Ambivalent and Dissatisfied? Support for Democratic Regime Principles and Performance in a Comparative Perspective

This paper sets out to investigate the state of democracy as perceived by citizens in a wide range of countries. Using cross-country survey data from the World Values Survey, the Eurobarometer and the European Social Survey we investigate public support for democratic regime principles and citizens’ evaluations of the performance of democracy. In our investigation of public support for democracy as a system of government we draw on indicators on support for non-democratic regime alternatives. We show that when also taking into account perceptions of non-democratic alternatives, the often-celebrated widespread support for democracy on the principle level needs to be problematized. We find that large shares of citizens in all countries express an ambivalent stance towards democracy, and that “consequent democrats“ are in minority in almost all countries.