Public Opinion, Voting Analysis and The Crisis of Democratic Consolidation in Nicaragua: The 2006 Election

这项研究包括对将于2006年11月举行的尼加拉瓜全国选举进行民意调查。它建立在作者之前发表的对1990年至2001年尼加拉瓜全国总统选举和政权过渡的分析的基础上。《学习民主：1990-2001年尼加拉瓜的公民参与和选举选择》（芝加哥大学出版社，2005年）这项研究得到了美国国家科学基金会的部分资助。之前的研究考察了尼加拉瓜贫困和受教育程度较低的选民在严重的系统性危机威胁到他们日常生活的情况下进行理性投票的能力。在此过程中，它广泛地研究了1990年总统选举期间的公民态度和不断演变的投票意图，在这次选举中，两位主要候选人提出了不同的政权方向来解决系统性危机，其中包括内战、经济禁运和经济恶化。然后，研究分析了新的保守民主政权处理危机的过程，以及公民在1996年和2001年选举中重申其对权力的控制的投票行为。在三次选举中，该研究记录了尼加拉瓜人在投票决定时的复杂推理能力——既有回顾性的，也有前瞻性的。这些发现表明，这些公民可能比主流民意研究表明的更有能力成为民主公民，即使在面临体制危机时也是如此。目前的研究回到2006年的尼加拉瓜，考察公民的决策能力，因为这个国家面临新的危机——宪法权威、权力篡夺、政党制度动荡和选举操纵——这些问题可能会破坏民主巩固。问题在于投票的公民理解和应对制度/程序危机的能力，这些危机相对远离他们的日常生活，但却可能对他们和他们国家的民主结构造成灾难性的后果。因此，该研究直接谈到了第三世界选民在民主巩固斗争中可以发挥的作用，因为他们的国家正在从最初的过渡到选举民主，并面对民主的“黑暗和隐藏的一面”，包括议会阴谋，对宪法权力的复杂斗争，以及可能抑制而不是促进响应性民主选择的选举和政党规则。这项调查调查了11月大选前的六个月和之后的几周内公民的态度和投票决策。调查的范围是全国性的。该提案的智力价值在于解决了调查研究中一个很少受到关注的核心难题：受教育程度较低的第三世界公民以类似于成熟民主国家选民的系统方式进行投票决策的能力。更广泛的影响包括：(1)为国家政策制定者澄清他们在制定支持民主化的政策时对第三世界公民的期望；(2)促进对一些观点的重新评估，这些观点强调，在一个成熟的民主国家，受教育程度较低的公民（包括少数民族和种族群体）的决策能力有限；(3)推动其他学者和高级博士生对第三世界公民和贫困公民的投票决策进行严格的民意研究。

This research involves the conduct of a public opinion study of the Nicaraguannational elections to be held in November of 2006. It builds on the authors' previouslypublished analysis of national presidential elections and regime transition in Nicaraguafrom 1990 through 2001. That study, Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua 1990-2001 (University of Chicago Press, 2005), was supported in part by NSF funding.The previous study examined the capacity of the poor and poorly educated Nicaraguanelectorate to engage in reasoned vote choice amidst severe systemic crisis that threatenedtheir everyday lives. In doing so, it looked extensively at citizen attitudes and evolvingvote intent during the 1990 presidential election in which the two major candidatesproposed different regime directions to resolve the systemic crisis, which included civilwar, economic embargo and economic deterioration. The study then analyzed the processesthrough which the new conservative democratic regime addressed the crisis and the votingbehavior through which citizens reaffirmed its hold on power in the 1996 and 2001elections. Across the three elections, the study documented the sophisticated reasoningcapacities -- both retrospective and prospective -- that Nicaraguans brought to their votedecisions. These findings suggest that such citizens may be more capable of democraticcitizenship than dominant public opinion studies suggest, even when faced with systemcrisis.The current study returns to Nicaragua in 2006 to examine citizens'decision-making capacities as the nation faces new crises -- issues of constitutionalauthority, power usurpation, party system upheaval and electoral manipulation -- thatcould derail democratic consolidation. At issue is the ability of the voting citizenry tocomprehend and respond to institutional/procedural crises that are relatively removed fromtheir everyday lives but can nevertheless have disastrous consequences for them and thedemocratic structure of their nation. The study thus speaks directly to the roles thatthird-world voters can play in struggles for democratic consolidation as their nationsmove beyond the initial transition to electoral democracy and confront the 'dark andhidden side' of democracy, including parliamentary intrigue, complicated struggles overconstitutional power, and electoral and party rules that can inhibit rather than fosterresponsive democratic choice.The investigation examines citizen attitudes and vote decisionmaking across the six months prior to the November elections and during the weeksfollowing them. Surveys are national in scope.The proposal's intellectual merit lies in addressing a core puzzle in survey research thathas received scarce attention: the capacity of poorly educated third world citizens toreason in their vote decisions in systematic ways analogous to voters in establisheddemocracies. Broader impacts include (1) clarifying for national policy makers theexpectations they can hold of third world citizens as they craft policies in support ofdemocratization;(2)fostering reassessment of views that stress the limited decisioncapacity of poorly educated citizens in an established democracy, including among ethnic and racial minorities; and (3) spurring rigorous public opinion research by other scholars and advanced doctoral students into vote decision making by third world citizens and poorcitizens internationally.