PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

110 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
esteem, though there are significant regional differences, as table 5.1 shows.
In the case of the European Union countries, for which figures exist over time,
the figures show a marked decline in trust in parliaments having taken place
over the period from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s (see, for example, Susan
J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam eds., Disaffected Democracies, Princeton,
2000; Susan Hattis Rolef, Trust in Parliaments - Some Theoretical and
Empirical Findings, unpublished manuscript, The Knesset, Israel, 2005).
Figure 5.1: Trust in national institutions: regional averages
Note: Regional averages and the figures for individual countries are usefully summarised and tabulated
in International IDEA (2005) Ten Years of Supporting Democracy Worldwide, pages 63 – 64,
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm, Sweden. The regional averages
here are from this source, compiled from the regional Barometers respectively. ‘Trust’ is the combination
of ‘a lot or some trust’, as opposed to ‘little or no trust’ and don’t know’. ‘Party’ is ‘the ruling
party’.
Figures for European Union are from European Commission (2004), Eurobarometer 61: Public
Opinion in the European Union, page 10, at
The choice of Eurobarometer 61, rather than a later one, is in order to be as consistent as possible with
the years when the other areas were sampled: the underlying survey data was collected in Africa 2002/3;
New Europe 2004/5; East Asia 2001-3; and Latin America 2003; European Union, Spring 2004. ‘Party’
is here in the plural as ‘political parties’. ‘Courts’ here is ‘’justice/the legal system’. The figures are for
those answering ‘tend to trust’ from a choice of ‘tend to trust’; ‘tend not to trust’ and ‘don’t know’.
Countries and regions featured:
Africa (15): Mali, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho, Botswana, Ghana, Uganda, Namibia,
Kenya, Zambia, Senegal, South Africa, Cape Verde, Nigeria
New Europe (11): Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech
Republic, Bulgaria, Russia
East Asia (8): China, Thailand, Mongolia, Philippines, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Latin America (17): Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Honduras, Panama,
Mexico, El Salvador, Paraguay, Argentina, Peru, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala
European Union (15): Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These figures exclude
countries of the enlarged European Union, who became members on May 1 st 2004.