Democratic Institutions and Subjective Well-Being

@article{Altman2017DemocraticIA,
  title={Democratic Institutions and Subjective Well-Being},
  author={David Altman and Patrick Flavin and Benjamin Radcliff},
  journal={Political Studies},
  year={2017},
  volume={65},
  pages={685 - 704}
}
We examine how differences in how democracy is institutionalized affect life satisfaction across nations. To our knowledge, this is the first rigorous, systematic study of this subject. Using data for 21 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 1981 to 2008, we find robust evidence that citizens report living more satisfying lives in countries with a parliamentary (rather than presidential) executive, a proportional representation electoral system (as opposed… 
View on SAGE
cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com
29 Citations
Background Citations
3

Tables from this paper

29 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Enhancing Democracy: Can Civic Engagement Foster Political Participation?
Objective: The aim of the present manuscript is to address Tocqueville's hypothesis that voluntary associations and volunteering are breeding grounds for democratic virtues and skills and thus…
Female Parliamentarians and the Distribution of National Happiness
Over the past decades, the research on life satisfaction has mushroomed. Within this strand, a new line of scholarly research has emerged that assesses the distribution of life satisfaction across…
Happiness and the Quality of Government
This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the…
Informing Policy Priorities using Inference from Life Satisfaction Responses in a Large Community Survey
Self-reported, quantitative, subjective measures of well-being, such as satisfaction with life overall, are increasingly looked to as measures of public welfare. While this trend is visible at the…
Happiness and the Quality of Government
This paper uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the…
Happiness perception in Spain, a SEM approach to evidence from the sociological research center
In the current study, we examined the relationship between perceived person happiness and factors that influence this perception, also, is inferred that life satisfaction is influence by happiness.…
How Migration Policy Shapes the Subjective Well-Being of the Non-immigrant Population in European Countries
Existing studies show that there is a positive association between pro-migrant integration policies and the subjective well-being of immigrants. However, there is a lack of research elucidating the…
The Political Economy of Health and Healthcare
TLDR
This book presents a unified, structured understanding of how the design of a country's health institutions influence its healthcare activities and outcomes and describes an institution-grounded analysis of health systems in an accessible way.
Summary, Concluding Remarks and General Conclusion
  • J. Ott
  • Psychology
    Beyond Economics
  • 2020
Happiness is based on standards people apply, and people are free to adopt whatever standards they prefer. In theory they can adopt very different, inconsistent and immoral standards. This freedom is…
The palliative function of system-justifying ideologies
...
1
2
3
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 154 REFERENCES
Assessing the Impact of the Size and Scope of Government on Human Well-Being
We examine how public policies affect life satisfaction across the industrial democracies. We consider as indicators of policy overall levels of government spending, the size and generosity of the…
Democracy, Participation, and Life Satisfaction*
Objectives. We examine whether democracy, political participation, and differing systems of democracy influence individual levels of subjective well-being. Methods. We use individual data on…
Class Organization and Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-National Analysis
I examine labor organization as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across the industrial democracies. The evidence strongly suggests not only that unions increase the…
Happiness, Economy and Institutions
Institutional factors in the form of direct democracy (via initiatives and referenda) and federal structure (local autonomy) systematically and sizeably raise self-reported individual well-being in a…
Representation, Corruption, and Subjective Well-Being
This study examines the effect of corruption and representation on people's subjective well-being. Using cross-national data from 68 countries and survey data from 16 European democracies, the…
Politics, Markets, and Life Satisfaction: The Political Economy of Human Happiness
Little is known about the political determinants of subjective well-being across nations. The dominant theoretical approaches, comparison and trait theory, suggest that cross-national differences…
Trade and the variety of democratic institutions
Students of comparative politics have long acknowledged the importance of such institutional factors as electoral systems, parliamentary versus presidential rule, and the strength of parties; but…
Formal Institutions and Subjective Well-Being: Revisiting the Cross-Country Evidence
A long tradition in economics explores the association between the quality of formal institutions and economic performance. The literature on the relationship between such institutions and happiness…
How's Your Government? International Evidence Linking Good Government and Well-Being
This article employs World Values Survey measures of life satisfaction as though they were direct measures of utility, and uses them to evaluate alternative features and forms of government in large…
The subjective well-being political paradox: happy welfare states and unhappy liberals.
TLDR
This work demonstrated this SWB political paradox: more liberal countries and more conservative individuals had higher levels of SWB and explored measurement as a moderator of the political orientation-SWB relationship to shed some light on why this paradox exists.
...
1
2
3
4
5
...