• Electoral systems & reforms

Electoral systems & reforms

This document presents the results of the Nicaragua Democracy Survey 2007. It represents the culmination of a series of studies examining Nicaragua’s electoral environment since 2005.

The findings show that Nicaraguans share abstract support for democracy as an idea but carry quite divergent outlooks to understanding what kind of regime styles qualify as “democratic.” These different understandings of democratic values significantly shape how they valuate satisfaction with democracy.

The document presents the findings in four substantive categories:

• voting and non-voting: who voted, who did not, and why?
• evaluations of the election and electoral Actors: how did citizens judge the performance of key electoral actors and institutions?
• other forms of citizen engagement: to what extent are citizens engaged and potentially active in their communities?
• satisfaction with democracyanddemocratic values: arecitizenssatisfied with theway democracy works in Nicaragua? to what extent do people subscribe to democratic values?
  

Some of the main findings are:

• compared to other countries in the region, Nicaraguan levels of voter turnout are relatively high about 80 percent. Nonetheless, there remain significant pockets of non-voting among particular segments of the population.
• substantialproportionsof Nicaraguancitizensexpress little confidence in such key electoral actors as political parties, National Assembly and the Supreme Electoral Council
• a large proportion of the Nicaraguan public qualifies as psychologically disengaged from their political environmentthey are cynical.
• abouttwooutof threerespondentsview authoritarianregime practicesas viable or even acceptable.
• while levels of satisfaction “with theway democracyworks in Nicaragua ” haveincreased, theproportionsof thepublicsubscribing to democratic norms is quitesmall.

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