ratings 1 thru 7 see Appendix D.
26
Figure 2. Predicted Probabilities that Respondent Answers 1-5 on Efficacy Question by
Respondent’s Effective Number of Political Parties
Predicted Probabilities for Efficacy by Respondent's ENPP
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
P ro b ab ility
0.6
Does Not Matter
2
3
4
Vote Matters
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5
7
7.5
Effective Number of Political Parties
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems 2003
27
8
8.5
9
9.5
10 10.5 11
Figure 3. The Predicted Probability that a Respondent Answers “5” on the Efficacy
Question Compared with the Respondent’s ENPP Level.
Predicted Probability that Respondent Answers (5) by Respondent's ENPP
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
Probability
0.6
0.5
Vote Matters
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5
7
7.5
Effective Number of Political Parties
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems 2003
28
8
8.5
9
9.5
10 10.5 11
Appendix A. Effects of Institutional Features on Political Efficacy: An OLS Model
Dependent Variable
Peoples' Votes Matter
Variable Explanation
Institutional Features
Presidential/Parliamentary
(prespar)
-.598 (.047)**
Parliamentary (1), Presidential
(0)
Effective Number of
Parliamentary/Political
Parties (ENPP)
.417 (.056)**
Laakso and Taagepera's (1979)
method for calculating ENPP
ENPP Squared
Federal/Unitary (fedun)
PR/MajorityPlurality/Mixed (elesys)
-.039 (.005)**
-.157 (.030)
.141 (.069)*
Winners and Losers
(winlos)
.029 (.004)**
7-point scale. 6=Greatest
Winner, 0=Loser
Districts (district)
.297 (.048)**
Political Rights and Civil
Liberties (freehouse)
-.349 (.028)**
Voted in Local District or
Constituency (1), Did not (0)
7-point scale. 7=Not Free,
1=Free
Madsen's (1978)
Variables
Democratic Experience
(ldemexp)
Per Capita GDP (gdp)
.019 (.021)
-.00003 (.000005)**
Federal (1), Unitary (0)
PR (1), Majority-Plurality (0),
Mixed (.5)
Years since Constitutional
Order in Place (logged)
Per Capita GDP Year Prior to
Data Included in CSES
Social Characteristics
Age
Gender
.002 (.0004)**
-.008 (.013)
Years Old
Male (1), Female (0)
Education
.034 (.004)**
Highest Degree Obtained
Income
.015 (.005) *
Annual Income
Constant
4.13 (.159)**
Adjusted R²
N
.044
32,605
Figures in parenthesis are standard errors.
** p<.001
* p<.05
29
Appendix B. Expected Efficacy Scores Based upon a Country’s Effective Number of
Political Parties: OLS Analysis
Expected Efficacy Score by Level of ENPP
5
4.5
4
Expected Efficacy Score
3.5
3
2.5
Expected Efficacy Score
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5
7
7.5
8
Effective Number of Political Parties
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems 2003
30
8.5
9
9.5
10 10.5 11
Appendix C. Predicted Probabilities for Efficacy Scores Based Upon Freedom House
Ratings.
Predicted Probabilities for Efficacy Scores by Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
P ro b ab ilities
0.6
Does Not Matter
2
3
4
Does Matter
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1
2
3
4
Freedom House Rating
Source: Comparative Study of Electoral Systems 2003
31
5
6
7