According to survey results, almost all over the world – even in most authoritarian states – the support for democracy is nowadays relatively high. However, skeptical opinions exist about the substantial foundations of these attitudes. While a lot of studies about the MENA-region deal with determinants of the consistency of authoritarian regimes, only a few studies have been conducted on the determinants of attitudes towards democracy in these countries. But how do democratic attitudes develop without experiences of democracy? Especially, after the uprising of the Arab Spring it seems interesting to answer the question which factors influence the support for and understanding of democracy in authoritarian states? In order to answer this question the paper analyzes the relevance of well-known factors from research on democratic states (e.g. socio-economic status, institutional trust, performance, values) about their adaptability on authoritarian states by examining World Values Survey data in the case of Iran.
