Levels of democraticness and degrees of stateness: viability, trust and legitimacy in ‘liberal’ democracies

Abstract In the literature on democracy the role of the state tends to be underspecified. Studies of liberal democracy focus generally on free and fair elections, pluralist party representation, political and civil rights and the Rule of Law. The level of ‘democraticness’ is judged by its institutional coherence and completeness. However, it falls short to evaluate liberal democracy as a system of governance serving society through its degree of ‘stateness’: the institutionalized interactions between public authority and its citizens. In this paper the nexus between levels of ‘democraticness’ and degrees of ‘stateness’ is explored across 36 democracies asking how this combination affects citizens’ trust in politics and the performance of the democratic state in view of its ‘output’ legitimacy. It appears that the degree of ‘stateness’ is vital to understand the different levels of ‘democraticness’ over time. The role of the state in democratically organized societies ought to be elaborated and further analysed.