%0 Journal Article
%T Broken back? Efficacy and participation in Asia¡¯s democracies
%A Howard Sanborn
%J Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
%@ 2057-892X
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/2057891117699091
%X Previous scholarship describes an inconsistent role for democratic institutions in driving political participation. Some research has detected signs of attachment leading to greater engagement while others observe a negative, statistical relationship (Levi and Stoker, 2000). In the liberal and electoral democracies of Asia, where support for democratic values appears to be growing (Chu and Huang, 2010; Sanborn, 2015), institutions have taken an outsized role in an individual¡¯s decision to participate. This may be reflective of a ¡®broken back¡¯ form of democratization, where an engaged citizenry is continually frustrated by poor performing government actors (Rose and Shin, 2001). In this article, I evaluate the role of efficacy, internal and external, on the decision to attend rallies, participate in campaigns, and contact officials. I find that citizens engage in these actions when they are internally engaged in politics and frustrated with government performance. While this finding offers a simple explanation for the decision to participate, it also signifies the obstacles to democratic consolidation posed by poor-performing institutional actors
%K Asia
%K democracy
%K democratic consolidation
%K political participation
%K Third Wave
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2057891117699091