Ideological Radicalism and Anti-democratic Views: A Comparative Study of New Democracies

In contrast to established democracies where most citizens take their existing political system as a given, democratic principles and procedures are a subject of political debate in many countries where authoritarian rule is within recent memory. In the latter cases, ideological orientations may still be structured by a 'regime cleavage', that is, disagreements about the merits of democratic institutions or evaluations of the previous regime, rather than bread and butter issues. While a number of authors have attributed this to elite mobilization in new democracies, the present paper approaches this topic from the perspective of ordinary citizens. Against the background of a higher proportion of citizens who identify with radical ideological positions in new democracies, we analyze cross-national survey data to explore the extent to which such radical opinion is associated with anti-system attitudes and, if so, whether this applies equally to the radical right and left.