The last two decades will be noted in history as a period in which many nations have abandoned authoritarian institutions and command economies, replacing them with fledgling liberal democracies and market institutions. As has been evident, the transition to free market economies can put a significant burden on citizens. Many scholars have argued that the economic chaos that accompanies these changes seriously undermines the successful transition to democracy and free markets. This investigation explores whether in fact there is a linkage between economic performance and support for these fledgling democratic and capitalist institutions. The challenge of transition to democracy and free markets is one faced by many nations in the last couple of decades. The Latin American countries have been confronted with the dilemma of institutionalizing democratic reforms while simultaneously confronting the serious problems associated with reform of their economic sectors. Additionally, the former Communist regimes of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eastern and Central Europe have faced the simultaneous challenges of economic chaos, market reform and democratization. Hence, many scholars have argued that nascent democratic regimes falter when the mass public is burdened with a deteriorating economic situation. The major impetus for the proposed investigation is the fact that this broadly held presumption does not fit with the limited empirical evidence that we have at the individual level. Recent exploration of the link between economic deterioration and support for democratic and free market institutions suggests no consistent relationship. Individuals in the European portion of the former Soviet Union do not seem to ground their support for democratic institutions on the assessments of the government's economic performance and the economy seems to be only weakly related to support for free market institutions. The purpose of this project is to expand the analysis beyond this specific context in order to determine how general the Soviet findings actually are. The goal is to test these propositions in a number of different national contexts where the society is confronted with the simultaneous challenges of implementing radical economic plans that threaten the well-being of the average citizen and also of building democratic institutions. The project will be composed of the following four components: a) to assemble recent public opinion survey data from Eastern and Central Europe and from Latin America that include questions on support for the free market and for democratic institutions; b) within each nation to explore the link between individual assessments of economic performance and support for democratic institutions; c) to investigate whether these relationships vary in any systematic way from one nation to another; and, d) to promote closer cooperation among the world academic communities interested in these issues.
