DEMOCRACY SUPPORT IN EU CANDIDATE COUNTRIES

Abstract

In the EU candidate countries the citizens' support for the democratic process is important for domestic democracy as well as the integration process.Many factors contribute to explain democratic support (Dalton 2004), and many aspects should be considered in order to have a good understanding of the democratic processes that characterize the new democracies.Focusing on economic expectations, political knowledge, political discussion and education, in this paper democracy support in Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey is analyzed using two specific measures: support for political community and public institutions.The principal results show weak ties between citizens and State. This is more evident in ex-communist countries where the effects of past totalitarian regimes linger as mistrust of citizens towards their public institution and low support for the democratic process. On the contrary, in Turkey the explicative models of democracy support are significant and consistent with citizens' support for the democratic process.