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

这项研究涉及对将于2006年11月举行的尼加拉瓜全国选举进行的民意研究。它建立在作者之前发表的对尼加拉瓜1990年至2001年全国总统选举和政权过渡的分析基础上。这项研究名为《学习民主：尼加拉瓜1990-2001年的公民参与和选举选择》(芝加哥大学出版社，2005年)，部分得到了国家科学基金会的资助。上一项研究考察了贫穷和受教育程度低的尼加拉瓜选民在威胁他们日常生活的严重系统性危机中进行理性投票选择的能力。在这样做的过程中，它广泛研究了1990年总统选举期间公民的态度和不断演变的投票意向，在那次选举中，两位主要候选人提出了不同的政权方向，以解决包括内战、经济禁运和经济恶化在内的系统性危机。这项研究随后分析了新的保守民主政权解决危机的过程，以及公民在1996年和2001年的选举中重申其权力的投票行为。在三次选举中，这项研究记录了尼加拉瓜人将复杂的推理能力--既有追溯性的，也有前瞻性的--带入投票决定。这些发现表明，这些公民可能比主流民意研究显示的更有能力成为民主公民，即使在面临系统危机的情况下也是如此。目前的研究回到2006年回到尼加拉瓜，考察公民在国家面临新的危机--宪法权威、篡夺权力、政党制度动荡和选举操纵--可能破坏民主巩固的时候的决策能力。问题是投票公民理解和应对体制/程序危机的能力，这些危机与他们的日常生活相对较远，但仍可能对他们及其国家的民主结构造成灾难性后果。因此，这项研究直接谈到了第三世界选民在民主巩固斗争中可能扮演的角色，因为他们的国家正在走出最初的选举民主过渡，面对民主的“黑暗和隐藏的一面”，包括议会阴谋、复杂的宪法权力斗争，以及可能抑制而不是促进反应灵敏的民主选择的选举和政党规则。这项调查调查了11月选举前六个月和选举后几周的公民态度和投票决策。该提案的学术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在投票决定中以类似于老牌民主国家选民的系统方式进行推理的能力。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)促进对强调受教育程度低的公民在既定民主制度中决策能力有限的观点的重新评估，包括在少数族裔和少数族裔中；(3)促使其他学者和高级博士生进行严格的民意研究，以便第三世界公民和国际上的贫穷公民进行投票决策。

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.