Institutions and attitudes

What's the link between public attitudes and political institutions? Two recent posts raise this question.
Paulie says: " if more direct forms of democracy were worth considering (which, IMHO, they're not) you'd need to crack the whole 'social cohesion' problem first."
And Damian says it is voters, not just managerialist politicians, who are desperate to avoid the fact that there are trade-offs in politics and life; managerialist politicians merely reflect public opinion.
Both seem to imply that is public attitudes that underpin political institutions; a lack of civic engagement makes direct democracy unfeasible; voter ignorance about trade-offs yields managerialist politics.   
But this is only half the story - maybe less than half. Political institutions also affect public attitudes.
There are two mechanisms here.
1. Endogenous preferences,  or sour grapes. People want what they can get - they adapt to their circumstances.  If democracy's available, they'll want it. If not, they'll adapt to their reduced circumstances.
2. Rational ignorance, . If people cannot make a difference , they'll not bother to acquire the information necessary to make a decision.
These mechanisms suggest that voter apathy and ignorance are not innate unchangeable facts. Instead, they are the product of a hierarchical pseudo-democracy in which they are powerless over most political developments. If so, the introduction of real democratic institutions might create a more engaged and intelligent public culture.
So much for theory, what about evidence?
I've already cited Tocqueville here: American democracy, he said, created an energetic public spirit that was absent in aristocratic societies.
There's more recent evidence. The imposition of democratic institutions in post-war Japan, India and Germany, and in post-Communist eastern Europe, led to the emergence of reasonable democratic cultures in what seemed at the time to be unpromising climates.
And supporters of nation-building in Iraq hope that, by creating democratic institutions, we can grow a democratic culture and a desire for democracy.
Why, then, can't smaller institutional reform - from etiolated to real democracy rather than from dictatorship to democracy - also lead to an improvement in public culture?
To believe otherwise is facile conservatism.

Comments

[dearieme]

"Why, then, can't smaller institutional reform .. also lead to an improvement in public culture?" Wrong question: the answer to "can it?" is obviously "yes". The right question is "will it?"

[Paulie]

That's some elephant trap you've set for me S&M. On the one hand, not having fully digested your post yet, I can't think of any position that I disagree with more than your support for a more direct form of democracy.

I'll work on a proper response when I've fully understood the docs that you've linked to. In my defence, yours is an argument I've not really come across before - and those articles are damn dense. You never know, when I've read and understood them, I may even agree with you.

I've read them all once so far, but they need a second look. A lot of it is new territory for me. For clarification, can I ask a few questions?

Are you saying that - like public choice theorists do - that the clutter of state institutions and buraucracies (with their attendant taxation) ennervates people to the point at which they can't be bothered to engage in public life? And that those bureaucracies are so impenetrable and self-serving that there would be no point anyway?

Are you saying that there is a 'chucking people in the deep end' benefit to be had? That - at the moment - we elect people, but they don't really apply themselves to individual problems because they often aren't directly effected by their own policies? And that - if we were to have a bit of direct democracy shock therapy, people would wake up, take their responsibilities seriously and make wiser decisions than elected representatives do?

You will see that none of these questions are loaded - I just want to understand what it is that you are arguing.

Before I argue back.