Sabancı University
Political Science PhD. student Aylin Aydın will present the study titled “Explaining Public Confidence in the
Judiciary: The interaction between structural and behavioral determinants of
confidence” that she co-authored with Eser Şekercioğlu, in 68th Annual Midwest Political Science Association
Conference. (22-25 April, 2010-Chicago)
Abstract:
Public confidence in the courts is a crucial component of judicial
legitimacy without which the functioning of the legal system, the rule of law
and ability of the courts to manage public and political conflicts would be
harmed. We know little about the factors that can explain the variation in
public attitudes toward the judiciary in a truly comparative setting. In
addition the interaction of systemic, macro level factors and individual level
determinants of confidence has been largely overlooked in the literature. Using
World Values Survey (2005-2006) data for 53 countries and various other data sources, our aim is to provide a large scale
cross-national study and demonstrate whether country level factors
affect/moderate the impact individual level factors and in what ways. Using a
random-coefficient model we find that the effect of some of the key individual
level determinants of confidence in institutions – education, values, social
status – is contingent on the characteristics of the polity individuals live
and the performance of the judicial system. More specifically, in democracies
with high performance judicial systems variables like education and political
participation have a positive impact on confidence, whereas in less stable
democracies with less well established institutional frameworks higher
political awareness leads to increased cynicism about the system. In short, we
demonstrate that the effects of individual level factors are modified by
country level factors.