Legitimacy, Political Disaffection and Discontent with (Democratic) Politics in the Czech Republic
Legitimacy, Political Disaffection and Discontent with (Democratic) Politics in the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: The goal of this article is to analyse changes in public attitudes towards the political regime, political institutions, political actors and politics in general. For that purpose, four categories of attitudes are differentiated: democratic legitimacy, institutional disaffection, individual disaffection, and political discontent. The study aims at clarifying both this dimensionality of political attitudes and the development of those attitudes in each dimension since the early 1990s. During the time period examined, political discontent underwent considerable growth and the legitimacy of the democratic régime declined. There have been slightly rising levels of institutional disaffection and stable levels of individual disaffection. There is a relatively strong and stable relationship between political discontent and legitimacy at both the aggregate and individual levels. This link suggests that the legitimacy of political regimes in post-communist countries is influenced by their political and economic performance.

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