Conclusions: Politics Is More Difficult than Physics

Social scientists must subject their beliefs about how and why people do things to ‘the reality of experience’.2 This is particularly true with regard to the process by which people form and sustain, or dismantle and discard, democracy as a system of government. Volumes have been written on the core elements and sub-processes required by democracy: the role of political leaders, constitutions, individual rights, the influence of the middle class, freedom of the press, political parties, citizen participation, civil society membership, and so on. The SAIS Democracy Project was designed, not only to survey public attitudes, but also to observe their complex interaction with the leaders and elites, processes, and institutions that influence national political outcomes but exist beyond the purview of any survey research instrument.