Drawing on data from four national surveys conducted in Spain since 1978, this article evaluates a theory of political legitimacy that incorporates three elements. The first takes into account the fact that, in instances of regime change, ordinary citizens can meaningfully compare democratic and antidemocratic political systems. The second element considers the content of interregime comparison, in particular, standards of economic growth and social equity. Third, the phenomenon of trust in private and public domains is brought into play for the purpose of specifying a distinctively democratic type of political legitimacy. Finally, the strengths and limitations of the model are discussed, with special reference to its utility in situations where regime transitions are not involved, and where the focus is on mass as well as elite politics.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alvarez-Bolado, Alfonso . (1976). El experimento del nacional-catolicismo, 1939-1975 [The experiment of national Catholicism]. Madrid: Cuadernos para el Diálogo.
2.
“Balance tras diez años de gobierno del PSOE” [The balance sheet after ten years of socialist government] . (1992, October 26). El Mundo, p. 11.
3.
Bandrés Moliné, Eduardo . (1991). Los efectos de los gastos sociales sobre la distribuición de la renta en España [The effects of social expenditures on the distribution of income in Spain]. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
4.
Bentolila, Samuel , & Toharia, Luis. (1991, October 27). El irresistible estancamiento de la tasa de paro [The irresistible stagnation of the unemployment rate]. El País, p. 50.
5.
Bruszt, László & Simon, János. (1991, December). The great transformation: Opinions on democracy and capitalism in Hungary. Paper presented at the Georgetown University workshop on Democratization and the European Public, Washington, DC.
Campos, Angel , & Alvarez, José Manuel. (1990). Ayer, hoy y mañana del 14-D [Yesterday, today and tomorrow, from the 14th of December]. Madrid: Asamblea.
8.
Cazorla Pérez, José . (1990). La cultura política en España [Political culture in Spain]. In Salvador Giner (Ed.), España: Sociedad y política. Madrid: Espase-Calpe.
9.
Curtis, James E. , Grabb, Edward G., & Baer, Douglas E. (1992). Voluntary association membership in fifteen countries. American Sociological Review, 57, 139-152.
10.
Dahl, Robert A. (1971). Polyarchy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
11.
Davis, Winston . (1987). Religion and development: Weber and the East Asian experience. In Myron Weiner & Samuel P. Huntington (Eds.), Understanding political development. Boston: Little, Brown.
12.
Díaz-Salazar Martín, Rafael . (1991). Política y religión en la España contemporánea [Politics and religion in contemporary Spain]. Revista Española de Investigación Sociológica, 56, 65-83.
13.
Diamond, Larry . (1992). Economic development and democracy reconsidered. American Behavioral Scientist, 35, 450-499.
14.
Di Palma, Giuseppe . (1980). Founding coalitions in Southern Europe: Legitimacy and hegemony. Government and Opposition, 15, 162-189.
15.
Easton, David . (1975). A reassessment of the concept of political support. American Political Science Review, 75, 453-457.
16.
Gallego-Díaz, Soledad , Missé, Andreu, & Prieto, Joaquín. (1992, October 28). Perfil de una década [Profile of a decade]. El País, pp. 3-18.
17.
Gunther, Richard . (1992). Spain: The very model of the modern elite settlement. In John Higley & Richard Gunther (Eds.), Elites and democratic consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
18.
Gunther, Richard , Sani, Giacomo, & Shabad, Goldie. (1986). Spain after Franco: The making of a competitive party system. Berkeley: University of California Press.
19.
Horowitz, Irving Louis . (1972). The norm of illegitimacy. In Stefan A. Halper & John R. Sterling (Eds.), Latin America: The dynamics of social change. New York: St. Martin.
20.
Hunt, Lynn . (1984). Politics, culture, and class in the French Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
21.
Huntington, Samuel P. (1992). The third wave. Tulsa: University of Oklahoma Press.
22.
Kitschelt, Herbert . (1993). Comparative historical research and rational choice theory: The case of transitions to democracy. Theory and Society, 22, 413-427.
23.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar . (1990). Renaissance thought and the arts: Collected essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
24.
Lannon, Frances , & Preston, Paul. (Eds.). (1990). Elites and power in twentieth-century Spain. New York: Oxford University Press.
25.
Lipset, Seymour Martin . (1960). Political man: The social bases of politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
26.
Lipset, Seymour Martin . (1994). The social requisites of democracy revisited. American Sociological Review, 59, 1-22.
27.
Lipset, Seymour Martin , & Rokkan, Stein. (1967). Cleavage structures, party systems, and voter alignments: An introduction. In S. M. Lipset & S. Rokkan (Eds.), Party systems and voter alignments: Cross-national perspectives. New York: Free Press.
28.
Lipset, Seymour Martin , & Turner, Frederick. (1986, April). Economic growth and democratization: The continuing search for theory. Paper presented at the Seminar on Political Culture in the New Democracies, Madrid.
29.
Malefakis, Edward . (1992). Southern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries: An historical overview. Working paper, Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, Instituto Juan March, Madrid.
30.
Martínez, Robert . (1993). Business and democracy in Spain. New York: Praeger.
31.
McDonough, Peter . (1992, September). Democratization and the culture of mass politics: Comparing Spain and Eastern Europe. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.
32.
McDonough, Peter , Barnes, Samuel H., & López Pina, Antonio. (1986a). Economic policy and public opinion in Spain. American Journal of Political Science, 30, 446-479.
33.
McDonough, Peter , Barnes, Samuel H., & López Pina, Antonio. (1986b). The growth of democratic legitimacy in Spain. American Political Science Review, 80, 735-760.
34.
McDonough, Peter , & López Pina, Antonio. (1984). Continuity and change in Spanish politics. In Russell J. Dalton, Scott C. Flanagan, & Paul Allen Beck (Eds.), Electoral change in advanced industrial societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
35.
Miller, Arthur . (1974). Political issues and trust in government. American Political Science Review, 68, 951-972.
36.
Missé, Andreu . (1994, February 19). ¿Hay 3.682.330 parados en España? [Are there over three-and-a-half million unemployed in Spain?]. El País, p. 38.
37.
Moisés, José Alvaro . (1991). Democracy threatened: The Latin American paradox. Alternatives, 16, 141-160.
38.
Montero, José Ramon , & Torcal, Mariano. (1990). La cultura política de los españoles: Pautas de continuidad y cambio [The political culture of Spaniards: standards of continuity and change]. Sistema, 99, 39-74.
39.
Moore, Barrington . (1966). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of modern society. Boston: Beacon.
40.
Muller, Edward . (1988). Democracy, economic development, and income inequality. American Sociological Review, 53, 50-68.
41.
Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente, Rafael . (1990). Distribuición de la renta [Income distribution]. In Reflexiones sobre política económica [Reflections on political economy]. Madrid: Instituto Sindical de Estudios.
42.
Paramio, Ludolfo . (1988). Tras el diluvio: la izquierda ante el fin del siglo [After the deluge: the left at the end of the century]. Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno.
43.
Pérez Díaz, Victor . (1991a). The church and religion in contemporary Spain. Working paper no. 19, Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, Fundación Juan March, Madrid.
44.
Pérez Díaz, Victor . (1991b). La emergencia de la España democrática: La `invención' de una tradición y la dudosa instituticionalización de una democracia [The emergence of democratic Spain: the invention of tradition and the dubious institutionalization of a democracy]. Claves de Razón Práctica, 1, 62-80.
45.
Pérez Vilariño, José , Schoenherr, Richard A. (1990). La religión organizada en España [Organized religion in Spain]. In Salvador Giner (Ed.), España, Sociedad y Política (Vol. 1). Madrid: Espase-Calpe.
46.
Pradera, Javier . (1991, June 30). Rumores de palacio [Palace gossip]. El País, p. 5.
47.
Prieto, Joaquín. (1991, June 27). El trabajo sucio de la democracia [The dirty work of democracy]. El País, p. 4.
48.
Przeworski, Adam . (1991). Democracy and the market: Political and economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
49.
Pyndick, Robert S. , & Rubenfield, Daniel L. (1981). Econometric models and economic forecasts (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
50.
Schuman, Howard , & Scott, Jacqueline. (1989). Generations and collective memory. American Sociological Review, 54, 359-381.
51.
Sinova, Justino , & Tusell, Javier. (Eds.). (1992). Las pasiones del poder: el PSOE tras diez años de gobierno [Passions of power: The socialist party after ten years of government]. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
52.
Sniderman, Paul , Brody, Richard, & Tetlock, Philip. (1991). Reasoning and choice. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
53.
Suecos y españoles, los que más tiempo dedican a relaciones sociales [The Swedes and the Spanish: Those who dedicate the most time to social relations] . (1992, November 6). El País, p. 27.
54.
Weatherford, M. Stephen . (1992). Measuring political legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 86, 149-166.
55.
Weil, Frederick . (1989). The sources and structure of legitimation in Western democracies. American Sociological Review, 54, 682-706.
