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The contribution starts out from the question whether the political legitimacy of the Third Wave democracies has suffered in the wake of the Great Recession. The expectation of a damaging effect of an economic or political crisis on legitimacy is based on Lipset’s assumption that established democracies with a high degree of political legitimacy are better capable of coping with such crises than young democracies. The database includes two surveys of members of parliament conducted in 2007 and 2013 in Sweden, Germany and five Third Wave democracies located in different world regions (Chile, South Korea, Poland, South Africa and Turkey). Waves 5 and 6 of the World Values Survey that were conducted at about the same time were used for comparing the legitimacy beliefs among MPs and citizens. The data show that the scores for all indicators of political legitimacy are higher among MPs than among citizens and that the differences between the two groups of respondents are considerably larger in the five young democracies. Confidence in political parties is fairly low, especially among citizens, while the evaluation of the quality of democracy in the respondents’ country is much higher. Both evaluations have been rather stable over time. In the two established democracies, support for democracy among citizens is nearly as high as among MPs. In the five young democracies, the MP-citizen differential is larger and support for democracy in the population shows a steady increase only in Chile, while it has remained low in Poland and Turkey and even decreased in Korea and South Africa. This indicates that democracy has not taken deep roots in four of the five new democracies included in the study. In Korea and South Africa, the decline in support for democracy started already before the onset of the economic crisis and therefore cannot be attributed to the recession. This is confirmed by the lack of a statistical relationship between political legitimacy on one side and economic evaluations on the other side. A multiple regression analysis shows strong country-specific effects, while individual-level variables have only minor effects.

This study examines the roles of the Internet and other types of media use in explaining the support for direct democracy and further investigates the mediation of political trust in the relationship between media use and the attitude toward direct democracy.

Using data drawn from Taiwan Social Change Survey 2014 and the approach of structural equation model framework, this study identifies the indirect effects of the Internet and other types of media use on the attitude toward referendums.

The results of this study show that the frustration resulting from the process of representative politics dominated by political elites is associated with the support for direct democracy as an effective alternative to generate political influences in the formation of public policies.

The advances in the Internet and information technology have expanded the possible platforms of obtaining political information and enabled people to rapidly access political information at lower costs. It is expected that Internet use has altered the relationships among citizens, political parties and the government, potentially influencing citizens' political trust and their attitude toward direct democracy.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of citizens’ support for two rival and opposing conceptions of political involvement, political consumerism and stealth democracy, on their attitudes about demand response (flexible consumption) and prosumerism (self-production) in the context of making of Finnish energy policy. Stealth democracy represents an established view on the role of citizens in energy policy making: the energy sector has traditionally been presented as a technocratic domain reserved for experts and businessmen. By contrast, political consumerism can be seen as an expression of “energy democracy”.

The data is based on a postal survey and an internet survey that were conducted in 2016 among a random sample representing Finns who were between 18 and 75 years. The dependence of the support for demand response and prosumerism on the endorsement of political consumerism and stealth democracy will be tested statistically (Pearson chi-square).

The endorsement of demand response mainly depended statistically on citizens’ attitudes towards political consumerism and stealth democracy. However, comparing electricity prices and changing electricity suppliers did not depend on adherence to political consumerism and stealth democracy. Nevertheless, in these cases, support was higher among the supporters of political consumerism than among supporters of stealth democracy. By contrast, the endorsement of prosumerism, for instance, in terms of factors that influence citizens’ decisions to invest in electricity generation in their households, depended statistically on citizens’ attitudes on political consumerism and stealth democracy.

It might be that the variables used in this study to measure stealth democracy are not specific enough. More generally, Finns’ willingness to support for stealth democracy may be based on or at least encouraged by the misunderstandings of democratic politics: more information is needed on the level of knowledge that citizens have about normative principles of democratic decision-making processes.

The implication of this study for energy policy making is that there are (at least in Finland) good preconditions for developing a decentralized energy system: citizens are ready to adopt a more active role as energy citizens in terms of demand response and prosumerism – irrespective of their attitudes on macro-level attitudes on governmental institutions. Democratization of the energy system could strengthen the legitimacy of energy policy making.

Citizens’ attitudes indicate that their potential for involvement needs to be strengthened in the spirit of energy democracy: the idea of energy democracy needs to be seen in terms of the demand for increased accountability and democratization of the energy sector that was previously not seen as requiring public involvement and was most often depoliticized and dominated by technocrats. However, strengthening energy democracy through demand response and prosumerism is not without its problems: utilization of these devices requires a relatively large amount of resources which depend on the individuals’ socio-economic position. Thus, energy democracy cannot replace but complement electoral participation as a form of energy policy involvement.

The contribution of this study is to fill a part of the research gap linking to ongoing energy transitions. As a socio-technical transition can take place only if citizens support and participate in it, we need to better understand citizens’ attitudes on energy consumption and production and energy policy involvement. Citizens’ attitudes on energy production and consumption are becoming more and more critical for managing the energy sector as a result of that the share of wind power and solar power is increasing in the energy system. In a decentralized energy system, citizens have to be prepared to change their modes of operation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this study is to test the impact of citizens’ political attitudes on the endorsement of demand response and prosumerism.

The article investigates whether variety of democracy affects the probability to employ public subsidies for credit support by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led by female entrepreneurs.

Building on the literature on democracy and on gender differences, it leverages a large firm- and country-level dataset (SAFE) of 31 democracies in Europe (EU and non-EU) over the 2009–2014 period by using probit models and instrumental variable approaches.

Results from the different econometric techniques and samples suggest that variety of democracy affects female-led SMEs in using public subsidies for credit support. The evidence is robust to endogeneity concerns.

The empirical evidence presents a time frame limitation. At the same time, SAFE is the only database that supplies information about the gender of firms and public subsidies for credit support, rendering it the only resource that allows the test of the hypothesis proposed. The article therefore offers insights for scholars to revisit our results in future studies that make use of datasets with a longer time span – when they will become available.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the article is the first to study the effect of democracy on female entrepreneurial behavior in the use of public subsidies for credit support.

Measuring and understanding the dynamics of democracy as well as democratic attitudes of people have become a big challenge for every democratic state. The study proposes the investigation of middle-class peoples’ attitudes towards democracy in Pakistan.

The study employs a deductive approach based on cross-sectional data from Pakistan’s middle-class people. The researchers use a survey questionnaire through a convenience sampling technique. Finally, the study utilizes 1854 samples to conclude the findings.

The evidence confirms that trust in public institutions and political engagement positively and significantly impact peoples’ democratic attitudes. In addition, the investigation witnessed the preference for democracy also supports understanding middle-class peoples’ democratic attitudes.

The study would provide an endorsement for politicians of Pakistan to perceive the inclination of middle-class people towards democracy. The study would guide the researchers and policymakers and intellectualize the middle-class peoples’ opinions and attitudes. Moreover the study would support reflecting the public confidence in decision making and ability to deliver. Finally the study findings would contribute to the literature of political science and democracy to understand democratic attitudes mainly focusing on middle-class populations.

This study empirically confirms the Pakistani middle-class peoples’ attitudes towards democracy.

The purpose of this study is to test citizens’ attitudes on political involvement in energy policy-making that has generally seen to be dominated by experts and business interests and been relatively closed to citizen involvement. The study asks whether citizens are willing to participate politically more through political consumerism (i.e., consumption choices) or through representative democracy and if citizens are willing to assign decision-making to the experts representing public administration and business, as stealth democracy asserts.

Methodologically, the study is based on postal surveys conducted in 2007 and 2016 among a random sample representing Finns who were 18-75 years of age.

Political consumerism and stealth democracy were not considered as alternative and detached modes for electoral participation but rather as complementary. However, adherence to stealth democracy was a reaction of people who feel powerlessness in the face of the regime, while the supporters of political consumerism had a higher trust in their ability to influence.

The study is the first one which empirically compares citizens’ support for these three modes of involvement, and it generates new knowledge for the scholars and decision-makers when planning citizen role in (energy) policy-making.

This chapter addresses the perceptions versus facts divide as the United States experiences an eruption of facts, opinions, and untruths in web-facilitated environments. It addresses how traditional and newer media undermine social justice and political inclusion in ways lingering beyond Donald Trump’s presidency. A competitive environment encouraging journalists to publicize rumor and gossip is addressed. The reliance of individuals on the personal experience of mental models, heuristics, and perceptions to separate fact from fiction is examined. Powerful influences of self-interest and political allegiance are explored. In the context of a deeply divided nation, libraries are seen as having the capability of implementing confidence-building measures to bridge the rift in their communities and organizations. The roles of information educators in advancing democracy through promoting useful theories and effective interlanguages are considered. The value of pragmatism, a philosophy promoting engagement in reformist projects possibly acceptable in conservative and mixed ideological environments is addressed. Economically advanced nations committed to equality and inclusion may find the US experience to be both a warning of potential roadblocks and a guide as to how such obstacles may sometimes be positively addressed.

Education is highly regarded as having a central influence on individuals' understanding and backing of democracy, but whether this occurs in young and small democratic states remain unknown. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether schooling and education have a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji, whose democratic system has been subject to three coups since independence in 1970.

To achieve the goal of this paper, the ordered probit probability model is used. The ordered probit model serves as a better framework for statistical analysis whenever field survey responses are ordinal as distinct from numerical.

The results from an ordered probit model reveal that the education level does not affect an individual's democratic values. However, it is found that gender, age, and ethnicity do have an influence on individuals' endorsement of democracy.

Democracy has more than once proved to be an elusive dream in Fiji. This paper aims to provide the answer whether education can be the facilitating factor in transition towards a more democratic state.

This is the first study which comprehensively explores whether schooling and education has a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji.