民主認知、民主赤字與民主支持的相關性-以台灣為例

近年來各國民眾對於民主體制運作的不滿逐漸攀升，Norris曾提出「民主赤字」的概念來討論該現象產生的原因，並運用批判性公民的概念來解釋民主赤字可能造成的影響。本文嘗試驗證該理論的假設，並加入民主認知的概念來強化該理論的解釋力。透過分析世界價值調查第六波資料，研究發現民主赤字的提升，確實對民主支持有正向的影響。其次，民主認知可以做為評斷批判性公民的門檻，當民眾理解民主的方式越傾向民主的實質精神而非其作為體制帶來的產出，同時能區分不符合民主價值之作為，則越接近批判公民的理念，該民眾之民主赤字會對民主支持產生正向的效果。最後，民主認知除了扮演門檻的角色之外，不同的認知類型亦會對民主支持產生各種直接與間接影響。本研究以台灣為基礎，透過單一國家研究，描繪出民主認知、民主赤字、民主支持三種不同民主變項的互動關係，並強化批判性公民對於民主赤字的解釋力。

關鍵字

民主赤字；民主認知；民主支持；批判性公民

並列摘要

Recently, people dissatisfied with the performance of democracy in many countries. Norris proposed “democratic deficit” to explicate this phenomenon, and used “critical citizens” to explain the possible impact of the democratic deficit. This article attempts to verify Norris’s hypothesis and add the understanding of democracy as a variable to strengthen the explanatory power of the theory. By analyzing World Value Survey Wave Six, the study found that the increase in the democracy deficit does have a positive impact on democratic support. Secondly, we can see the understanding of democracy as a threshold for judging critical citizens. Critical citizens should consider democracy to be a value or realize it from the essence rather than the output. They will say no to the action which .do not conform to democratic values. If people get closer to these concepts, the democratic deficit will have a stronger effect on democratic support. Finally, the understanding of democracy not only plays the role of threshold, but also have some direct and indirect effects on democratic support in different types. This studying not only provides relevance to the understanding of democracy, democratic deficit, and democratic support, but strengthens critical citizens ' interpretation of the democratic deficit by using Taiwan's data.