Abstract
This dissertation explored the theoretical and empirical questions related to public opinion of democracy.Chapter 1 outlines the motivation of the study with an overview of literature on support for democracy, democratic understanding, political knowledge, and authoritarian legacies in developing democracies. I further discuss the history, development, and perceptions of the concept of democracy in the case study region Southeast Asia (SEA) as well as case study country Indonesia.
Chapter 2 examines gender gap in democratic understanding (DU) in six countries in SEA using open-ended meaning of democracy questions from Asian Barometer (AB). DU was measured as three levels of complexity: self-efficacy, identification of substantive definition of democracy, and multidimensional understanding. My findings revealed a substantial DU gap between men and women, with women showing lower levels of self-efficacy, likelihood of providing substantive definition, and holding multidimensional DU compared to men. However, equalizing educational attainment and income opportunities substantially narrowed the gender DU gap. Furthermore, citizens of democracy have higher levels of gender DU gap compared to those living in authoritarian regimes, with varying effects of education and income in closing the gender gap.
Chapter 3 seeks to contribute new insights on the validity of support for democracy question using an original survey experiment. Co-author Dr Damien Bol and I sampled respondents in five major cities in Indonesia, and randomly exposed half to a list of procedural characteristics of democracy as treatment. Both the treatment and control group were then asked to evaluate their support for democracy. We found that being provided with additional information significantly changed levels of support and satisfaction with democracy, but only among women and respondents from lower education background.
Chapter 4 empirically tests how democratic socialization and political knowledge shape voting intentions in Indonesia using an original survey. Using the 2019 presidential election between Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Prabowo Subianto as the background of my study, I examined how socialization under different regime contexts influence support for either candidate. The first democratic election in 1999 was used as a demarcation line between the pre-democratization cohort, who spent their most formative years educated in politics under Suharto’s authoritarian regime, and post-democratization cohort, who mostly learned about politics and democracy after democratization. I found that members of the pre-democratization cohort were less likely to vote for the pro-democracy candidate Jokowi compared to the post-democratization cohort. However, political knowledge could substitute the effect of democratic socialization and increased support Jokowi.
Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of this dissertation and outlines their contribution to the larger literature on public opinion on democracy. I offer possible trajectories of future research on the topic of support for democracy, democratic understanding, political knowledge, and authoritarian legacy in developing democracies.
| Date of Award | 1 May 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Ruben Ruiz-Rufino (Supervisor) & Damien Bol (Supervisor) |