More than half of the population views the economy as the country’s biggest problem, according to a study of democracy here, which also found that corruption levels remain high and the perception of crime may be exaggerated.
The study, The Political Culture of Democracy in Guyana, 2009: The Impact of Governance, was conducted as part of the 2008/9 AmericasBarometer series of surveys under the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) (see box). Previously unreleased, its findings include that only about half of the Guyanese population is satisfied with how democracy is functioning here. It said that 45.1% of the population is “satisfied” and 5.6% is “very satisfied” with the way democracy works here, in comparison with 38.8% that is “dissatisfied” and 10.5% that is “very dissatisfied.” The study also found that citizens have intermediate levels of confidence in public institutions, with the exception of the church and the army, which inspired the highest levels. At the other extreme, it said, political parties, the city council and the police force are the most “distrusted” among the citizenry. At the same time, civic participation has decreased at all levels, and particularly in the case of labour unions. It also found that ethnic tensions remain between the two dominant ethnic groups in the country, Afro Guyanese or those of African-descent and Indo Guyanese, or those of East-Indian descent. It also noted that one of the primary characteristics of Guyanese democracy is political competition based on ethnicity. In this regard, the study pointed to voting preferences at the 2006 general elections by ethnic groups and observed that 68.7% of Indians voted for the PPP/C while only 3.7% of Afro-Guyanese voted for it. On the other hand, it noted that 75.1% of Afro-Guyanese voted for the PNCR compared with 1.7% of Indo-Guyanese. “Therefore, it appears that the two main ethnic groups in Guyana have very different party preferences,” it said. The AFC, the study said, gathers votes from all ethnic groups but mainly Mixed-race citizens (39.6%) and Afro-Guyanese (31.7%).
The study examined several areas of governance and its implications for stable democracy. Among its focus areas were the impact of economic perception, corruption, crime, and local government performance on the support for stable democracy; voting behaviour and political parties; and interpersonal trust and civic participation.
Economy
According to the study, the number of citizens who rate the economy as the country’s main problem has increased. In its analysis of the impact of citizen perception of the government’s economic performance on support for stable democracy, it noted that 56.2% of respondents identified the economy as the main problem facing the country, followed by security (13.1%), politics (12.3%), other (11.3%) and basic services (7.1%). “Comparing these results to those of 2006, it quickly becomes clear that the economy has become much more of a perceived problem in the three years between the two survey rounds,” it said.
In 2006, just over 40% of the respondents labelled the economy as being the main problem facing the country, while security registered among 27% of the respondents then, with the remaining categories being comparable. LAPOP, in seeking to account for the significant 10+% shift, noted that the Guyana survey was the only one that took place following the collapse of the US financial sector and the resulting global economic troubles. As a result, it said that it is likely that the significant increase in the economy as a primary concern was a response to this situation. It also suggested that the decrease in the concern about security may indicate that citizens felt safer. “Whatever the reasoning, however, the data are clear that in 2009, over 50% of the Guyanese population viewed the economy as the primary problem facing their country,” it said. However, it was noted that while proportion of Guyanese who viewed the economy as the main problem facing the country increased, the average score of perceptions of government economic performance also increased. In 2006, the average score in this area was 34.6 while in 2009 it was 45.4. As a result, the study noted that it could be surmised that Guyanese, in large part, do not blame the incumbent administration for the current economic situation.
In examining the impact of the perceptions of the government’s economic performance on the support for democracy, one of the questions asked of respondents was how they rated President Bharrat Jagdeo. In 2009, the “very good” and the “very bad” ratings for President Jagdeo both increased, while the percentage of the “neither good nor bad category” decreased. In the most recent survey, 14% of respondents rated their satisfaction with him as “very good” while almost 30% rated it as “good.” The respondents who rated him as “neither good nor bad” decreased by more than 12 percentage points between the two surveys to 38%. Twelve percent of respondents rated their satisfaction with him as “bad” and 6.7% as “very bad.”
Corruption
The study examined the levels of corruption and their impact on support for stable democracy. It found that “…corruption in Guyana is a problem and needs to be addressed if the country is to make measureable socio-economic progress in the short and medium term.” The analysis was based on the measurements of corruption victimisation and corruption perception. The former was derived from citizens’ experience with corruption, that is, situations in which they were likely to be asked to pay a bribe and how frequently such demands were made.
Out of two dozen countries in the AmericasBarometer survey, only seven (Jamaica, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia and Haiti) registered higher levels of corruption than Guyana. The study noted that its findings coincide with those registered by the Index of Corruption Perception by Transparency International, in which Guyana presents high levels of perceived corruption.
Although there was a decrease in the levels of corruption victimisation, from 25.2% to 22.4% of the population being affected, it said the levels were statistically insignificant. The only significant decrease from 2006 to 2009, it noted, is citizens’ perception of corruption, which declined from 78 to 72 points.
Additionally, the study found that despite various instances of corruption having decreased significantly at the work place and in the health and education sectors in 2009, they increased remarkably in other sectors, such as the police force, which moved from 11.8% to 17.6%. Noting the worsening corruption by the police, it said this had eroded citizens’ confidence in the institution. Other institutions where increases in corruption were registered were town councils, public entities and the courts. “Thus, anti-corruption programmes in Guyana must also target these areas given that high levels of corruption may erode citizens’ trust in related institutions,” it said.
According to the study, individuals here who are younger, male, wealthy have a higher probability of becoming victims of corruption as do those who live in certain regions, such as 3 and 4, based on the statistical analyses of the determinants of corruption victimisation.
LAPOP said the findings of the survey suggest that corruption, measured by victimisation and perception, has a negative impact on support for the legitimacy of core political institutions. It added that citizens’ perception of corruption translates into higher support for the right of public contestation, which it suggested as being a direct response to the high levels of corruption in the country and support by the people for making demands on the government for change. “In short, we conclude that corruption has a negative impact on the prospects of democratic stability in Guyana because it negatively affects citizens’ support for institutional legitimacy,” it said, while warning that without such support, “democracy may be at risk.”
Crime
In its analysis of crime and its implications for support for stable democracy, the study noted that there was a decrease in victimisation from 2006 (11%) to 2009 (8.7%). However, it said that the differences were not statistically significant and the drop was not large enough to conclude that there has been a real decline in crime here.
It was, however, noted that the 2006 LAPOP study found that Guyana has relatively low levels of crime victimisation in comparison with other countries in the region. It said that in 2009, victimisation remained at a low level, which was slightly higher but not significantly different statistically from Panama (8.4%) and Jamaica (8.3%). The study pointed out that the previous findings suggested that the relatively low level of victimisation may indicate efforts to reduce crime have taken effect following the escalation of serious crimes in 2002. Further, it said the levels of crime are accompanied by slow and often insufficient follow-up by police while many cases go unreported, and in particular those related to petty crimes and domestic violence.
According to the study, it was found that crime victimisation varied sharply according to region in 2009 and this illustrated an urban/rural variation. Guyanese who live in regions 3 and 4, it said, were by far more likely to be victims of crime, with 10.7% and 13.4% of its population being victimised, respectively. On the other hand, individuals who live in regions 2, 5, and 6 were significantly less likely to become victims, with only 3 to 4% of their population reporting having had an experience with some type of crime. For the survey period, the 2008 Bartica massacre inflated the victimisation level in regions 1, 7, 8 and 9.
Guyanese who have experienced crime were found to have shown lower levels of interpersonal trust than those who have not been victimised; the former scored at 54.4 points compared with 60.7 points on a scale of 0 to 100. “These results suggest that when someone is a victim of crime, this individual will lose confidence in others, and since interpersonal trust has long been shown to be an important element in stable democracy, crime does have a negative impact on democracy,” the study said.
Addressing the impact of the fear of crime on democracy in Guyana, it said the average fear of crime or “perception of insecurity” decreased from 40.7 points to 36.2 points on a scale from 0 to 100. It said this was statistically significant and that the results suggested that the efforts to address crime in Guyana have impacted citizen perception of insecurity. However, when the perception of insecurity was considered with the actual victimisation, it was noted that “fear of crime may be a more acute problem in Guyana than actual crime victimisation.” Further, it noted that the relationships between perception of insecurity and support for the idea of democracy and interpersonal trust are negative. In particular, the study said as people feel more insecure, they express lower levels of support for the idea of democracy. “When people feel that they are unsafe, it is more likely that they will turn those feelings against others and the political system, diminishing their belief in the legitimacy of core political institutions, such as the police and the judiciary,” it noted.
Background of study
The study is part of the findings of the AmericasBarometer series of surveys conducted under the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), which is hosted by Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee.
According to LAPOP, the Americas-Barometer is an effort to measure democratic values and behaviours in the Americas using national probability samples of voting-age adults. The surveys were initiated in 2004 with 11 participating countries; the second round of surveys took place in 2006 with 22 countries throughout the hemisphere; and the latest round of surveys in 2008/9 again included 22 countries with over 35,000 respondents.
In 2006, Guyana was among the countries surveyed during the second round of the AmericasBarometer Surveys. At that time, the survey utilised the responses of 1,555 Guyanese citizens of voting age, who were not institutionalised, and who consented to anonymous interviews, to obtain a nationally representative sample of the country’s population.
In March and April of 2009, with the collaboration of local researchers, LAPOP completed 2,514 interviews for the second round of surveys. As before, a nationally representative sample was drawn. However, the 2009 sample was larger by about 1,000 respondents and provided a more precise representation of the regions in the country, according to LAPOP. It said by increasing the sample size, it was able to obtain representative samples of regions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10. Regions 1, 7, 8 and 9, it noted, were combined in a single region, given their relatively small populations. LAPOP explained that the sampling by region had the distinct advantage of allowing researchers to arrive at conclusions at the sub-national (regional) level, in addition to the national level as was done in 2006.
It explained that in order to draw the sample, it first selected the municipalities and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils according to their population size, followed by the selection of sectors (imply economic sectors – agri, health, education, etc) and villages, while in the last stage enumeration districts and households were chosen. For the selection of units in each stage, the Probability Proportional to Size method was implemented. In order to minimise travel time and costs, a fixed number of interviews was carried out in each sampling point within each stratum, following a clustered sample design. A total of 10 to 12 and 8 interviews were conducted in each sampling point in rural and urban areas, correspondingly. In total, the sample is composed of 267 sampling points: 171 urban and 96 rural. The margin of error anticipated for the national sample is +/-2.0%, assuming a Simple Random Sample design and a 50-50% distribution for dichotomous variable (a maximum possible variation) and a 95% confidence level (z=1.96)
LAPOP also noted that from the 2006 round of surveys, it was able to arrive at a number of conclusions concerning democratic attitudes, values and behaviour of the Guyanese population, including that the country’s democratic institutions were still maturing. It added that the second round of surveys has allowed for a comparison across time, which is detailed in the study’s findings.
The fieldwork for the surveys was carried out only after questionnaires were pre-tested extensively in each country, according to LAPOP. The University of Guyana is listed as the academic institution that contributed to the project.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provided support for the study through its Programme in Democracy and Governance. USAID Americas-Barometer Grant Manager Elizabeth Gewurz Ramirez, in a preface to the findings of the study, noted that while the primary goal of the Americas-Barometer is giving citizens a voice on a broad range of important issues, the surveys also help guide USAID programming and inform policymakers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. USAID officers use the surveys’ findings to prioritise funding allocation and guide programme design, she said. Further, the surveys are frequently employed as an evaluation tool, by comparing results in specialised “oversample” areas with national trends. As a result, she noted that the Americas-Barometer is at the “cutting-edge of gathering high quality impact evaluation data.”
All reports and respective data sets are available on the AmericasBarometer website, www.AmericasBarometer.org.
