Two changes were introduced in the Special Issue on Support for Democracy in Hybrid and Transitional Regimes since the introductory article by Juliet Pietsch, Michael Miller and Jeffrey A. Karp – entitled “Public Support for Democracy in Transitional Regimes” – was published online.
First, the introduction outlines five contributions that were originally collected for this issue. After the addition of an article entitled “Democratic Consolidation: Participation and Attitudes toward Democracy in Taiwan and South Korea” by Howard Sanborn, the correct number of articles is six. Sanborn considers the inherent conflict between the adoption of liberal democratic values and limited support for democratic institutions in Taiwan and South Korea. The article shows that citizens in Taiwan and South Korea hold liberal views and are highly motivated to engage in traditional forms of participation. However, as Pietsch and Shin have similarly found in this special issue, citizens with liberal views throughout Asia are frustrated with democracy-in-practice.
Second, the title of the contribution by Jeffrey Karp and Caitlin Milazzo was changed to reflect additional emphasis given by them to the fact that lower support for democracy in countries of East and Central Europe only goes part of the way towards accounting for the disparity in turnout between those countries and the countries of Western Europe, suggesting that there must be additional reasons for low turnout in post communist countries beyond those considered in this contribution.