PROCESSES OF DEMOCRATIZATION AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The survival of a political regime depends on the extent to which its citizens are able to distinguish between performance and system per se: in this article, we analyze the nature and strength of such evaluation in the different areas of the world where democratization has recently taken hold. Our observations are based first on a series of polls realized in the countries where these new regimes have emerged. Such investigation is supplemented by the study of the prevailing political cultures and especially by the impact of civil society, both domestic and international, on the processes of democratization. The legitimacy of new political regimes is influenced also by religious cultures and beliefs, whose implications for democracy we discuss in detail. Within this general framework, finally, we try to detect peculiarities that are unique to each region.